Onderwijstype
Intercultural Perspectives on the Life Sciences - 1 ECTS
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In the wake of globalization processes, we are living in increasingly intercultural societies, in which socioculturally different individuals and groups (in their intersecting diversity of ethnic origins, cultural backgrounds, genders, social classes, racial positioning) are involved in a web of relationships of reciprocal exchanges, conflicts, negotiation. This contemporary world demands that heterogeneous social actors learn from each other to become capable of coordinating their actions for dealing with current challenges, from environmental conservation to public health. A key question in this scenario concerns how these heterogeneous social actors can engage in dialogue from the perspective of their different knowledge systems, ontologies, epistemologies, and values. How can they learn from each other when we showing so many different perspectives, values, knowledge, practices, some of them based on diverging commitments? In this course, we will discuss the partial overlaps framework as a way of relating knowledge systems that considers both their convergences (overlaps) and divergences (partialities), which can lead to shared standpoints that take in due account difference while opening an avenue for collaboration and mutual learning. In particular, we will address how learning can take place, in diverse settings from transdisciplinary action research projects to science classrooms, when holders of distinct knowledge systems engage with each other in a sustained and fruitful process of intercultural translation.
Learning outcomes:
After successful completion, it is expected that participants are able to:
- Understand the complex contemporary politics of knowledge, with the tensions between epistemic paternalism and its criticisms from epistemic diversity and decoloniality standpoints.
- Understand the partial overlaps framework and how it deals with both similarities and differences between knowledge systems, ontologies, epistemologies and values.
- Conceive potential applications of the partial overlap framework in their research, using as a springboard the cases of how the framework has been used in ethnobiological and educational studies in the Global South, which will be presented in the course.
- Engage with intercultural translation and its challenges, recognizing the potential for learning that it is unleashed from it when carried with the proper methodical controls.
Activities:
Course activities include interactive lectures, paper discussion sessions, exercises of intercultural translation.
Preparation:
Works listed below should be read by the students before the course:
Schedule:
Day 1:
A. Presentation of the participants and course pedagogical methods.
B. Lecture – David Ludwig – Politics of knowledge and the partial overlaps framework.
Reading material:
Ludwig, D. & El-Hani, C. N. 2025. Transformative Transdisciplinarity: An Introduction to Community-Based Philosophy. Ch. 2. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
C. Preparation for the exercises of intercultural translation – Storytelling.
(Two narratives from Indigenous and local communities from the Global South will be presented to the students, as bases for the intercultural translation exercises).
D. Organization of student teams to work on the exercises.
Day 2:
A. Lecture: Charbel N. El-Hani – Partial overlaps and intercultural learning.
Reading material:
El-Hani, C. N. & Ludwig, D. In press. Intercultural Education as Dialogue between Knowledge Systems: Elements of a Theoretical Framework. Science & Education.
B. Student teamwork on intercultural translation of the narratives, one per student team.
The narratives can be translated to any perspective the students choose: scientific, philosophical, artistic, etc.
Day 3:
A. Paper discussions:
1. Ludwig, D. & El-Hani, C. N. 2025. Transformative Transdisciplinarity: An Introduction to Community-Based Philosophy. Ch. 3. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2. Ludwig, D. & El-Hani, C. N. 2025. Transformative Transdisciplinarity: An Introduction to Community-Based Philosophy. Ch. 4. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
3. Viveiros de Castro, E. (2004). Perspectival anthropology and the method of controlled equivocation. Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America, 2(1), 3-22.
B. Reflection of the student teams on what was expressed and what was lost in their intercultural translations, and on which learning processes could be unleashed from what was expressed and what was lost.
C. Final discussion to socialize the outcomes of the intercultural translation exercises.
Sessions
| Session 1 | November 3 | 14.00-17.00 |
| Session 2 | November 10 | 14.00-17.00 |
| Session 3 | November 24 | 14.00-17.00 |
Target group
All WASS PhD candidates, 3-15 participants
Assumed prior knowledge
Basic notions in philosophy of science and transdisciplinary research.
Assessment:
Grading will be based on participation in the lectures and paper discussions, and the outcomes of the intercultural translation exercise (including the discussion).