[Fifth in a series] – 1 2 3 4 5 6

Borrowing from the field of organizational development, we may call the translation between  different ways of knowing knowledge transfer. Several of the challenges of organizational knowledge transfer parallel those of cultural knowledge transfer: the inability to recognize and articulate tacit knowledge (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1), limitations endemic to ICTs (Roberts, 429), problems associated with misconceptions, language confusion, generational differences, conflicting cultural norms, and lack of trust. Turnbull proposes a solution to problems of knowledge transfer by way of Dussel:

“[M]odernity and its negated altereity co-realise themselves in a process of mutual creative fertilisation. The kind of fertilisation between differing knowledge traditions that Dussel envisions in his concept of the transmodern requires the establishment of a third space. A third space would be an interstitial space, a space that is created through negotiation between spaces, where contrasting rationalities can work together but without the notion of a single transcendent rationality . . . This, I suggest, is not feasible at the purely representational level. For differing knowledge traditions to coexist in a common third space they need to simultaneously agree to build such a space and to perform together” (234).

This idea is akin to the classic Hegelian dialectic model of change by which thesis, countered by antithesis, results in the synthesis of something new.  A practical example of this interstitial or third space, introduced by Watkins and Russo, is the use of digital cultural communication (new media) in a cultural museum to allow users to become co-creators of knowledge by providing tools and methods which enable the co-construction of creative artefacts (144). Compare Dussel’s transmodern to Galison’s trading zone. Although Galison is addressing subcultures in the field of physics, his ideas are germane to this discussion:

“In particular, the two cultures may bring to what I call the trading zone objects that carry radically different significance for the donor and recipient. What is crucial is that in the highly local context of the trading zone, despite the differences in classification, significance, and standards of demonstration, the two groups can collaborate. They can come to consensus about the procedure of exchange, about mechanisms to determine when the goods are ‘equal’ to one another” (146).

Turnbull seems to imply that the negotiation of differences will result in the co-creation of the third space, whereas Galison describes an exchange that does not change the individual nature of the donor or recipient. Consider the use of global positioning systems by Baka Pygmies in Cameroon to identify sacred areas within the surrounding forest. The information they collect helps logging companies to respect important cultural landmarks that otherwise might have become casualties of commercialism. In this case, the Baka are not changing their customs or identity by using the GPS devices and the logging company doesn’t change its essential nature (although they do adjust their maps to accommodate the Baka).
Verran offers an alternative to Turnbull and Galison through the concept of postcolonial moments:

“Increasing possibilities for cooperation while respecting difference, postcolonial moments can lead to making amends for past injustice. Elaborating a post-colonial moment involves both making separations, and connecting by identifying sameness. But ‘sameness’ here is not a dominating universalizing. On the contrary, sameness in a postcolonial moment enables difference to be collectively enacted” (730).

Verran illustrates her notion of the postcolonial moment by juxtaposing “a story of Aboriginal landowners demonstrating their firing strategies with a story of environmental scientists elaborating their regimes of burning.”

We can find resonance with Verran’s postcolonial moments in two unlikely places: Eastern philosophy and Western rhetoric. First, take the dynamics of duality and plurality intrinsic to the yin-yang. Kim explains that, “Within this complex structure, the opposite components exist together in a ‘both-and’ mutuality rather than ‘either-or’ reduction . . . This dynamic correlation is not static, but fluid, constantly changing and flowing within the mutual reciprocity” (307). The opposing entities of the yin-yang stand side-by-side as they “coerce, challenge, and correct each other in mutual interaction.” These same words could be used in place of those Bhabha uses to describe culture’s ‘inbetween’: “This ‘part’ culture, this partial culture, is the contaminated yet connective tissue between cultures – at once the impossibility of culture’s containedness and the boundary between. It is indeed something like culture’s ‘inbetween,’ bafflingly both alike and different” (54).