Contrasting Scientific Knowledge With Knowledge From the Lifeworld: The Dialogic Inclusion Contract

Abstract

The Dialogic Inclusion Contract (DIC) consists in an agreement between the scientific community and social agents to define successful actions aimed at overcoming social exclusion in highly underprivileged areas. Taking the case of a Spanish neighborhood that is generating important transformations, this article explores the process of defining these successful actions by the means of contrasting the scientific community knowledge and the one arising from the experiences of the people living and working in that particular neighborhood. The contrast is analyzed through three principles that are part of the Critical Communicative Methodology (CCM): communicative rationality, elimination of the interpretative hierarchy, and considering people as transformative social agents.