The Knowledge Creation Spectrum

Abstract

The chapter proposes that there is a spectrum between knowledge construction and discovery, and asks what the present interest in practice-based research reveals about contemporary approaches to knowledge creation. Conceptualising knowledge creation methods as a spectrum has the effect of deterritorializing the field of power and authorising minority communities to legitimise methods that are locally meaningful. It also moderates the authority of traditional academic gatekeepers to act outside their field of expertise. As a result, the chapter concludes that artistic research, in common with all research fields, does not need to legitimise its activities using alien criteria but instead needs to demonstrate that not only is its own community is satisfied, but also that producers elsewhere on the spectrum can be satisfied by it too.