What is Knowledge? [Transcript 1 of 4]
At the start of the project, the CWC asked a number of questions, which were intended to set a baseline for evaluation. However, these turned out to be a rich source of ‘data’ in and of themselves.
Below are transcripts that CWC members have edited and agreed to release to the world.
[If you wish to use or quote them, please ensure you use the whole unedited quote and attribute to The Community Wellbeing Collective, Wester Hailes (2023) CC BY-NC-ND ]
What do you think when we talk about knowledge? What do you feel knowledge is?
M: When i think about knowledge i think about experience or experiences I have had which settles within my body. It feels like something that I maybe know a little something of, maybe not all but something. I think about how the stories we share can bring about space and conversations of deep ancestral knowledge for us,collectively & individually.
R: when someone says knowledge I think just what you know, but then it also makes me think of where you would have learned that, or it could be that someone’s taught you something and it will be for you or they’re taught you something with a motive but you don’t realize that. It’s how you utilize that so you can make that knowledge quite dangerous or you can make that quite useful and beneficial It’s just really important understand knowledge and where it’s coming from and who is saying it and what they mean by what they’re saying because I feel like information is everywhere and things don’t get verified anymore and it just causes too much misunderstanding perhaps it could have been avoided if we just verified it before spreading it.
Jo: It could be learning something or understanding of anything. I’ll say with true
knowledge you learn lots of things. It could be of anything through education learning a
talent, etc . So yeah that’s knowledge for me.
J: Accessing knowledge is a massive thing like whether that’s education or accessing the head space to reach understanding or access parts of ourselves where knowledge is held so I think building access to knowledge is very important in lots of different ways.
It’s almost like a dual thing for me, I do believe in in truths and in knowledge and I also believe in different but equally real realities at the same time which I don’t think is super logical like I couldn’t draw it in an equation how I hold both those beliefs at the same time but people who have different experiences and different knowledges that sometimes concretely don’t align can still be together with their knowledge and share that space of knowledge and that’s really beautiful when that can happen
F: When I think about knowledge I see it everywhere. I think about it as a posture that we assume and adapt, as something that changes and that allows us to approach something or someone or situations with awareness. It is something that we gain through many different sources and processes. We can gain knowledge through education, books, and through community, through relationships. I also believe in knowledge coming from the senses, from emotions, from the body and from people coming together, from many different aspects of life. Important questions that I ask myself when thinking about knowledge are: who is producing the knowledge? Who has access to knowledge? How can we produce knowledge? Who is the owner of knowledge?
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(Photo by Gabriella Clare Marino on Unsplash )
(Photo by Gabriella Clare Marino on Unsplash )
