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- Anthony
Davis
- Department of
Sociology and Anthropology
- St. Francis
Xavier University
- Antigonish,
Nova Scotia
Ecological Knowledge,
Social Science Research, Research Designs and Methodological
Approaches: Meanders, Reflections and Other Excesses and
Indulgences
In Streams of Blood, a
journalist's account of the massacres in Rwanda, the author
begins by providing the reader with a warning. One might
think that this warning would concern the possible impacts
on the reader of his renditions of what, by any measure, are
among the most hideous of human acts. But, this is not the
author's primary concern. Rather, the author thinks it
essential that the reader be forewarned about his
subjectivity, about the fact that the events witnessed and
the misery seen effected him emotionally. And, that the
emotional effects were such that he is concerned his telling
of this story is tainted by subjectivity. The writer is
concerned that his objectivity as an observer and as a
reporter is, thereby, compromised. To have these qualities
drawn into question is, of course, to question the
credibility, and the legitimacy of the story. Put another
way, the taint of subjectivity draws into question the very
legitimacy of his observations, recollections, and
journalistic skill. His expertise is, thus, compromised, his
'voice' diminished .... if not dismissed.
What can be said of a society and
of its 'civilization' when the legitimacy of observation and
comment is defined as the absence of the personal, of the
subjective? Further, what is, then, to be present for an
observation to be credible, to be authoritative, to be
legitimate?
Of course, this question resides at
the heart of Western notions of rationality, of reason, of
the basis of knowledge and of what is taken to constitute
knowledge, itself. Certainly, much debate and considerable
paper have been consumed addressing aspects of these
qualities with respect to the social sciences. In large
measure, this has been a debate focused upon and around
critiques of positivism, of empiricism and of the so-called
'scientific method'. In North American social science
discourse, the current wave in this debate is most commonly
associated with feminist and post-modernist critiques. But,
of course this is not a new debate. Questions relating to
the 'science' content of the social sciences and social
research have been asked and discussed from the outset of
these modes of inquiry. Early in the 1950s, Evans-Pritchard,
a British social anthropologist, was arguing that
anthropology is essentially a field of history, and
certainly not something so diminished as a 'science.' If not
new, the debate has been persistent and, admittedly,
sometimes testing of patience…and, occasionally
experienced as if kin with gaseous-generating and hard to
digest morsels of food.
The very fact this debate has been
so persistent raises fundamental questions respecting the
nature of knowing. Indeed, it questions the very possibility
of knowing, in at least any usual or fundamental sense, from
a social research perspective. So, what is knowledge,
anyway? And, are the social research disciplines actually
concerned with knowledge, in any serious manner? Can and do
the social sciences and social research produce knowledge?
If so, what is social research knowledge, and how is it
distinct from knowledge as associated with, say, the
physical sciences and the humanities? In fact, what's the
point of social research if, as an activity, it is at all
questionable in its relation to the production of knowledge?
Certainly these are essential questions central to any
endeavour to develop specific research designs and
methodologies best suited to systematic study of claims to
possession of ecological knowledge.
My intention here is to examine
qualities of these questions through discussion of the
relation between method, research and knowledge. These
questions are enormous. In fact, so enormous that they
represent a sort of intellectual Mount Everest. One should
approach them with some humility and, certainly with care
and respect. Perhaps the best we can do at this point, to
ape Claude Levi-Strauss, is arrive at a point where we can
"...ask the right questions." (The Raw and the
Cooked). So, to begin with, what is knowledge and, more
to the point, what is our relationship to it?
The substance of this notion has
been contested. While Aristotle may have claimed that "all
men by nature desire knowledge (Metaphysics)", the
poet e.e. cummings insisted that "knowledge is a polite word
for dead but not buried imagination." While not disagreeing
with Aristotle, cummings is declaring that to desire
knowledge is to desire something 'lifeless', as in drained
of human spirit and creativity. American social historian
Christopher Lasch, in writing of the 20th century, insists
that… "Knowledge is what we get when an observer,
preferably a scientifically trained observer, provides us
with a copy of reality that we can all recognise (The
Lost Art of Political Argument)." Here we have a
representation of a culturally and historically
contextualised notion of knowledge. Here its Knowledge with
a capital 'K'. That is, in the context of industrial life,
knowledge is something derived from controlled observations
made by trained observers, i.e., observation rooted in and
directed by 'the scientific methodology'.
Knowledge here is defined and
denoted as worthwhile since its genesis resides in the
objective method and rationale analysis of the
scientifically trained. Herein lies Lasch's meaning of
knowledge as 'a copy of reality we recognise'. Knowledge is
recognised as such as a consequence of its association with
a particular method of inquiry. Of course, the embedded
'method' from which capital 'K' knowledge rises requires the
observer to provide 'proof' through controlled testing of
ideas, presumptions, theories and such. Yet, the initial key
quality here is demonstration by the observer that they
have, seemingly counter-intuitively, designed their
controlled tests in such a manner as to disprove the ideas
(testing for the null hypothesis). Failure to prove the null
hypothesis is the fundamental 'proof' that the original idea
might be worth further consideration. This approach, this
method underscores the elemental cautiousness, and small 'c'
conservativism that is scripted in scientific inquiry. In
this view, that which is worth knowing, indeed that which
might be deemed knowledge, must first be shown to have
passed the rigors of testing, independent verification, and
comprehensive provision of evidence, i.e., provision of
proofs. Undeniably this form of inquiry and its knowledge
products have delivered 'the goods'; that is, enabled
industrial modes of production and being in many respects to
thrive and to proliferate. From the basics which now define
the quality and material conditions of life and work in
industrial societies (medicine, technology, communications
etc.) through to the high-tech capacity of industrial
warfare, all 'knowledge' rises from and sources public
confidence in the method of scientific inquiry and the
practice of scientific experts.
Much of social science,
particularly social anthropology and sociology, has had some
difficulty approaching and embracing 'research' as a process
whereby the observer must strive for disproofs, let alone
subject ideas, theories and presumptions to the challenges
of systematically gathered and tested evidence. Loads of
research in these subject areas seem little more than an
exercise in verification, i.e., exercises whereby the
researcher verifies ideas and preferences rather than
subjecting ideas and preferences to rigorous testing and
exposing them to the burdens of proof. As a result, social
research is often characterised as essentially subjective
and political, meaning design and outcomes are expressions
of the pet ideas and preferences of social researchers. The
social science response to this criticism has been
multifaceted, and in many ways self-serving and
self-defeating. Replies have ranged from pleas that social
life and social organisation are much to complex for
productive application of a reductionist physical\natural
science method of inquiry; through the insistence that all
inquiry is political anyway; to the post-modern and feminist
commentaries respecting the very basis of what is knowledge
or, in fact, the absence of same in social-political
contexts of empowerment and domination. All knowledge is but
the expression of empowerment for the dominant and the
disenfranchisement and disreputability of disempowered life
experiences, ways of knowing and being. So, all knowledge is
equally compromised and, at best, equally valued, in a
relativist sense. Of course, this is argued while intently
writing on a word-processor while sipping agri-business
produced herbal teas heated in an electric kettle and
re-heated in the microwave.
These points aside, social
researchers generally claim that they have something
substantial to contribute to our understanding of the human
condition, organisation and processes. Commonly implicit in
this is the sense that much contemporary social research is
concerned, 'sincerely', with issues of social justice and
especially the circumstances of the down-trodden, the
dominated, exploited, and otherwise marginalised. Some
social research even presents itself as providing 'voice'
for the marginalised, disenfranchised, and relatively
powerless. Given this, it is not unexpected that some
fisheries social research focused on documenting and
championing marine harvesters' ecological knowledge reflects
these qualities. Additionally, the 'thin' literature on the
sociology of fisheries science knowledge seems essentially
dedicated to establishing that, at worst, all 'knowledge' is
incomplete and political while, at best, all knowledge
systems express relative merits.
The insistence on at least the
appearance of deriving and referencing systematically
examined sources of and contexts for knowledge seemingly
exists in stark contrast and, occasionally, in dynamic
opposition with another sort of knowing, i.e., knowing
expressive of such things as life experiences,
culturally-bounded settings, personal observations and
reactions. This is the co-called subjective realm. In the
globalised world of late 20th century industrial capitalism,
this is the realm of discredited knowledge. So powerful and
extensive, indeed, is this knowledge's illegitimacy and
discredit, the journalist mentioned above is compelled to
demonstrate his recognition of this and of its expression,
its tainting of his work and of his expertise. Ironically,
this form of knowing is derived in many regards from the
sense experience and memory of experience that reside in
critical respects at the heart of the scientific method. One
of the substantial differences is that the so-called
'subjective realm' of life experience and derived knowings
are held to arise within personal and narrow life-histories,
by their nature incomplete and self-focused. The resultant
'knowledge' is, at best, local and antidotal, certainly
without general interest to or application for such
important matters as, for example, fisheries management.
Additionally, local knowledge is rarely, if ever, subjected
to the rigor of systematic tests and the burdens of
evidence.
Within natural resource settings,
can effective public-interest management and social policy
be build upon/referenced by 'local knowledge' in any manner
that will contribute meaningfully to ecological and
socio-economic sustainability? If so, what might the
qualities of this contribution be and, perhaps more
centrally, what might the contribution of social research be
to this process? Is the role of social research essentially
to subject local knowledge to the rigor of the scientific
method of inquiry, to provide proofs and/or disproofs
respecting the veracity of local knowledge, and to link
'proven' local knowledge understandings with fisheries
management policy?
John Ralston Saul, in Voltaire's
Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West,
provides a provocative analysis of the linkage between the
Western industrial capitalist understanding\arrival of
'legitimate knowledge', the containment of life within
societies governed by formal administrative\corporate
structures, and the rise as well as role of the expert as in
the scientist, the business manager, the information systems
expert, the science of systems management, the planner,
perhaps even the social scientist. In Saul's view, knowledge
within corporate\administrative institutions and structures
"...has become the currency of power." He argues that our
civilization is one of "secretive experts...quite naturally
obsessed not by the encouragement of understanding but by
the providing of answers." Knowledge is here the answers
produced and controlled by, often treated as the property
of, 'objective', recognised, distanced and arms-length
specialists. Expertise is credentials, made credible by and
through the achievement of credentials. Credentials and the
educational processes, settings, institutions of
credentialing have become the 'system legitimate' loci of
knowledge. Saul argues that the sort of education
perpetrating this is a detail obsessed sort of learning, one
that compels expertise in technique, facts and
institutionally framed processes. Further, he argues,
that… "the social scientists - the economists and the
political scientists in particular - consist of little more
than these elements..." In this view, knowledge has become
divorced from meaningful understandings of the human
condition as an integrated, related, pulsing, feeling
experience. As well, knowledge, Saul asserts, has become
separated from the human context and condition of action,
experience, and memory. Of course, such processes and
conditions are essential elements in defining/designating
what is 'expertise', in empowering 'experts', and in
disempowering all others. Empowerment translates as
legitimacy with the 'expert' representing
'knowledge'.
Yet, much in the human condition
suggests that knowledge, living pulsing knowledge arises
from day-to-day experiences, as well as the retold memories
of past experiences. This source and type of knowledge
dynamically informs human decisions and actions. This source
and type of knowledge has been and remains the particular
interest of social anthropology and, in some respects, of
sociology. Knowledge rooted in memory and experience ....
human knowledge arising from life, relations, pasts ...
embodies principles, courage, honor, attachments, loyalties,
i.e., the substance of human relations. People and human
relations 'live' within these arenas and specify what
'matters' in and through the course of daily living.
Certainly social research is
sensitive to and best positioned to document this. But,
social research, its best intentions aside, is also
essentially embedded within and expressive of the
corporate\institutional\administrative post-modern and
globalised late 20th century world. As engaged in a form of
inquiry with pretentions for institutional legitimacy,
social researchers strive to be taken seriously, to exercise
influence, and to represent forms of knowledge. Yet, much of
the substance of social research's critical-analytical heart
has in effect marginalised it with respect to
institutionally seated power, and the sort of knowledge
championed by and necessary to that power. Feminist,
post-modern, neo-ecological and materialist, including
Marxist, analyses have done little to endear much of social
anthropological and sociological research to the
institutional gatekeepers, key janglers and knowledge as
'fact' worshipers. This marginalised position within
institutional communities advantageously positions much
social research with respect to the critical roles and
responsibilities of social analyses, criticism, and whistle
blowing. There is virtue and necessity in being a thorn in
the side of power, received wisdom, and convention.
Additionally, this marginalised position has enabled social
researchers to continue documenting and giving voice to
institutionally disenfranchised ways of knowing and ways of
understanding. And, hopefully such will remain the case.
But, social research also strives, in many respects, to
achieve institutional legitimacy and, through such,
necessarily comes to embody that with which is despairs and
criticises, in the process contributing to the
dehumanisation and disembodiment of 'knowledge'. A key point
in Saul's central thesis.
These dilemmas and issues may be
effectively unresolvable; yet, social research must
certainly continue to make the effort to better inform, from
a human perspective, the understandings and approaches
embedded in public policy such as fisheries management.
Scientists, social researchers, Native and commercial marine
harvesters are bearers of cognitive maps that claim
knowledge of marine ecosystem characteristics and dynamics.
Social research must have the ability and the interest to
describe these 'maps' and their associated origins and
behaviours. Social research must also disentangle the
differences within and between these various cognitive map
universes, particularly as these qualities impact upon and
resonate with conflict as well as offer potential for more
effective resource management policy. One of the central
issues here concerns the particulars of social research
designs and methodological approaches that will offer the
promise of concrete and beneficial outcomes.
In my view, a key concern in this
process must be development of designs and methodologies
allowing for the documentation and analyses of cognitive map
differences and variations within as well as
between the various collectives and communities of
interest claiming ecological knowledge. The importance of
this is underscored by the actual and potential consequences
of designating any particular cognitive map, socio-political
process or extractive interaction within an ecosystem as an
embodiment of 'knowledge'. This concern expresses the
anticipated relation, within and between the communities of
interest, of 'power' with 'knowledge'. That is, the act of
designating particular understandings as 'knowledge' will
likely empower or further empower those within social and
institutional settings understood to be the bearers of
knowledge. Empowerment may translate, in fact, as little
more than further entrenchment of existing social, economic
and political cleavages within and between communities of
interest. Such a development, to say the least, contributes
little to the possibility of social research contributing to
the reconciliation of competing and conflicting ecological
knowledge claims.
While rather long-winded and
discoursive , my discussion underscores several
considerations that I think must be built into social
research designs and methodologies that are intended to
contribute meaningful to our understandings of ecological
knowledge claims and the manner in which these claims may
inform both harvesting behaviour as well as formation of
fisheries management policies. Expressed as a series of
questions, these considerations translate as,
- What do we mean by 'ecological
knowledge', both in terms of its 'knowledge' and its
'ecological' content?
- Who are the bearers of
'ecological knowledge' within each community of
interest?
- What are the best means to
identify the bearers of this knowledge?
- What are the best suited means
to document and to describe this knowledge?
- What are the possible and
practical/sensible relationships of such knowledge to
fisheries management and harvester/community
socio-economic and ecological sustainability?
- What are the ways and means
whereby the results of social research focused on
ecological knowledge can be most effectively disseminated
with regard to their potential, and hopefully, positive
impacts on fisheries management policies?
The working seminar will likely
chew through these and many other linked questions and
issues. From the outset, it seems critical that substantial,
defensible and examinable answers be provided to the issues
associated with these what, who and how
questions.
By way of comment on design and
methodology, I have participated in both qualitative and
quantitative research processes. In general, I prefer a
two-tier methodological approach. This approach begins with
the quantitative designs and devices associated with
stratified random sampling as the means to identify and
initially describe the pertinent 'categories of people' and
human action/organisation. Once completed, this phase is
followed with intensive qualitative research, working with
individuals identified through the first phase. The
qualitative work is focused on generating the 'thick
descriptions' elemental to documenting human action and
understandings. In principle, this approach engages a
defensible and legitimating design/methodology with respect
to the 'meaning' of data/information gathered. Of course,
one of the major limitations of this approach is that it is
both time and material resources hungry, requiring intensive
engagement over a lengthy period of time. Yet, I cannot
conceive of any other approach that would permit social
researchers to demonstrate a sufficient and defensible
systematic methodological foundation for what is claimed as
documentation/description, let alone as findings,
conclusions and understandings.
I have a particular interest in
developing mapping as an aspect of research design and
methods, particularly as applicable to human extractive
interactions within natural resource settings. I have
employed primitive mapping in some previous research, mainly
interviewing marine harvesters about fishing practices and
strategies with the aid of nautical maps. I found these maps
to be invaluable as the harvesters could easily relate their
practices, memories, and understandings to the spatial and
'physical features' dimensions represented in the map, e.g.,
water depth, ocean floor topography, and 'fishing spots'. In
one informal experiment I worked with a key informant and
paper readouts from his echo sounder as a way of identifying
locally important fishing places as well as various biotic
and abiotic attributes associated with these places. I then
made up a 'key' from this information and prepared several
sheets with unlabeled echo sounder readouts of these places.
These sheets were shown to other key informants fishing on
the ground. They were asked whether or not they recognised
the places represented by the echo sounder readouts. If they
did, they were asked to describe biotic and abiotic
qualities that associated with these places. I did this in
an unsystematic manner, essentially as an attempt at
developing a way to describe and to test the extent to which
understandings of the fishing ground were held in common.
While never taken to its conclusion or developed to its full
potential, not surprisingly this 'test' strongly associated
detailed understandings and ability to identify 'places'
with the most experienced harvesters. I suspect that there
is considerable potential in developing elements of this
sort of procedure with respect to documenting and verifying
various core attributes of local ecological knowledge. I
also suspect that this sort of technique would allow for
reasonably comprehensive descriptions and understandings of
the socio-economic and political attributes, conditions and
contexts associated with becoming a bearer of detailed
ecological knowledge.
Finally, I think that social
research can have a central role in documenting and giving
voice to ecological knowledge systems. But, with this role
comes the rather onerous responsibility of assuring that the
documentation and 'voice' provided contribute meaningfully
to something other than the entrenchment of cleavages,
vested interests and power inequities. Additionally, the
association of social research outcomes with the
championship of particular approaches to resource management
certainly requires that the 'evidence' clearly,
unequivocally, and confidently supports the positions taken.
That is, championing implementation of management policy
carries the risk of achieving little more than failure and
the consequences of same as experienced in the lives and
well-being of harvesters, their families and their
communities. It seems to me that championship underwritten
by anything less than evidence-rooted and tested 'knowledge'
is little more than an ideological, self-indulgent and
irresponsible act. Few social researchers and scientists
must live with the consequences of their failed management
preferences, i.e., lost employment, economic hardship, and
crises in personal, family and community life. As one New
Brunswick marine harvester was reported as telling the Kirby
Commission, all fisheries scientists, researchers and policy
makers should have their incomes reflect annual returns to
the fisheries they study and the harvesters they 'manage'.
Perhaps, if such were the situation, scientists, researchers
and managers would be more careful and concerned about the
meaning and the impacts of the management policies with
which 'others' must live.
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