Ways of knowing - out-of-sync or incompatible? Framing water quality and farmers' encounters with science in the regulation of non-point source pollution in New Zealand

Abstract

This paper examines farmers’ ways of knowing water quality and their encounters with the science used in policy to address the cumulative effects of agriculture. Drawing on constructivist theories of knowledge and discussions with farmers in two locations of New Zealand's South Island region of Canterbury, the research identifies a significant divergence between farmers’ conception of the water quality problem compared to the issue's policy framing. In theory, and increasingly in practice, ways of knowing are assumed merely out-of-sync and their integration or coproduction possible and necessary. This paper poses the question: what if the ways of knowing of farmers and science have become incompatible? The presented research indicates incompatibility that derives from epistemic practices that mobilise different ontologies at different scales. It is shown how the predictive practices of science present what appear to be insurmountable obstacles to integration or coproduction. It is argued that collaborative governance needs to find ways to work with divergent ways of knowing – not for the purpose of integration or coproduction but co-existence.