KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION CONTEST BETWEEN NATURAL AND SOCIAL SCIENTISTS WITH REGARDS TO LAND DEGRADATION ASSESSMENT

Abstract

The paper interrogates the adequacy of natural scientific knowledge in the assessment of land degradation. On the one hand, it is argued that land is a biophysical resource; hence its degradation could be studied by only the natural scientists. On the other hand, the social scientists posited that land and its degradation could not be studied outside the cultural, historical and social context of the primary land users. Furthermore, the social scientists contend that knowledge production by natural science has been affected by political power, epistemological stances as well as insiders’ or outsiders’ culture and gender. Hence, natural scientific knowledge cannot be value free. Therefore, the continuous assessment of land degradation by only the natural scientists borders on social injustice in which there is the use of singular instead of plural perspective. The natural and social scientists discourse is elaborated on by the epistemologies of post-positivists and constructionists respectively. The paper concludes that although it is necessary to use natural scientific knowledge to assess land degradation, challenges posed by power relations, local knowledge as well as culture and gender make natural scientific knowledge insufficient for the purpose. Hence, the assessment of land degradation by natural scientific knowledge could be made good by incorporating social scientific knowledge.