Table 1
Settings for bridging knowledge systems.
| Setting | Explanation | Example | How is this setting is helpful for bridging? | Selected Sources | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Epistemological Arena | Epistemological Pluralism | To conceptualize and motivate transdisciplinary research by accounting for knowledge pluralism in research process. This means prioritizing different ways of knowing by valuing the epistemological foundations of different participants in processes and discussions | Authors provide examples from urban ecology and Arctic biodiversity demonstrating traps that occur when epistemological framing is not taken seriously. No example of using epistemological pluralism to guide a successful empirical process. | Guides process of social and scientific inquiry wherein a) multiple epistemologies are valued; b) values, aims, and parameters governing the validity of knowledge are continually negotiated in an iterative science cycle. | Miller et al. 2008 |
| Polycentric global epistemologies | A variety of dialogues with epistemological ‘others’ to allow sharing, borrowing, learning and collaborative projects; knowledge practice in the service of human well-being. These dialogues will expand the number of epistemologies accommodated in decision-making processes. | No example provided by author, no example of engaging with approach in an empirical example. Therefore the contribution remains theoretical and should be tested for its added value. | “A creative process of aesthetic ordering. Participants function as artists who create new knowledge practices from the ingredients of existing ones” (p. 63). Aesthetic rather than rational. Participants can learn about each others worldview as a precondition to knowledge bridging and decision making. | Maffie 2009 | |
| Methods and Processes | Mapping | Practical spatial processes to understand place based perspectives on ecological systems. | Inuit elders map changing ice extent and flow edge patterns – facilitated by Laidler (2006) and her dissertation research on connecting scientific and Inuit sea ice knowledge. | Provides spatially explicit information about ecological features and perception of ecological space. Mapping can be performed collaboratively with scientists and indigenous peoples both participating. Demonstrates local expertise. | Krupnik and Jolly 2002; Laidler 2006, 2007; Turnbull 2007; Krupnik et al. 2010 |
| Monitoring | Procedures and processes embedded in local management, co-management, adaptive co-management or adaptive governance arrangements to account for ecological attributes and changes. | The Igliniit project (Gearheard et al. 2011) Inuit hunters document life on the trail to map and monitor arctic change. | Monitoring processes can be embarked on collaboratively in the field or participants can monitor while on the land (local, indigenous), or in the lab (scientific), and report to each other. | Armitage 2008; Krupnik et al. 2010; Gearheard et al. 2011 | |
| Artistic processes | Creative collaboration, space for symbol, culture and tradition. | Kunuk and Mauro (2010) collaboratively created the documentary film ‘Inuit Knowledge and Climate change’. | Visual or performing arts can allow for culturally embedded knowledge sharing, emergent ideas, simulations and storytelling. | Kunuk and Mauro 2010; Zurba and Berkes 2014 | |
| Scenario Planning | As a tool to collectively envision and navigate change in social-ecological systems. | Engaging with qualitative scenarios helped Wesche and Armitage (2014) identify local perspectives on the impacts of climate change and resource development for community vulnerability and adaptation. | Discourse, imagery, experience and data can all inform scenario planning. Stakeholder groups create plausible storylines about changing social-ecological systems. These efforts direct continued dialogue and potential steering of social-ecological change. | Bennett and Zurek 2006; Peterson 2007; MA 2005; Wesche and Armitage 2014 | |
| ‘Out on the land’ together | As a way of sharing embodied experience. | In her PhD thesis Laidler (2006) describes the importance of her time on the land with Inuit elders for enhanced bridging of scientific and Inuit knowledge on Arctic sea ice change. | Setting where scientists are dependent on Inuk land skills for security, this can help shift power disparity. Inuit are more comfortable explaining environmental knowledge in context and this means spending time ‘on the land’. | Brody 2001; Laidler 2006, 2007 | |
| Brokerage | Boundary Objects | As a tool for linking communities of practice. | Zurba and Berkes (2014) use participatory art as a boundary object to help communicate indigenous knowledge and values in coastal resource and management. | Objects that are valued on both sides of the boundary and provide a site for cooperation, debate, evaluation, review and accountability e.g. models, forecasts, newsletters, reports (Cash and Moser 2000, 115). The objects then act at the interface of knowledge systems and can help to bridge questions and ideas. | Star and Griesemer 1989; Cash and Moser 2000; Gearheard et al. 2011; Zurba and Berkes 2014 |
| Boundary Organizations | In the context of sustainability science; organization with specific role of linking science with policy. | The project ‘Nilliajut Inuit perspectives on Arctic Security’ initiated by the Inuit Knowledge Center branch of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, has documented the perspectives of Inuit on the ever-increasing topic of security in the Arctic (Inuit Qaujisarvingat. 2013). | Institutions that straddle and mediate the divide between science and policy. They “serve to mediate between scientists and decision-makers on the one hand, and between these actors at different scales on the other” p. 114. | Cash and Moser 2000; Cash 2001; Cash et al. 2006; Inuit Qaujisarvingat. 2013 | |
| Bridging Organizations | Within governance or management networks bridging organizations create connectivity between groups, locations and worldviews | Rathwell and Peterson (2012) discuss the critical role of bridging organizations for connecting different actor groups to address water quality in polluted Canadian watersheds. | “Facilitates bringing together science and local knowledge and provide an arena for knowledge co-production, trust building, sense making, learning, vertical and horizontal collaboration and conflict resolution” (Berkes 2009, 1695). | Folke et al. 2005; Cash et al. 2006; Berkes 2009; Rathwell and Peterson 2012 | |
| Networks (bridging and bonding ties) | As a structural arrangement between individuals or organizations. | Weiss et al. (2013) examine knowledge exchange and policy influence of a diverse network of actors in a fisheries context. | Structural bridge in social network arrangement | Granovetter 1983; Coleman 1988; Burt 2001; Bodin and Crona 2009; Weiss et al. 2013 | |
| Institutional/Governance | Adaptive co-management | Combination of co-management with adaptive management practices. | Armitage et al. (2011) discuss the process of linking indigenous and scientific knowledge in three cases Arctic marine co-management. | a) Sharing of management power and responsibility through multiple institutional linages that may involve government agencies, NGO’s and other communities; and,b) Feedback learning and building of mutual trust among the partners | Olsson et al. 2004; Berkes 2004, 2009; Armitage et al. 2007, 2011 |
| Adaptive Governance | To govern ecosystems with multiple nested centers of decision making power, connected by polycentric institutional arrangements and capable of adapting to novel circumstances. | Olsson (2007) discuss the importance of adaptive governance to address multi-level and dynamic issues in the context of natural resource management. | Actor groups and organizations involved in governance arrangements interact for iterative sense-making and decision-making. | Folke et al. 2005; Armitage et al. 2007; Olsson 2007; Armitage 2008 | |
| Project driven Environmental Assessment | To assess environmental conditions (e.g. local, regional scales), often in the context of resource development. | Many environmental assessment processes are required (often legally) to include indigenous knowledge and perspectives in understandings of the environment and impacts of local resource development. | Project based environmental assessments are a platform to bridge scientific and indigenous knowledge systems about local environmental conditions. Concerns exist in the literature that environmental assessment is too rigid to respectfully accommodate diverse worldviews. | Stevenson 1996; Usher 2000; Sinclair and Diduck 2001 | |
| Global Environmental Assessment | To synthesize environmental conditions (regional or global scales) and/or social-ecological conditions in changing environments. | The MA (2005) sought input from multiple knowledge systems to assess the state of ecosystems at the global scale. The process required elaborate local, regional and global assessments. | A global perspective of environmental change requires inclusion of many knowledge systems. Global environmental assessments have the added challenge of bridging knowledge systems across many localities to understand ecological change and to scale up findings, such that results are compatible amongst regions to create a coherent global picture of environmental conditions. | MA 2005; Tengö et al. 2014; Nakamura 2013 |
Table 2
Example of bundling settings: Laidler and colleagues have engaged with multiple bridging settings during the SIKU- Inuit Sea Ice Use and Occupancy Project (bit.ly/1lyY4G4) (Laidler 2006, 2007; Laidler et al. 2010, 2011).
| Category | Setting | Example and rational |
|---|---|---|
| Methods and processes | Mapping | Participatory mapping; ‘Out on the land together’ (i.e. sea ice trips); Focus groups using photo imagery for maps |
| Brokerage | Boundary Object | A website is maintained to communicate ongoing research to communities and academics (http://straightupnorth.ca/Sikuliriji/SUN_Home.html); The SIKU-ISIUOP project has created a user Atlas to provide information to hunters on the trail (http://sikuatlas.ca/index.html) |
| Boundary Organization | International Polar Year (IPY) is an international initiative to connect Polar science and policy. | |
| Institutional/Governance | Environmental Assessment | The SIKU-ISIUOP project seeks to provide an overall assessment of Inuit Sea ice Use and Occupancy, information crucial to future resource management projects and government decision-making. |