The data won't collect itself?

Abstract

While recognizing the general fruitfulness of the concept of distributed scientific knowledge and the importance of the study of science from the point of view of epistemic (in)justice, we would like to present a number of doubts about the rationale for this synthesis. Of course, it is difficult to argue with the fact that the informant in ethnographic research can act as a co-author and at the same time as an object of research, “giving change”. Here we are obviously faced with a diversity of epistemic positions and the resulting distributed knowledge. The only question is to what extent this exotic example allows generalization within the framework of social cognition, not to mention the natural sciences and mathematics. Can we expect a special kind of mathematics or natural scientific generalizations from the natives? That they are willing to share the accumulated data about native nature, which they understand better than visiting white researchers, is beyond doubt, but is not this inferior function of the provider of scientific data rather a vestige of the colonial world-view?