The role of epistemic signalling in transdisciplinary knowledge production: Examples from the field of sustainable water management

The number of arrangements where academia collaborates with governmental andnongovernmental organisations, as well as industries, have increased over the last decades.While research has focused on whether knowledge produced in such collaborations is genuinelyinfluenced by others than the ‘experts’, or those with the highest status and power, this reportexplores the influence of framings and re-framings of what the participants and society shouldperceive as the nature of knowledge: epistemology. We analyse the framings of epistemologythrough the concept ‘epistemic signalling’. Epistemic signalling refers to communication orrule-making that indicates what type(s) of knowledge is considered relevant, valuable or usefulin knowledge collaboration. Empirically we draw on two examples of transdisciplinarycollaborations in the field of water management (one from the UK and one from the US). Indepthinterviews were combined with document analysis.We have analysed three themes of epistemic signalling that we suggest influence knowledgecollaborations. The first one concerns how the form and theme of the collaboration weredecided upon and is based on Arnstein’s (1969) ladder of participation. The second refers towhat type(s) of participants were considered suitable – as for example experts or lay people.Here we use the framework of aggregate (bargaining-oriented) versus integrative (deliberative)processes of knowledge collaboration in our analysis. The third and last theme concerns whatis perceived as valuable and successful in the collaborations, something that we discuss in termsof procedural and epistemic virtues of knowledge collaborations.The epistemology of organisations and participants in knowledge collaborations ought to be adistinct subject of open discussions from the earliest planning stage and onwards. It is easy toassume that epistemic signalling would be esoteric parts of practical, collaborative knowledgeproduction. To the contrary, open epistemological reflections may help highlight situationswhere hierarchies turn out to be remains of routines inconsistent with new goals of moreprofound exchange of practical and scientific knowledge. In such cases, the epistemologiesneed to be revised to better fit the new goals. (Less)