Den okroppsliga kunskapssynens politik

Abstract

This article explores the relation between politics and epistemology in Swedish higher education by focusing on the notion of ”sustainable development”. As a concept that relates to environmental change, sustainable development addresses the link between the personal and the global level. The article discusses why university teachers regard sustainable development as a problematic notion in higher education practices. The aim of the article is to conduct a feminist analysis of the contemporary relation between epistemology and politics in Swedish higher education. Two epistemological notions rooted in feminist epistemological theory are used throughout the analysis: “situated knowledges” (Haraway 2008) and “transcorporeality” (Alaimo 2010). Empirically, the article draws on examples from focus group discussions with teachers at eight Swedish universities. Two balancing acts are identified in the discussions: one is about the role of the teaching body at the border between the private and the public, and the other is about the reach of education at the border between a request for change and status quo. I argue that environmental issues become problematic to handle in educational practices because 1) they transgress the boundaries between the private and public sphere and 2) they challenge understandings of what legitimate knowledge is. Furthermore, these problems relate to contemporary understandings of environmental problems as “post-political” (Mouffe 2008). In conclusion, I suggest that it is only by “staying with the trouble” (Haraway 2008), and by formulating positions that are situated and transcorporeal, that we can attend to a more inclusive understanding of knowledge in higher education.