The DOI matches its Crossref record; 34 of the 34 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Uncomfortable knowledge: the social construction of ignorance in science and environmental policy discourses
Abstract
To make sense of the complexity of the world so that they can act, individuals and institutions need to develop simplified, self-consistent versions of that world. The process of doing so means that much of what is known about the world needs to be excluded from those versions, and in particular that knowledge which is in tension or outright contradiction with those versions must be expunged. This is ‘uncomfortable knowledge’. The paper describes four implicit strategies which institutions use to keep uncomfortable knowledge at bay: denial, dismissal, diversion and displacement. It concludes by suggesting that ‘clumsy’ arrangements may need to be constructed to ensure that uncomfortable knowledge is not excluded from policy debates, especially when dealing with ‘wicked problems’ where the accepted version excludes knowledge that is crucial for making sense of and addressing the problem.
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Cites
The Interpretation of Cultures
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The social construction of reality : a treatise in the sociology of knowledge
Simpson, G., Berger, P. L., & Luckmann, T. (1967) · American Sociological Review · doi:10.2307/2091739 · Cited by 16,462
Dilemmas in a general theory of planning
Rittel, H. W. J., & Webber, M. M. (1973) · Policy Sciences · doi:10.1007/bf01405730 · Cited by 16,338 · cited 1×
“Originally identified by Rittel and Webber (1973) in the context of urban planning, wicked problems are often characterized by multiple competing definitions of what the nature of the problem is.”
BackgroundPOLANYI, M. (1997) · Knowledge in Organisations · doi:10.1016/b978-0-7506-9718-7.50010-x · Cited by 12,408
The Science of “Muddling Through”
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Confirmation Bias: A Ubiquitous Phenomenon in Many Guises
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Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo.
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Southern California Law Review
Sayre, P. L. (1927) · Indiana Magazine of History (Indiana University) · Cited by 2,594
Cited by
Golman, R., Hagmann, D., & Loewenstein, G. (2017) · Journal of Economic Literature · doi:10.1257/jel.20151245 · Cited by 831
The social media life of climate change: Platforms, publics, and future imaginaries
Pearce, W., Niederer, S., Özkula, S. M., & Sánchez Querubín, N. (2019) · WIREs Climate Change · doi:10.1002/wcc.569 · Cited by 334
Ortega, F., & Orsini, M. (2020) · Global Public Health · doi:10.1080/17441692.2020.1795223 · Cited by 325
What is wrong with evidence based policy, and how can it be improved?
Saltelli, A., & Giampietro, M. (2017) · Futures · doi:10.1016/j.futures.2016.11.012 · Cited by 264
Babidge, S. (2019) · Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute · doi:10.1111/1467-9655.12965 · Cited by 78
Metadata
- Authors
- Rayner, S.
- Venue
- Economy and Society
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2012-02-01
- Volume
- 41
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 107-125
- ISSN
- 0308-5147 (ISSN-L)
- 1469-5766
- OpenAlex
- W2011989677
- Cited by
- 493
- References
- 34
- FWCI
- 82.43
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
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Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
