January 19, 2010

Tony Becher's epistemography of academia

It seems natural enough to think of knowledge and its properties and relationships in terms of landscapes, and to saturate epistemological discussion with spatial metaphors: fields and frontiers; pioneering, exploration, false trails; charts and landmarks. (Becher, 1989:36)

However, the process of locating a discipline in relation to its neighbours is in itself of limited interest, and should be seen as no more than a preliminary to other more fundamental issues. Boundaries, after all, do not exist merely as lines on a map: they denote territorial possessions that can be encroached upon, colonized and reallocated. Some are so strongly defended as to be virtually impenetrable; others are weakly guarded and open to incoming and outgoing traffic. (Bencher, 1989:36)

Becher, Tony, Academic Tribes and Territories: intellectual enquiry and the cultures of disciplines, Open University Press, 1989.


Robert O'Toole : 19 Jan 2010 12:27 |  Tags:   |  Comments (2) |  Report a problem

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  1. Paul Greatrix

    Whilst spacial metaphors can be seen as preliminary, one of the best representations of the ‘country of the mind’ in disciplinary terms I recall is in Michael Scriven’s Evaluation Thesaurus. He uses it as a vehicle for discussing the place of evaluation and it is I think a really splendid piece

    20 Jan 2010, 19:06

  2. Robert O'Toole

    Thanks Paul. I shall have a look.

    20 Jan 2010, 21:18

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