
Issue of the KM4D Journal marks the 25th anniversary of KM4Dev – 25 years together
I’m really happy to let you know that the latest issue of the Knowledge Management for Development (KM4D) Journal has just been published. It is the second issue in volume 18, representing the 20th year of publication, and the 42nd issue being published.
This is a non-thematic issue, covering a wide range of themes relevant to the field of KM4D and KM4Dev. These include transdisciplinary practice in the USA and Brazil, communities of practice, an overview of KM4dev’s multiple activities in 2024, and a poem. There is also a full text download.
Please spread to your colleagues and networks. Many thanks to all authors and peer reviewers for this issue. We will be promoting the individual contributions in the coming days and weeks.
Editorial 1-3
Poetry and creative writing
Echoes of knowledge (Mabel Shu) 4-6
Papers
Transdisciplinarity as strategy: lessons from the Maine aquaculture industry, USA (Katrina Pugh, Teresa Johnson, Linda Silka, Nancy Dixon) 7-29
An analytical framework for examining communities of practice in water management: a reflection on what they do and contribute to? (Laurent Charles Tremblay Levesque, Jeroen Warner, Jaime Hoogesteger, Gergana Majercakova and Nicolas Jarraud) 30-64
Confluence of knowledge: cyclical steps for transdisciplinary research in practice, Brazil (Gabriela De La Rosa) 65-82
Community Note
The state of the Knowledge Management for Development (KM4Dev) community in 2024 (Sarah Cummings, Toni Sittoni, Bruce Boyes, Paul Atsu, Rocio Sanz, Denise Senmartin, Gladys Kemboi, Fitsum Habtemarium, Chris Zielinski) 83-93
Full text download
The poem
The first contribution in this issue is the poem ‘Echoes of Knowledge’ (Mabel Shu) which is the third poem that we have published in this journal. This reflects the journal team’s and the KM4Dev community’s recognition of the importance of multiple knowledges. Mabel also touches on many key themes, such as the importance of knowledge sharing, power, capacity building, epistemic justice and co-creation. In a creative way, it raises questions about knowledge management and different perspectives on it.
Papers
The second contribution is the first of the three papers, ‘Transdisciplinarity as strategy: lessons from the Maine aquaculture industry, USA’ (Katrina Pugh, Teresa Johnson, Linda Silka and Nancy Dixon), which examines the role of the Core Group of the Maine Aquaculture Hub, an organization established to develop aquaculture in Maine, USA. It is unusual for this journal to include a paper from research in the USA but we have included it in this case because it is very relevant to transdisciplinary practice, something very much aligned with the fifth and six generations in the generational framework of knowledge management proposed by KM4Dev (Boyes et al, 2023), and it provides a very useful example of interaction within communities of practice which have a global relevance. In particular, the methodology of conversation analysis and strategic thinking provides useful pointers on how KM4Dev itself can analyse and improve its own conversational interactions in both its knowledge cafes and its online discussion forum.
In the next paper ‘An analytical framework for examining communities of practice in water management: a reflection on what they do and contribute to?’ (Laurent-Charles Tremblay Lévesque, Jeroen Warner, Jaime Hoogesteger, Gergana Majercakova and Nicolas Jarraud), the authors develop an analytical framework to understand better what water-related communities of practice do and what they contribute. The framework was co-developed, drawing from the experience of over 50 experts in communities of practice for water and environmental management. The research aims to assist coordinators of communities of practice to make more informed decisions about the design and maintenance of their water-related communities.However, the framework and approach is relevant to communities and other sectors.
The third paper, ‘Confluence of knowledge: cyclical steps for transdisciplinary research in practice, Brazil’ (Gabriela De La Rosa) shares insights from a transdisciplinary process co-developed with a fishing community and an academic research team in Brazil. It discusses steps for taking transdisciplinary research into practice, while also offering critical perspectives. By reflecting on these steps, the author aims to support researchers who involve multiple stakeholders and multiple knowledges to better understand the responsibilities and practical demands involved in converging different types of knowledges.
A review of KM4Dev in 2024
The final contribution in this issue is a Community Note ‘The state of the Knowledge Management for Development (KM4Dev) community in 2024’ (Sarah Cummings, Toni Sittoni, Bruce Boyes, Paul Atsu, Rocio Sanz, Denise Senmartin, Gladys Kemboi, Fitsum Habtemariam, and Chris Zielinski). Written by members of the KM4Dev core group, it reviews, for the first time, the annual activities of KM4Dev, taking the year 2024. It starts with the top ten KM4dev buzzwords in 2024. Next, it review KM4Dev’s known impact on sustainable development, focusing on the advocacy campaign to successfully influence the text of the UN’s Pact of the Future (UN, 2024). Next, it provides an overview of KM4Dev’s core activities: interactive platforms, knowledge cafes, the Youth Leadership Forum, the KM4Dev-SIKM peer mentoring programme, and the Knowledge Management for Development Journal. In the next section, it describes the people who have played a formal role in the community as members of the core group, celebrating the awards and academic achievements of KM4Dev’smembers. Next, it highlights some important activities: the face-to-face meeting which took place in Cape Town, South Africa in January, the support to the development of the fourth, forthcoming edition of the ‘Agenda Knowledge for Development’, new developments around the KM4Dev ‘Knowledge Sharing toolkit’, and some key events in the knowledge management and KM4Dev calendar. Finally, plans to celebrate the 25th anniversary of KM4Dev in 2025 in the ’25 years together’ campaign are briefly presented.
Dr Sarah Cummings, Editor-in-Chief, and the other members of the KM4D Journal team.