To ‘be’ the rat: The epistemic potential of the imagination in ecological research
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2026-01-23
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en
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In this thesis I explore the epistemic potential of the imagination in ecological inquiries. By drawing on ethnographic data from an ecological experiment on urban rats in collaboration with high school students, I explore if, when and how the imagination might contribute to the production of scientific knowledge. This epistemic potential of the imagination is considered from both a positivistic and posthuman approach to science, offering various perspectives and theoretical frameworks from which we might approach the topic. My findings suggest that the epistemic potential of the imagination greatly depends on ontological-theoretical conceptualizations dominating a scientific field. Subsequently, I argue that a positivist framework considers the epistemic potential of the imagination within frameworks of modern dichotomies such as reality/fantasy and subjectivity/objectivity, limiting the potential to the degree it is ‘reality-based’. Meanwhile, the rejection of such dichotomies in posthumanism enables the imagination to break out of such constrains, assigning epistemic potential to encompass all of the imagined. In addition, these conclusions lead to some fundamental questions about the pursuit of modern, scientific knowledge.
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Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen