Editors’ introduction

In this chapter we (the editors) draw on our experiences over many years of investigating knowledge exchange processes across three research projects that mostly deal with agri-environmental knowledge systems with contentious issues for stakeholders (farmers, policymakers, researchers, businesses and NGOs) to explore, as was the case in Chapter Three. The first project discussed considers UK farmers’ understandings of new technologies and the influencers on them. We then took this work forward into subsequent projects that analysed complex knowledge flows in a number of different contexts – agriculture, health, food, international development and hedgerow management systems. We reflect upon how our use of diagramming and our relationships with participants in our research methods evolved through the three phases of the first project and into the subsequent projects, as is also the case in Chapters Five and Eight. We discuss not only how we drew on tried and tested mapping techniques – cognitive maps and Harman Fans – but also the mapping techniques we devised specifically for the projects. As well as drawing on theories about participatory approaches to research as described in Chapters One and Two, the projects also particularly drew on theories about communities of practice, explained further in Chapter Seven.

Introduction

As discussed in Chapter One, it is important to not only find out about different people's perspectives when considering solutions to issues concerning environmental sustainability, but also bring together different types of knowledge. However, more than that, it is important to consider how, or indeed whether, knowledge is exchanged between people and then acted upon. The majority of this chapter discusses an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) funded project that used an increasingly more interactive approach, and mapping techniques, to research with farmers. We were interested in not simply their understandings of genetically modified (GM) crops and new technologies more generally, but also how these understandings came about. That is, who influenced their decision making process, in what way and how knowledge exchange might be improved. We discuss the mapping techniques we used and devised. We then consider two subsequent projects that worked with conference participants (academics and practitioners) to look further at knowledge flows and which developed mapping methods for capturing knowledge exchange.