The spectrum of knowledge: Integrating knowledge dimensions in the context of forests and climate change
2023 (English)In: Sustainability Science, ISSN 1862-4065, E-ISSN 1862-4057, Vol. 18, p. 1329-1341Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
Integrated approaches to knowledge that recognize meaning, behavior, culture, and systems as domains of knowledge are increasingly employed in holistic views on sustainability transformation but often remain conceptually driven. In this study, we analyze empirical data from a collaborative process with local forest stakeholders in Sweden through the lens of individual, collective, interior, and exterior knowledge dimensions. We show that the participants’ understanding of knowledge about forests and climate change presents a nuanced picture of how knowledge and acting are connected. Meaning-making, cultural frames, and techno-scientific knowledge conceptions converge, interact, and, at times, replace or diminish each other. The connection and interplay of these dimensions, we suggest, can be understood as a knowledge spectrum. These insights into integrated knowledge, based on an empirical case, must be addressed in the production of knowledge, both to grasp the climate and sustainability issues that face us and to support action in response to them.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Springer, 2023. Vol. 18, p. 1329-1341
Keywords [en]
Knowledge, Sustainability, Transformation, Climate change, Forests, Sweden
National Category
Other Humanities not elsewhere specified Other Social Sciences
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-206183DOI: 10.1007/s11625-023-01309-0ISI: 000960385900001Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85151245507OAI: oai:DiVA.org:umu-206183DiVA, id: diva2:1746918
Funder
Swedish Research Council Formas, 2017-01956Forestry Reseach Insitute of Sweden
Note
This research is part of the interdisciplinary project “Bring down the sky to the earth: how to use forests to open up constructive climate change pathways in local contexts”, financed by FORMAS, a Swedish Research Council for Sustainable Development (Grant number 2017-01956), and by Future Forests, the platform for interdisciplinary forest research and research communication at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Umeå University and the Forestry Research Institute of Sweden (Skogforsk). We also want to thank Camilla Sandström, Annika Nordin, Eva-Maria Nordström, Annika Mossing, Anna Sténs and Malin von Essen for providing valuable input to the manuscript and for facilitating the workshop series of the project.
2023-03-302023-03-302023-06-09Bibliographically approved