ABSTRACT
What are shared webs of meaning and why should we try to create them? The notion that intellectual ‘expert’ knowledge is the preserve of those with secondary and tertiary education has been challenged by writers such as Gramsci, Paulo Freire, Polanyi, Orlando Fals-Borda, and Robert Chambers (Fals-Borda and Rahman, 1991:127). The ‘lived experiences’ and ‘personal knowledge’ of people who are so-called ‘poor,’ ‘uneducated’ in a formal sense and in need of ‘development’ by so-called ‘experts’ from ‘educated’ sectors of societies has been called into question. If we can learn from ‘the other’ and establish two-way learning then we can start to create shared meanings.
