Production of Knowledge's Impact on Positive Change

Kari Norgaard’s article, “Climate Change Is a Social Issue”, calls for a broader discussion and an expansion of what knowledge is considered valuable. In particular, Norgaard wants a “sociological imagination” that looks more into just the “impacts on earth’s biophysical system” and instead draws attention to the “relationships that make up this environmentally damaging social structure”. In terms of positive change, whether or not this “sociological imagination” is included in our discussions can have huge implications for what is considered to be a “change”. When only the “physical” impacts are taken into account (and natural sciences taken more seriously than social sciences), this can cause positive change to only be viewed from a “physical” consideration.  This limits positive change to only occurring when negative impacts on “earth’s biophysical system” are reduced in some way. However, when the “sociological imagination” is taken into account, positive change is shown to occur in a much larger variety of ways. Because the “sociological imagination” looks at the social contexts that accounts for where values and beliefs come from, it draws more attention to the vast amount of social changes that can occur surrounding these values and beliefs. A change may not have an instantaneous “physical manifestation” – and may not be easily measured – but this does not mean it should be considered any less valuable or excluded from being a positive change at all.

John Foster’s article, “What Price Interdisciplinarity?”, contains some arguments that are similar to Norgaard’s article. In particular, a similar main point is that there should be an expansion of what knowledge is considered valuable. However, while interdisciplinarity is often thought to lead to this expansion, it can also be detrimental to this expansion by “inhibiting creative developments”, becoming an “intellectual password”, expecting too much on an individual level, and devaluing some disciplines such as arts and humanities. He calls instead for “paradisciplinarity” that is “a besideness or creative co-presence of mutually respecting real disciplines”. This discussion surrounding interdisciplinarity once again has implications for how change is viewed.  Interdisciplinarity is of course very valuable, and I have enjoyed its incorporation into my own education. However, when it is placed as a “prerequisite” needed in order to participate in any discussions, it can lead to an elitism that cuts out voices or devalues voices that don’t meet this supposed “prerequisite”. Change, then, is viewed as something that can only occur from certain people who hold this “interdisciplinarity standard” (or “intellectual password”). This denies how change can occur from a variety of people and from a variety of different types of knowledge.

Norgaard states in her piece that “Imagination is power”, and Foster in his piece mentions “the range of … imaginative powers”. Imagination is not usually thought to be a type of change, but both of these pieces demonstrate how broadening the production of knowledge and including a variety of voices is not merely a step towards change, but is also a change on its own.