Investigating the productive uses of uncertainty in knowledge co‐creation practices.

This poster presents results from an ongoing exploratory research study, which uses a participant observation methodology to investigate the productive uses of uncertainty in fostering knowledge emergence. Recent research suggests that introducing uncertainty can be a productive resource to facilitate the emergence of knowledge in co‐creation practices. While recognizing productive traits to uncertainty is not new in information science, how uncertainty can be deliberately introduced, as a productive resource, remains generally unnoticed. This study extends previous research in this area by further detailing the use of uncertainty and by constituting a foray into investigating information practices in collective knowledge creation environments. Findings suggest that introducing uncertainty aims at inducing a state of unknowability to erode certainty, disrupt entrained thinking and processual constraints, and decompartmentalize disciplinary boundaries that inhibit knowledge emergence. The experiences of relational engagement, joint advantage and mutual transformation arose as conditions conducive to using uncertainty for knowledge emergence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]