https://doi.org/10.25547/5JKK-TP40
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Written by Alan Colin-Arce.
At a Glance
| Topic / Titre | Engaging Knowledge Diversity in Open Scholarship |
| Key Participants / Participants clés | INKE Partnership, ETCL, C-SKI, Open Scholarship Press |
| Date / Période | 2025 |
| Keywords / Mots-clés | bibliodiversity / bibliodiversité, Multilingualism / Multilinguisme, community engagement / engagement communautaire, Knowledge diversity / Diversité des connaissances, Indigenous Knowledge / Le savoir autochtone |
Summary
This post introduces the Knowledge Diversity living document, available open access via the Open Scholarship Press. The Knowledge Diversity living document seeks to detail the historic and present challenges people have faced in their capacity as knowers, especially the devaluing of Indigenous knowledges, research published in languages other than English, and community-based research.
Knowledge Diversity in Open Scholarship
Knowledge diversity is an epistemological stance which recognizes the legitimacy and value of a wide range of ways of knowing while also challenging power dynamics that cause some ways of knowing to be considered more legitimate or valuable than others. This kind of work has been addressed for decades in disciplines such as Indigenous studies, oral history, and postcolonial studies. However, the topic has been gaining traction in more fields, including open scholarship. In particular, the publication of the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science in 2021 highlighted the importance of knowledge diversity because it stressed that scientific knowledge is multilingual and some of its pillars are the open engagement of societal actors and open dialogue with other knowledge systems.
In this context that increasingly recognizes the value of knowledge diversity, the 120+ annotations of the Knowledge Diversity living document are organized in five sections covering key issues in knowledge diversity: Epistemic Injustice, Bibliodiversity, Indigenous Knowledges, Community Knowledge and Co-Inquiry, and Steps Towards Knowledge Equity. All sections have a variety of sources, ranging from books and academic articles to blog posts, podcasts, and websites to recognize the multiple ways in which knowledge is produced and disseminated. All sections also end with an annotated list of initiatives and organizations addressing specific issues discussed in each of the sections. An introduction opens the scan and contextualizes in more detail the importance of knowledge diversity. This collection is described as a living document to recognize that these debates are ongoing and that achieving knowledge diversity is an ongoing struggle, not a finalized process. Anyone interested in contributing can suggest edits on the Wikibooks page.
Overall, knowledge diversity is an important concern because it can address the gaps of existing knowledge and increase our understanding of different topics by providing new or different perspectives. Academic knowledge might also move at a slower pace in certain areas of inquiry with unequal power relations between various actors, such as gender studies, queer studies, environmental studies, and Indigenous studies.
Another key concern in knowledge diversity is lowering the barriers of participation in knowledge production for non-native English speakers, as well as people conducting research and knowledge work in academic-adjacent (sometimes called alternative academic) and other environments. This scan is intended to be a resource for academic and non-academic audiences. It may be especially valuable for librarians, community activists, citizen scholars, educators, community-based researchers, and anyone else seeking to make their research more community-engaged.
The next sections of the post present a brief overview of the five sections of the Knowledge Diversity scan (Colin-Arce et al., 2025).
Epistemic Injustice
Epistemic injustice is a concept that sets the foundation for understanding the various ways knowledge systems and knowledge holders have been and are currently disregarded as unreliable due to prejudicial factors. One of the most widespread definitions of epistemic injustice is the wrongs done to someone in their capacity as a knower (Fricker, 2007). This concept, originally developed in philosophy and epistemology, has been examined under multiple theoretical lenses, which are discussed in the Core Concepts and Debates subsection. The concept of epistemic injustice has also been applied to multiple case studies including scholarly communication, data science technologies, research metrics and higher education. These case studies are covered in the Epistemic Injustice across Areas of Study subsection. Therefore, the epistemic injustice section is divided in three subsections:
Bibliodiversity
The bibliodiversity section highlights a variety of strategies and proposals for fostering greater diversity in the publishing and scholarly communications ecosystem. While there are multiple debates around the type of diversity to increase, bibliodiversity in general tends to focus on increasing the diversity of epistemological stances, languages, and publishing infrastructures. The annotations in this section cover the widespread use of the English language in scholarly communication, the responsible use of research evaluation metrics, and the politics behind what gets published. The subsections are:
Indigenous Knowledges
The Indigenous Knowledges section introduces the core principles of Indigenous Knowledge systems, the problems with how western knowledge traditions have characterized and attempted to erase Indigenous Knowledges, and Indigenous research methodologies. The discussions in this section go beyond the publishing process and provide different alternatives to knowledge production based on Indigenous ways of knowing. The section is divided into the following subsections:
Community Knowledge and Co-Inquiry
The Community Knowledge and Co-Inquiry section explores multiple approaches to community-based research and co-inquiry. It especially looks at discussions and projects that have engaged academic and non-academic or societal actors, including the social and economic challenges of community-based research, as well as the power relations between the different actors involved. This theme is organized into three subsections:
Steps Towards Knowledge Equity
This section is explicitly action-oriented and focuses on practices that can be implemented to promote inclusion of a variety of ways of knowing. This section covers initiatives happening in different areas and spaces, such as memory work, scholarly communication, pedagogy, and research methods. These initiatives are described in traditional academic publications, as well as websites and blogs and are classified in the following subsections:
Looking Forward
The wide range of topics addressed in the Knowledge Diversity living document shows the complexity of valuing diverse ways of knowing within and beyond academia. The efforts highlighted in the collection to generate localized, culturally embedded, and/or co-produced knowledge show that there is not one universally valid way of knowing, but rather that there are multiple forms of advancing understanding. While it is far from an exhaustive list of initiatives in knowledge diversity, this collection seeks to inspire readers to reflect on their assumptions about which knowledges are valuable and to encourage further action to address epistemic injustices, promote knowledge equity, and rethink who are considered legitimate knowers.
References
Colin-Arce, A., Sardino, M., Muñoz Francisco, E., Jensen, G., Winter, C., Arbuckle, A., & Siemens, R. (2025). Engaging Knowledge Diversity. Open Scholarship Press. https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Engaging_Knowledge_Diversity
Fricker, M. (2007). Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing. In Epistemic Injustice. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198237907.001.0001