The development of society and human knowledge during the past few decades has facilitated the evolution of new models of epistemology and pedagogy (the theory of knowledge and the methodology of teaching) to counter the trend towards over-specialisation. This arises from a growing recognition of the complexity of human development and interaction with the habitat.
The evolution of knowledge generation, development and dissemination, especially in higher education institutions, has to be seen in the context of competing national demands, diminishing resources, demotivated staff, changing student populations and a society in dynamic change. Countries and regional blocs are systematically interrogating the best models of education and aggressively competing for the best educators and most motivated students.
Moreover, questions are being asked about the sustainability of American and other Anglo-Saxon education models. Are these adequately responsive to our unique history, current social configurations and the strategic destination of South Africa in the medium to long term?
We cannot ignore international and local pressures. Post-secondary institutions must contend with the forces of globalisation, ever-narrowing information societies and the market rationalisation of knowledge. On the other hand, higher-education centres have to find a balance of institutional laissez faire and the responsibilities of advancing knowledge to equip students with functional skills.
This calls for a revisiting of post-secondary education. It is assumed that there is now consensus that higher education should impart critical analytical skills and train learners to be productive and innovative citizens. Simply put, education should impart to learners values that promote the liberation of individuals and communities from passivity, prejudice and injustice.
Higher education should therefore promote, in the words of the Constitution, the establishment of a “society based on democratic values, social justice and fundamental human rights” aiming to “improve the quality of life of all citizens and free the potential of each person”. Education and training are thus a public good.
The local model of higher education is based on an approach inherited from the Enlightenment — it emphasises “reason” and is based on the 19th-century codification and institutionalisation of the social and natural sciences on the foundation of experimentation, observation, replication and universal application. This era (1850 to 1945) has identifiable historical signposts — the industrial revolution in Europe, colonisation and the technological advances of the 20th century. This model is so dominant that it is now taken for granted.
What has been overlooked is that this model and the resulting pedagogies are social, historic and economic constructs, with inscribed values and belief systems. Under apartheid South African education sought to instil the Enlightenment distinction between Africans and descendants of Europeans, to drive a wedge between oral and written narratives, to separate the object from the subject, matter from mind and indigenous knowledge systems from modernity.
Lost in such dichotomies were the complexities of human experience, layers of reality, hybrid identities and heterogeneous knowledge bases. The victims of this conceptual and methodological stultification were community activists, griots and non-degreed experts. Communal knowledge, endogenous information and what the Ugandan scholar Dani Nabudere calls “community sites of knowledge” were relegated to the margins.
Academic protectionism and intellectual fiefdoms inherited from the epistemological, metaphysical and utilitarian approaches of Graeco-Roman civilisation became the stock in trade. Those who overstepped the mark by questioning this “knowledge sovereignty” were cast aside as dissidents.
The result of this is an Aristotelian pedagogy that blanches at the imaginative and instinctual, as well as a Newtonian physics that does not countenance the spaces between disciplines. The potential that exists in the intersection of disciplines (where significant discoveries have emerged, especially in the last century) is suppressed. Pioneering discoveries in mass media, telecommunications, medical technology, econometrics, and so on, are lost. Instead, specialisation and burrowing are privileged. This partly explains why there are now more than 8 000 “disciplines”.
The Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection (Mistra), by contrast, has adopted a transdisciplinary approach as an integral part of its research methodology. In consultation with various institutions of higher learning and research bodies, Mistra has also initiated a research project on the theory and practice of transdisciplines.
The progenitors of a transdisciplinary approach include scientists such as Werner Heisenberg and Kurt Gödel. Heisenberg said that “knowledge is forever open” and that the separation of knowledge into disciplines hinders “unity of knowledge”. This is in line with the motto of South Africa, from the Xam phrase: !ke e:|xarra ||ke (“Unity in diversity”).
Transdisciplinarity is based on the premise that sources of knowledge are diverse and not found exclusively in formal or even higher education institutions. It acknowledges the roles played by diverse actors within and across disciplines and recognises the profound contributions made by many sectors beyond the academy.
The prefix “trans” is distinct from “multi” or “inter”. Transdisciplinarity emphasises the interconnectedness of knowledge branches in improving the human condition. It looks beyond, across and within knowledge bases or disciplines. It encourages the synthesis of learning experiences, involving actors in academia, government, industry and civil society. Traditional or mainstream attempts to address problems and crises in the world have proved inadequate; instead, what is required is an approach that recognises that knowledge creation is complex — and more so for us in South Africa as a nascent nation.
In Romania transdisciplinary education is a way of life. In Germany close collaboration between business, government, research centres and other organs of society is encouraged. In such places the key terms for doing business, running higher education and organising communities are “mutual learning”, “cross-fertilisation” and “innovation synergies”, along the lines of German philosopher Jürgen Habermas’s concept of “communicative action”.
This promotes the fertilisation of rational and imaginative or instinctual knowledge bases. Knowledge as a public good is not divorced from politics or economics. Researchers and scholars cannot be satisfied with merely producing specialised knowledge largely for specialised audiences. To pass transdisciplinary muster, such knowledge must be action oriented and have its application as an outcome.
For knowledge to have lasting significance, it should take heed of multi-layered frameworks — globalisation, the intricate imperatives of market states and the “multiple modernities” and diverse tradition that intersect with one another. In sum, due emphasis needs to be given to historical and institutional contexts.
The outcomes of learning and research should have significance for public and private-sector policy; they should shape delivery mechanisms. Scholars should be broadminded in how they organise knowledge.
Jeffrey Sehume is a senior researcher in the faculty of humanity at the Mapungubwe Institute. Go to www.mistra.org.za for more.