On February 23, 2021, SPARC has announced its partnership with the Knowledge Equity Lab for the sake of launching a new weekly podcast: Unsettling Knowledge Inequities. It explores topics surrounding knowledge production, its circulation dynamics and its shaping factors.

The opening 5-episode season of the podcast features discussions with scholarly knowledge stakeholders from around the world, such as Nigeria, Peru, Canada and the United States. Given that existing systems of knowledge generation and dissemination have various degrees of equity and inclusiveness, that has invited this podcast-format exploration of the issues that the global politics and power interrelations behind scientific knowledge involve.

The inaugural episode of the podcast, produced by Safa Shahkhalili from the Rethinking Development studio, is titled ‘Knowledge by Whom? Knowledge for Whom?' In the discussion in this episode, hosted by Safa Shahkhalili, which was conducted among Leslie Chan, from the Knowledge Equity Lab and the University of Toronto, Scarborough, Canada, Nick Shockey, the Director of Programs and Engagement at SPARC, United States, Kanishka Sikri, a student activist from the University of Toronto, Scarborough, Blessing Timidi Digha, a community based researcher from the University of Toronto, and Denisse Albornoz, a Research Director for the non-governmental organization Hiperderecho, Ecuador, the topic of knowledge equity was handled in relation to its multicultural contexts, hierarchical structures and underlying infrastructures.

Featured Image Credits:

Toronto Reference Library, Toronto, ON, Canada, May 27, 2015 | © Courtesy of Open Grid Scheduler / Grid Engine/Flickr.