Book
Open Access
Decentralizing Knowledges
Essays on Distributed Agency
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UCLA
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Edited by:
Leandro Rodriguez Medina
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Funded by:
UCLA
Language:
English
Published/Copyright:
2025
About this book
In recent decades, there has been a call for decentering knowledge in the social sciences and humanities, bringing to light perspectives from previously ignored or undervalued groups or areas of the world. Feminist epistemologies and postcolonial studies have led this trend. However, there has been less interest in the specific infrastructures and practices that make decentering possible. Drawing from science and technology studies, Decentralizing Knowledges examines how to bring about such change. Contributors explore the multiple practices of knowledge production and circulation that favor and nurture nonhegemonic standpoints in academic fields, disciplines, and institutions—what they call epistemic decentralizing. The contributors combine theoretical and philosophical inquiry with empirical and historical case studies in settings ranging from palliative care in Taiwan, the repatriation of archaeological remains to Peru, and an experimental research platform in Kenya to a center of interdisciplinary ethnography in Ecuador and duck hunting as a knowledge practice of many indigenous Sámi people. Throughout, the contributors provide an overview of the complex processes required to challenge mainstream epistemology.
Contributors: Linda Martín Alcoff, Elías Barticevic, Johan Henrik Buljo, Ronald Cancino, Cristina Flores, Kim Fortun, Sandra Harding, Line Aimee Kalak, Duygu Kasdogan, Wiebke Keim, Aalok Khandekar, Daniel Lee Kleinman, Wen-Hua Kuo, John Law, Les Levidow, Leandro Rodriguez Medina, Angela Okune, Liv Østmo, Ari Sitas, Maka Suarez, Sharon Traweek, Hebe Vessuri
Contributors: Linda Martín Alcoff, Elías Barticevic, Johan Henrik Buljo, Ronald Cancino, Cristina Flores, Kim Fortun, Sandra Harding, Line Aimee Kalak, Duygu Kasdogan, Wiebke Keim, Aalok Khandekar, Daniel Lee Kleinman, Wen-Hua Kuo, John Law, Les Levidow, Leandro Rodriguez Medina, Angela Okune, Liv Østmo, Ari Sitas, Maka Suarez, Sharon Traweek, Hebe Vessuri
Author / Editor information
Leandro Rodriguez Medina is Professor of Science, Technology, and Society at Universidad Alberto Hurtado.
Sandra Harding (1935-2025) was Distinguished Research Professor Emerita at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Sandra Harding (1935-2025) was Distinguished Research Professor Emerita at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Reviews
“I can think of no other volume that takes up epistemic decentralization as its primary focus. Building on feminist standpoint theory, actor network theory, agnotology, and calls to decolonize social theory, Decentralizing Knowledges will attract great attention from a range of scholars in science and technology studies and beyond.”
-- Heather Paxson, editor of Eating Beside Ourselves: Thresholds of Foods and Bodies
-- Heather Paxson, editor of Eating Beside Ourselves: Thresholds of Foods and Bodies
“This volume addresses an important cluster of questions about decentralization and decentering as methods, practices, and theories in the context of decolonial approaches to science and technology. It makes a clear case that commitments to decentralization and decentering make different demands than inclusivity in relation to race, region, economies, agencies, and other intertwined axes of power and knowledge. Important to both the politics and scholarship of decolonial science and technology studies, Decentralizing Knowledges will have a broader audience in cultural studies and anthropology, and among people committed to more globally inclusive knowledge practices.”
-- Donna J. Haraway, author of Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene
-- Donna J. Haraway, author of Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene
Topics
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Frontmatter
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Contents
v -
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Acknowledgments
vii -
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Introduction
1 - I Thinking from the Margins
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One. Extractivist Epistemologies
31 -
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Two. Epistemic Decentralizing: Revisiting Knowledge Asymmetries from the Periphery
62 -
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Three. The Urgency and Benefits of Decentering and Decentralizing Knowledge Production: Knowledge from the Margins and the Social Studies of Ignorance
92 -
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Four. Making Difference at the Edge
109 - II Infrastructuring Postcolonialities
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Five. Colonial Struggle and the Infrastructures of Knowing: A Story from Sápmi
131 -
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Six. Remooring Academia: Postcolonial and Infrastructural Challenges
153 -
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Seven. Agroecological Innovation: Decentralizing Knowledge and Democratizing Brazil’s Agrifood Economy
184 - III Creating Alternative Spaces
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Eight. Therapeutic Space as Knowledge Space: Decentralizing Biomedicine in Inpatient Hospice and Palliative Care
221 -
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Nine. Decentered Scientific Agendas and Decentralized Actors and Capacities in Patagonian Science
239 -
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Ten. A State-Led Strategy of Decentralization: The BRICS Experience
261 -
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Contributors
289 -
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Index
299
Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
June 6, 2025
eBook ISBN:
9781478094289
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook ISBN:
9781478094289
Keywords for this book
epistemic decentering; epistemic decentralization; distributed agency; knowledge circulation; knowledge infrastructure; epistemic justice; extractivism; epistemic decentralizing; epistemic mutualism; epistemic indifference; epistemic extractivism; epistemic co-optation; spheres of ignorance; decentralized knowledge; decentered knowledge; Epistemic authority; epistemic privilege; epistemic practices; Knowledge practices; infrastructures of knowing; infrastructure of state knowing; transnational collaborations; postcolonial academia; ethnographic reconfigurations; economia solidaria; agri-food economy; non-biomedical therapeutics; palliative care; Taiwan; qi-gong; acupuncture; Chile; Argentina; China; BRICS countries; BRICS Science; Technology and Innovation Framework Program
Audience(s) for this book
For an expert adult audience, including professional development and academic research
Creative Commons
BY-NC 4.0
