Abstract:
It is so clear that many of our researches depend on others’ concepts and
knowledge. It is the influence of scientific positivism into our research, as we
always try to frame the research within a conceptualized frame developed from
others’ knowledge addressed in literature. There is no argument that others’
knowledge is essential to be a good academic and scientific scholar, as the quality
of our research is inevitably be judged in relation to other researchers’ and
scientists’ work. But it is timely to re-think the extent to which such knowledge
and concepts, particularly designed based on the literature, are relevant and
applicable to different social and cultural structures. It is also timely to re-think
whether we are ready to rely any further on such literature-based knowledge
which could be or could not always be practicable and applied. On the other
hand, is there any possibility of applying the concept of universalism emphasized
by the scientific positivism to every society and culture neglecting their
diversity? If so, have we so far thought of designing our own concepts or
developing our own methodology to understand any of the knowledge belonging
to us? It is correct to mention here that it is very rare in our literature of
generating our own set of indigenous knowledge or suggesting an approach to
generate such knowledge. Therefore, the objective of this plenary speech is to
emphasize a research approach as one of the essential methodological
approaches to generate knowledge for any given society or culture.
Methodologically, this is a conceptual paper that emphasizes an approach to
generate concepts or knowledge particularly by applying signs, objects and
concepts as the instruments to generate knowledge. As the outcome, the practice
of this approach by the scientists and researchers to conceptualize knowledge
from ground level is expected.
