ABSTRACT
Since research is a systematic process of developing our knowledge of the world and our relationship to it, ideas about knowledge are fundamental to an understanding of its nature. Academic research is carried out according to conventions defining what counts as knowledge, what counts as an appropriate method for looking and what counts as evidence. But this, as we are now aware, is by no means a static process. Ideas about knowledge have been changing alongside ideas about rules and methods. There is now a widely held view that knowledge is in crisis (see, for example, Barnett and Griffin 1997). The ownership and creation of knowledge have become contested. In undertaking research in any academic context nowadays we have to negotiate our way through this space. We have to find new ways through and out of it.
