What Is Ethical Knowledge Co-Creation? A PhD Perspective from ArcticKnows

Þorbjörn Kristjánsson PhD student, University of Helsinki for ArcticKnows project

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When Co-Creation Goes Wrong

Universities engage actively with indigenous communities in what is called co-creation of knowledge. In many areas of research, indigenous communities have built up knowledge for centuries in coexistence with their natural habitat. Unlike academic knowledge, indigenous knowledge is not systematically written down and published: it is built on decades or centuries of observational data, learned by trial and error through living in and engaging with the environment. This knowledge has proven valuable in areas such as reindeer husbandry, fisheries, medicine and many other fields, and academic institutions frequently engage in research cooperation with indigenous communities to gain these insights, applying modern academic methodology in the pursuit of new knowledge.

These co-creative endeavours have not always resulted in a fair treatment for the indigenous communities, reflecting a clear power imbalance in the production and sharing of new knowledge. The academic institution is usually the one that funds the research, and the research output follows a Western academic blueprint.

Historically, one of the most common injustices is what is called extractionism: western researchers gain knowledge from collaborating with the indigenous community, publish the results in western academic journals, often without citing where the knowledge came from, and then disappear from the community altogether. The knowledge built by the community over decades or centuries therefore benefits the western academic institution, and the researchers themselves, but not the community.

Two Different Ways of Knowing

There are, perhaps, many reasons for these discrepancies in co-creation. One possible explanation is that indigenous communities and western academic institutions hold different views on what knowledge is, and for what purpose it is attained. In academia, new knowledge is valuable and sought after both for its own sake and for the sake of progress.

In indigenous communities, however, knowledge is much more tied to lived experience: it is shared within the community to better cope with the elements and increase quality of life. This does not exclude the notion of progress, but it is not the primary drive behind the pursuit of new knowledge.

Another notable difference is how each approaches ontology, that is, how they define what exists and their relation to it. In academia, we may generalise its approach as regressive: you approach reality with a narrow scope, to explain and understand a certain phenomenon in detail. In many indigenous cultures, the outlook is relational and holistic, meaning that every being in the world is connected in some form or another.

The Cost of Epistemic Injustice

These two worldviews are fundamentally different and have often clashed when it comes to knowledge co-creation. Historically, under these conditions, because the academic institution holds greater power (through funding the research and through its systematic, regressive approach to knowledge creation and public outreach), we get what is commonly referred to as epistemic injustice: the merit of indigenous knowledge is measured against western academic standards.

This does not mean the knowledge is necessarily written off outright, but rather that it is adapted to fit the Western academic paradigm. In other words, it is made to fit the regressive model of modern science; what doesn’t fit the academic framework is then written off as superstition or folklore.

In short, the western academic framework, since it first took shape out of the Enlightenment period, has become so effective at producing and communicating knowledge for the progression of society that it has declared a monopoly on what “valid” knowledge is.

My PhD: Toward Ethically Good Co-Creation

These issues are essentially the focus in WP1 of the ArcticKnows project, and this is where my PhD thesis takes off.

What is ethically good knowledge co-creation?

My aim is to introduce a framework that takes a different approach to knowledge co-creation, one that helps mitigate the clash that can occur when the two worldviews collide.

Knowledge co-creation today is defined first and foremost on western academic terms: the pursuit of new knowledge for progress and advancement in a certain field, and, where applicable, for the wider society. This does not always correlate perfectly with the aims of indigenous communities, so clashes occur and the risk of epistemic and ontological injustice is present. The question then becomes:

how could a different framework, with alternative aims for co-creation, work without sacrificing the notion of progress while still respecting traditional knowledge and its profound connection with nature?

The framework I want to introduce has the working title Generative Methodological Exhaustion. The idea is that, under this framework, the aim of co-creation is to explore the boundaries between the scientific method and indigenous ontology:

how far can the scientific method go in utilizing indigenous knowledge before it starts having to appropriate and explain away the relational ontology in scientific terms?

This framework is demanding, because exploring these boundaries means that researchers must have intellectual humility: it takes great effort to recognise that one’s methods reach a certain exhaustion point in the attempt to explain and interpret reality. This is not the same as saying that science is ineffective, or that indigenous communities have superior knowledge, or even that they are correct in their beliefs.

The point of this framework is to ensure that knowledge co-creation can occur in an ethically good manner, and benefit both the scientific and the indigenous community. The idea is that this exploration becomes part of the research output itself: researchers introduce their findings as usual, but then document the boundaries as well.

The framework is still in development and has some weaknesses that need to be addressed further. One is that it runs the risk of becoming too abstract, and not a feasible option in practice.

Beyond a Simple Story of Villains and Victims

One of the things I try to steer away from in my thesis is a polarized discussion on the issue. Universities and research institutes are not inherently morally wrong when it comes to co-creation, and one must be careful not to predetermine the relationship between academia and indigenous communities as a perpetrator-victim relationship.

We certainly do have evidence of epistemic injustice, where researchers can be called out as being morally questionable, and even morally wrong. But there are also pressing moral questions to be confronted in the other direction. For example:

if an indigenous community has cultivated knowledge of a particular natural remedy for centuries, knowledge that could have medical benefits for many people, and the scientific method is the only viable way to make that knowledge available globally, are the scientists morally wrong to adapt indigenous knowledge to fit the scientific framework, for the benefit of millions of people?

I wanted to demonstrate the complexity of the issue: that perhaps academia is not always in the wrong when appropriating indigenous knowledge. One of the things I’ve learned in the pilot studies, corroborated in the literature, is that not all co-creative efforts between academia and indigenous communities end in injustice.

There are many cases of fruitful research partnerships built on mutual respect and understanding.