Knowledge Integration (n). The social practice of synthesizing diverse knowledges across lines of cultural and geographic difference.
The Knowledge Integration Project explores the politics of environmental knowledge through a study of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary knowledge collaboration across the Américas.
Through an ethnographic study of interdisciplinary collaboration, this project explores the epistemic geographies of environmental change. Specifically, we focus on how expert knowledge about climate change and the environment—particularly the Amazon rainforest of Brazil—is co-produced and stitched together across disciplinary cultures, national cultures, and spatial scales.
Why? A key sustainability challenge is the need for more collaborative, transdisciplinary, and transformative scientific explanations about our changing environments. This project tackles an important (and very human) piece of that puzzle: knowledge integration.
Glossary
Interdisciplinary: A mode of knowledge production, typically through research activities, that involves two or more academic disciplines and thinking across boundaries.
Spatial Scales: The spatial extent of an object or phenomenon, often used to describe orders of size or magnitude.
Ethnographic Study: The firsthand experience and exploration of a particular social or cultural setting, in which the researcher is immersed in the culture and records extensive notes.
Epistemic Geographies: The spatial and social aspects of knowledge production. Scientific knowledge has its own distinctive geography shaped by histories of exploration and colonialism, diverse cultures, and sources of investment.