voi Cesinterests. inevitably, or so the critique goes, it will be biased, as in the second definition
of ‘partial’. at the very least, as in the third definition, the researchers will be personally
fond of the participants or have a personal preference for the ideas and artefacts
produced in the research – and so, as the word ‘fond’ implies, cannot be impersonal.
This critique relies on a mistaken conflation of dispassionate, impersonal research with
the production of unbiased, rigorous knowledge in which others can have confidence,
can trust, and can then find useful and relevant in their own contexts. The issue of
trustworthy knowledge is discussed below.
The critique may appear to be common sense, but these are complex epistemological
and ethical issues and, as i shall show, the critique is misplaced. The ways in which the
self is involved in arts- based, practice- based research does not take away from its rigour
or relevance. in the rest of this section i take each definition in turn.
Generalizability and transferabilityThe models of physical and biological sciences have been hugely influential on other
areas of human knowledge, to the extent that in some quarters, only research which
could apply to anybody, anywhere is thought to be valid and valuable. however this is
a mistake. There are two serious problems with it which are related to (1) the issue of
the scope of knowledge and (2) the issue of how far generalizability is significant in any
particular research project.
The first problem arises because models influenced by the physical and biological
sciences tend to confuse the generalizability of knowledge with its scope. To put this
another way, there is a tendency to ignore the question, ‘how general is generalizable?’
For knowledge to be generalizable it needs to be universally applicable but only across
a defined field, as onora o’neill convincingly shows (1996). This field must be
delineated in terms of its scope in place and time. To put this another way, it is always
necessary to address the question, ‘across what field is the knowledge applicable?’
There is knowledge that might be universally applicable globally, but there is also
knowledge that is universally applicable not globally but locally, nationally or across
a continent or throughout a culture. it may be applicable this year, or this century, or
for all human time. Clearly there are differences between the sciences such as physics
and chemistry, and the humanities (including arts- based research) and social sciences
(including practice- based research) with regard to the scope of knowledge. Within the
humanities and social sciences very little worthwhile knowledge would have the scope
of the sciences.
The second problem with generalizability arises because these models assume a view
of what it is for knowledge to be relevant beyond the context in which it was first
articulated. it assumes that knowledge must be generalizable before it can be widely
relevant or useful. This is mistaken. When the purposes of knowledge are considered,
the nature of the mistake becomes clear. in the sciences the goal is to discover facts,
propositions and laws and explanations for them. But much knowledge is not of this
kind or for this purpose. The humanities and social sciences have a much wider set of
possible purposes. Beyond facts and theories, they are also interested in practices and
skills. They want to provide ways of understanding current contexts and to provide
insights, fresh ways of perceiving and acting in the world and to foster wisdom.