The need to develop competences for navigating epistemological complexity and plurality is one that has remained overlooked within Euro-Western academy. Yet this epistemic task is recognized as a daily practice of lived experience among the majority of non-Westerners and Indigenous Peoples who are themselves educated in modern western science (Reano 2020; Nakata 2007; Yunkaporta 2019; Durie 2004). The eminent Maori scientist Sir Mason Durie refers to this invisible and unrecognized epistemic labour as an ‘interface approach’ (2004, 2005), in recognition of Martin Nakata’s theorization of the Cultural Interface (1997, 2002, 2007, 2010) as the metaphorical space where the paradigms and practices of the Euro-Western knowledge system interface with Indigenous and other non-Western ways of knowing, being, and doing. As Durie says:
In practice, however, it is not unusual for scientists or indigenous peoples to live comfortably with the contradictions of different bodies of knowledge. Many scientists subscribe to religious beliefs that cannot be explained by science, and many indigenous people use scientific principles and methods in everyday life while at the same time holding fast to indigenous values. Rather than contesting relative validities, there are an increasing number of indigenous researchers who use the interface between science and indigenous knowledge as a source of inventiveness. They have access to both systems and use the insights and methods of one to enhance the other. In this approach, the focus shifts from proving the superiority of one system over another to identifying opportunities for combining both. (Durie 2004:1140)
Durie’s interface approach is well suited to provide an intellectual foundation for conceptualizing interfaces designed to accommodate a plurality of knowledges without privileging any one knowledge tradition over another. Scientists at the Indian Space Research Organization are well known exemplars of this ability to “live comfortably with the contradictions” of incommensurability of cosmologies – before each launch, they take scale models of the shuttle or rocketship to Tirupati’s venerated Tirumalai temple for priestly prayers and blessings for the success of their space research missions. Being highly qualified and accomplished rocket scientists in no way conflicts with their spiritual beliefs.
Innovation and design has long recognized the value of diversity as an engine for enhancing creative outcomes. However, until now, we confined the definitions of diversity to components of our knowledge traditions such as our worldviews, cultures, disciplines and domain expertise, not the entire knowledge system. Durie recognizes the complexity of epistemological plurality for the majority world, and his articulation of ‘working at the interface’ between knowledge systems respects Indigenous and other non-Western epistemologies and cosmologies without subsuming them to the demands of the Euro-Western academy (Durie 2005). This boundary-transgressing yet epistemically-inclusive approach to innovation:
… aims to harness the energy from two systems of understanding in order to create new knowledge that can then be used to advance understanding in two worlds…. ultimately the outcomes of new knowledge are most often measured by gains in economic growth, environmental sustainability, social wellbeing, and cultural integrity. (Durie 2005:306).
However, it is not enough for those of us who operate from birth at the interface to intuitively know how to navigate the incommensurable cosmologies of our temples and our rocketships. Working with epistemological complexity and plurality is a necessary competence for any kind of knowledge-intensive creative collaboration. If it has not yet been recognized as a requirement, this may only be due to the dominant epistemological paradigms of the academy (Kuokkanen 2007; Klein 2023).
