 Avoiding the pendulum: contributions of anthropology to understanding the production of knowledge in the contemporary worldAna Padawer Chapter 17 in Research Handbook on the Anthropology of Education, 2026, pp 170-179 from Edward Elgar Publishing Abstract: Starting from the definition of knowledge as situated, historical, and generated through the link between body and mind, anthropology has questioned the dichotomy between (1) science, based on abstractions, as a way to understand the world as it develops and changes quickly; and (2) common sense, based on practices, as a way to understand the world that never changes (or changes very slowly). This dichotomy is continually renewed in the field of education. As an anthropologist of education, I must ask: how can we avoid the pendulum that swings between knowledge, science, abstraction, and modernity on one end, and common sense, practice, and tradition on the other? To show how to avoid such persistent oscillation, I refer to my own ethnographic fieldwork conducted with engineers and mechanics who came together to build two cassava processing machines in Argentina. I propose to show how the knowledge they produced was the result of social relations, involving both abstraction and practice, produced by people to understand and take action in their immediate environment. Keywords: Knowledge; Translations; Practices; Understanding; Engineering; Mechanics (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:elg:eechap:23336_17 Ordering information: This item can be ordered from Access Statistics for this chapter More chapters in Chapters from Edward Elgar Publishing |
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