Knowledge and Action: Making the Link

Abstract

The often documented failures to use information in planning and policy can be attributed in part to the influence of the positivist view of knowledge on planning practice. This has encouraged planners to try to be value neutral, to focus on measurable issues and general principles, and see the production of information as distinct from the political process. A phenomenological conception of knowledge, on the other hand, focuses on unique and particular situations, and on the everyday world, it emphasizes the subjective meanings of the problems to the actors, it assumes knowledge is constructed in a community rather than having an independent existence, and it accepts that information is shaped by preconceptions. As a guide to planning practice, it can better link knowledge to action because (1) it deals with issues in forms more recognizable to decision makers, (2) it offers a more realistic model of what many practitioners actually do, and (3) it engages the decision makers in the information production process so they are more prepared to act on results Several cases are described which illustrate how knowledge developed interactively with knowledge users became influential in decisions. It is recommended that planners should develop greater skill in qualitative methods, and learn where best to apply the positivist methods, that they should develop information openly, negotiating definitions and assumptions with clients, and that they should develop a responsible ethic to guide them in their inevitably value- laden effort to inform.

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