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Knowledge

We Want To Build Communities Of Readers

February 21, 2025 Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. , , , ,
There are days when the dusk of events settles heavily on me, and I try to find a way to retreat into a quiet corner and throw myself into the world of a book. It does not matter if it is a novel or a history book, as long as the author is able to conjure up a world that transports me from the flood of brutalities to an island of imagination. In recent months, I have been reading more and more novels – including Japanese crime fiction, a notable favourite – and finding in them characters with whom I can sometimes laugh and sometimes frown in bewilderment. Madness is not new to our world. It has been there before.

Archiving Ancestral Knowledge To Co-Create New Economic Paradigms

October 20, 2024 Alison R. Guzman, Resilience. , , , ,
When we think of archiving, the mind might jump to dusty boxes of files, endless rows of cabinets, or shelves weighed down by old papers and books — organized in a way that seems to go on forever. Maybe we even picture the digital world, with its infinite files tucked away in the cloud. Either way, archiving often feels like a dull, lifeless task — far from inspiring or exciting. But here’s the twist: this is exactly the key to it all — the secret behind every colonizing scheme — the meticulous control and management of data, including intellectual property. Reclaming archiving is not just about organizing the past but unlocking potential for new knowledge and endless possibilities beyond colonial modalities of control.

Western Science Is Finally Catching Up To Traditional Knowledge

February 27, 2018 George Nicholas, Theconversation.com ,
Our knowledge of what the denizens of the animal kingdom are up to, especially when humans aren’t around, has steadily increased over the last 50 years. For example, we know now that animals use tools in their daily lives. Chimps use twigs to fish for termites; sea otters break open shellfish on rocks they selected; octopi carry coconut shell halves to later use as shelters. The latest discovery has taken this assessment to new heights, literally. A team of researchers led by Mark Bonta and Robert Gosford in northern Australia has documented kites and falcons, colloquially termed “firehawks,” intentionally carrying burning sticks to spread fire. While it has long been known that birds will take advantage of natural fires that cause insects, rodents and reptiles to flee and thus increase feeding opportunities, that they would intercede to spread fire to unburned locales is astounding.

Welcome To The Pirate Bay Of Science

February 14, 2016 Fiona MacDonald, www.sciencealert.com , , ,
By Fiona MacDonald for Science Alert. A researcher in Russia has made more than 48 million journal articles - almost every single peer-reviewed paper every published - freely available online. And she's now refusing to shut the site down, despite a court injunction and a lawsuit from Elsevier, one of the world's biggest publishers. For those of you who aren't already using it, the site in question is Sci-Hub, and it's sort of like a Pirate Bay of the science world. It was established in 2011 by neuroscientist Alexandra Elbakyan, who was frustrated that she couldn't afford to access the articles needed for her research, and it's since gone viral, with hundreds of thousands of papers being downloaded daily. But at the end of last year, the site was ordered to be taken down by a New York district court - a ruling that Elbakyan has decided to fight, triggering a debate over who really owns science.

Ecuador Buen Conocer Summit Declaration

June 6, 2014 FLOK Society, www.buenconocer.org , , , , ,
Table 1: Open Educational Resources Education is a common. It has to be open and free access, as a mean to maximize the participation of all people in social knowledge economy. When we talk about open education we talk not only about ICT. Access to educational resources (tangible and intangible) must be released under open licenses. Free access must be ensured distributing repositories via Internet, intranet or other means. Education systems must recognize learning by formal and informal experiences, at any stage of life. All work done with public funds should have open and free license and access. It is necessary to strengthen and create learning communities as a strategy for knowledge production and social economy. Table 2: Open Science Science should be accessible to everyone, being the requirement for open data, processes and results of scientific research and its management through free licenses and open protocols and formats, as well as construction of a collaborative scientific commons platforms, and knowledge banks repositories. Only in that way we can guarantee the development of human capabilities and access to resources, processes, and scientific results and also the transparency in the management of this aspects.