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Decontextualising Knowledge about Fish

Place and scale are controversial key themes in framings of knowledge, as we saw in Alf

Horborg’s critique of Western science. Horborg frames traditional and indigenous in terms of

local ecological knowledge, which he calls “contextual”, delineating it from modern or

“decontextual” environmental knowledge within which he places Western scientific

knowledge. Horborg’s conclusion is that contextual knowledge may have much to offer the

management of resources and therefore sustainable development, albeit on a localised level.

Others have constructed critiques along these lines. Indeed the term “epistemic violence” is

an important historic term that describes ways that Western knowledge can overpower and

disregard diverse ways of knowing. Adding to this historical term in relation to global

environmental governance, Perley & Heatherington (2011) refer to “epistemic imperialism”

as:

…the application of “expert” knowledge as interventions into global crises for
instance environmental issues such as species loss, climate change, or language
endangerment…Often, that knowledge is presented as narratives of “risk” for
national and international security and sovereignty, as well as cultural and
international heritage. Expert knowledge and their concomitant “risk” narratives
purport to overcome disciplinary “boundaries” in order to establish partnerships
that promote unifying research agendas that solve global insecurities...[and result
in the] centralization of knowledge itself. (Perley & Heatherington 2011, n.p.)

While these terms are useful when raising issues of power and subordination, they are also

examples of a framing that can reify local/global dichotomies. Both concepts –

epistemological imperialism and decontextual/contextual knowledge – give ‘ontological

validity’, to borrow a term from Bennett (2009, p. 102), to the terms tradition/modern and

local/global. That is, they reify these distinctions. However, rather than dismissing these

concepts I would like to suggest that there are important analytical components missing,

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