Our colleagues in Mexico have have launched the first webinar in a four-part series, Cultivating Knowledges.
The first webinar was convened in April by Umbela Transformaciones Sostenibles and LANCIS-IE-UNAM and brought together four “knowledges cultivators” from Colombia and Mexico. They discussed how they expanded their belief systems in order to incorporate more plural ways of understanding our environments.
Their conclusions and insights offer powerful themes on which to reflect as researchers. They question “enclosed” or “boxed-in” thinking and methods. Despite often producing results, they argue, such ways of doing research can leave those seeking transformations to sustainability with a feeling of emptiness.
They suggest that in order to embrace new attitudes and accept difference and diversity, we must place ourselves in situations which we may find “uncomfortable” and “frustrating”. Additionally they discussed ways in which we can converse with and better understand and co-exist with the non-human world.
The Cultivating Knowledges series forms a crucial contribution to this year’s Methods theme. The webinars, led by Umbela together with LANCIS-IE-UNAM, IIMAS-UNAM and SOS-ASU, will explore alternative knowledge and belief systems with insights from Latin America, and how they can offer inspiration in unlearning many of our inherited ways of seeing the world and universe around us.
The series will take place from April until December, with four talks taking place structured around the metaphor of “cultivation”.