Co-production of knowledge in transdisciplinary communities of practice: Experiences from food governance in South Africa
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Date
2021
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Oxford University Press
Abstract
Communities of Practice are sites of social learning for the co-production of knowledge. Building
on recent literature on Transdisciplinary Communities of Practice, this article reflects on the experiences of an emergent ‘Food Governance Community of Practice’ in South Africa that brings together multiple stakeholders to co-produce knowledge to inform local food policy and governance.
Our results show the following lessons for managers and participants engaged in establishing
similar ‘third spaces’ for knowledge co-production: 1) make inevitable power asymmetries explicit;
2) the identity of the group should not be built on a particular normative position but emerge from
discursive processes and 3) create a balance between supporting peripheral learning and maintaining the specialist cutting edge discussions needed for co-production. Furthermore, the most beneficial legacy of a Community of Practice may not be the outputs in terms of the co-produced knowledge but the development of a cohesive group of stakeholders with a new shared way of knowing
Description
Keywords
Knowledge production, Science-policy interface, Community of practice, Interdisciplinary, Food governance, South Africa, Food policy, Government, Stakeholders
Citation
Adelle, C. (2021). Co-production of knowledge in transdisciplinary communities of practice: Experiences from food governance in South Africa. Science and Public Policy., 48(2), 145–153. https://doi.org/10.1093/scipol/scaa069