#situated knowledge

The idea that all forms of knowledge reflect the particular conditions in which they are produced, and at some level reflect the social identities and social locations of knowledge producers.

Methods and their Positions

[image is of a table with information about major methods and the implicit arguments these methods make about major debates in social science. There are 5 columns for each of the major methods: Ethnography, Narration, Standard Causal Analysis (SCA), Small-N Analysis, and Formalization.

There are 4 major row categories for each of the major debates: Debates about Methodology, Debates about Ontology, Debates about Problematics, and Debates about Knowledge. Debates about Methodology is subdivided into two smaller debates: Positivism/Interpretivism and Analysis/Narration. Debates about Ontology is subdivided into 4 smaller debates: behaviorism (social structure)/Culturalism, Individualism/Emergentism, Realism/Constructionism, Noncontextualism/Contextualism. Debates about Problematics is subdivided into 2 smaller debates: Choice/Constraint and Consensus/Conflict. Finally, Debates about Knowledge is specified as a debate about Transcendent/Situated knowledge.]

Poised on the starting blocks at the Olympics, the 15 swimmers had good reason to feel apprehensive. But the cause of their nervousness was not the race itself – it was the piranhas, anacondas and crocodiles lurking in the turbid waters below.

This is the Amazon Olympics, an annual sporting event for indigenous tribes in this isolated region along the borders of Colombia, Brazil and Peru. Instead of track and field events, however, the competition tests skills and disciplines essential for survival in the jungle: 500 men and women compete in a range of disciplines including, tree-felling, canoe-racing, archery and blowpipe-shooting.

It is a far cry from London 2012's multimillion-pound arenas: the canoes are hand-carved from tree trunks, the bows fashioned from branches, In one event, men and women wield two-metre blowpipes to fire wooden darts at a target. In another event, contestants with axes raced to reduce tree trunks to kindling.