Optional theme
Knowledge and politics
How political arrangements decide which knowledge is produced, funded, taught and believed, and how claims to knowledge are used to justify the exercise of power.
IA prompts that fit this theme
The wording is the guide’s, exactly. A student who changes a word of it loses marks, so quote it as it stands.
- IA prompt 07What are the implications of having, or not having, knowledge?Who is kept from knowing, and who benefits from that, is a political arrangement rather than an accident.
- IA prompt 14Does some knowledge belong only to particular communities of knowers?Claims about which community knowledge belongs to are contested politically as much as epistemically.
- IA prompt 15What constraints are there on the pursuit of knowledge?Funding, permission and prohibition are the real constraints on enquiry, and all three are political.
- IA prompt 22What role do experts play in influencing our consumption or acquisition of knowledge?Who is certified as an expert, and who is granted a platform, is politically decided.
- IA prompt 29Who owns knowledge?Ownership of knowledge is enforced by law, which makes this a question about the state.
A school selects two of the five optional themes alongside the core theme. All six themes.