Situated Knowledge

A growing consensus in the social sciences and humanities regards knowledge as inescapably situated within the broader spatial, temporal, sociocultural, and political economic contexts. This view has contributed to a rejection of logical positivist science as the only legitimate source of knowledge and has fostered acceptance of the idea that multiple epistemologies, or ways of knowing the world, are valid. An emergent body of research on situated knowledge explores these alternative epistemologies and their linkages with mainstream knowledge and global society. Geographers have focused on this concept in a variety of different subfields, including cultural and political ecology, geographic information systems (GIS) and society, and economic geography. Specific research foci deal with the customary knowledge systems of indigenous peoples, transformation and representation of local knowledge ...