Epistemologies drive presumptions about the “relationship between the researcher and the system/object of study and modeling of system processes” (MacMynowski 2007). They shape how researchers answer questions regarding the validity of knowledge (qualitative vs. quantitative, etc.), the legitimacy of methods to produce knowledge (experimentation, induction, hypothesis testing, etc.), and the assumptions inherent in particular conceptualizations of the object of study and certain methodologies.

We focus on epistemological pluralism and an iterative process of negotiating values, epistemologies, and knowledge using resilience theory’s adaptive cycle as a conceptual framework.

we demonstrate how well-intentioned efforts toward interdisciplinary research have served to privilege one epistemology over another in question formulation and research, and how a reorganization based on epistemological pluralism might lead to the production of more fully integrated knowledge.

A given scientific community does not just want knowledge, but knowledge about a particular set of things. Such cognitive aims are not decided upon by the individual; rather, they are negotiated within a set of unquestioned social institutions (rules) that are underpinned with ideological perspectives, such as a discipline.