Research for the People, by the People: The Political Practice of Cognitive Justice and Transformative Learning in Environmental Social Movements^†

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

June Burt's essay seeking to apply the idea of cognitive justice to the issue of water is an interesting effort at reworking the relation between knowledge and democracy. One wishes she had read cognitive justice as a discourse rather than definitionally because one faces a stark difference between epistemic pluralism which is dialogue of knowledges with epistemic relativism, which is lazier theory of knowledge. 

The power of the paper lies in 2 sources. Firstly by looking at spiritual uses of water, it seeks to define water as more than a resource. Culture enters and transforms relations constructively. Secondly, the research on water looks both at traditional and modern knowledge and gender based knowledge creating a more fine grained idea of justice. The question, one has to ask is how does one make such an experiment sustainable. Issues of memory (oral, textual, even digital) need to be explored. While the use of cognitive justice is creative, accompanying ideas like Tacit Constitutions, Epistemic Brokerage and knowledge panchayats would have helped create a more nuanced ethnography. Yet the paper stands on its own, clear, lucid interesting in its combination of concepts and ethnography. I recommend its publication but future research needs more access to later researches on cognitive justice. 

Author Response

Thank you so much for your review. You are quite right - a reading of cognitive justice as a discourse would have given a different perspective. It is a powerful discourse that is enacted differently in different contexts. I have worked with it as a concept - similar but a little different - a sensitising concept that is enabling a learning process. I could go into this a bit more in this paper but I specifically didn't want to engage too theoretically with the concept of cognitive justice but rather portray it as the sensitising concept that we used in the course to help us articulate the learning that was happening through the change projects. It also was an empowering concept for participants as they immediately understood the value of this concept for their own arguments against environmental injustice. Having said that I appreciate your comment that I need to broaden my reading around cognitive justice. I agree. This is a valid criticism. I particularly would like to get to know more about how cognitive justice is being actualised in India. I would like to engage with this first hand at some point. Hopefully the opportunity will arise.  I would prefer not to engage with too many positions on cognitive justice for this paper as I want to position our understanding of the concept of cognitive justice as it was understood by all of us at the time of the development of the 'Water and Tradition' change story. Would you advise that I be explicit about this in the paper or simply leave it as it is? You also comment that the introduction could be improved. Can you give me some feedback on what it is about the introduction that you think needs improvement?

Reviewer 2 Report

This is a beautifully crafted, self-conscious and intelligent article which demonstrates deep theoretical understandings which can be recruited to elucidate transformative projects in practice. It challenges assumptions about whose knowledge should count, when, where and why. It is a wonderful example of a scholar-activist at work – I enjoyed reading the work immensely.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Thank you for your encouragement and for your thorough review of this paper. It encourages me to continue engaging in the relationship between scholarship and activism as an important space of reflexive practice.