- Title
- Steel Valley and the absence of environmental justice in the new South Africa: Critical realism's kinship with environmental justice
- Creator
- Munnik, Victor
- Subject
- To be catalogued
- Date
- 2015
- Type
- text
- Type
- book chapter
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/10962/437067
- Identifier
- vital:73328
- Identifier
- ISBN 9781315660899
- Identifier
- https://www.routledge.com/Critical-Realism-Environmental-Learning-and-Social-Ecological-Change/Price-Lotz-Sistka/p/book/9780367597689
- Description
- In this chapter I report work with critical realist perspective and tools to examine and review prevailing dispositions on indige-nous and institutional knowledge (Western science) in envi-ronmental learning. I open with a review of some of the macro social processes that have come to inscribe assumptions of incommensur able difference between the two kinds of knowledge. Whilst the previous hegemony of positivism would have resulted in the dismissal of much indigenous knowledge as mere superstition, contemporary intellectual perspectives (poststructural and hermeneutical) have shaped a proliferation of worldview modelling that has resulted in a macro-level ex-emplifying of indigenous knowledge as different from and op-posing Western science (Cobern and Aikenhead, 1998; Ai-kenhead, 2006). Here, the lack of adequate mediating tools has given rise to a problematic inscription of assumed differ-ence between the knowledge of indigenous peoples and that of scientific institutions. Furthermore, despite an overt emanci-patory intention in worldview discourses, the marginalization of indigenous peoples and knowledge remains. I then move into the micro arena with a case study of learning interactions in the South African science curriculum. Specifically, I explore some patterns of exclusion in relation to the manner in which stu-dents are able to gain access to the knowledge of scientific institutions. The experience and evidence reported is of a pre-liminary nature but the insights and emerging models of pro-cess provide a useful perspective on how assumed incom-mensurability of knowledge can be tenuous. The study suggests that a critical engagement with both indigenous knowledge and Western science can reveal integrative synergies.
- Format
- 25 pages, pdf
- Publisher
- Routledge
- Language
- English
- Relation
- Munnik, V., 2015. Steel Valley and the absence of environmental justice in the new South Africa: Critical realism's kinship with environmental justice. In Critical realism, environmental learning and social-ecological change (pp. 293-317). Routledge
- Rights
- Publishers
- Rights
- Use of this resource is governed by the terms and conditions of the Taylor and Francis Online Terms and Conditions Statement (https://www.tandfonline.com/terms-and-conditions)
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