Collaborative Knowledge Production Research Articles

Transformative Praxis With Incarcerated Women: Collaboration, Leadership, and Voice

The ever-widening net of racialized and colonial carceral spaces and neoliberal strategies of control of poor and marginalized communities means that social workers are often in positions of complicity with or resistance to (or both) the norms and practices of the carceral state. Feminist praxis can both challenge and inadvertently sustain the prison industrial complex and its harms. Approaches that even tacitly accept some of the basic premises and discourses of correctional frameworks risk being co-opted and transmuted into racialized and colonial control practices. In this article, I use the example of Walls to Bridges Canada, a social justice iteration of the U.S.-based Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program, to illustrate the power and significance of feminist praxis that privileges the epistemic vantage point of those who are incarcerated. This article will examine how collaborative work with criminalized and incarcerated women (in classrooms, research studies, and community work) moves beyond “giving voice,” to promoting leadership by those with lived experience and shared collaborative knowledge production.

Public art, sexuality, and critical pedagogy

ABSTRACT This paper establishes a novel niche by providing an original critical synthesis of the potentials and challenges of using public art to teach about, and “que(e)ry”, sexuality, gender and space. The argument vouches for a critical pedagogy that pursues a visual politics for experiential and potentially transformative learning about processes of social inclusion and exclusion, marginalization, and empowerment. It draws from vignettes of first-hand pedagogical methods in class (in the form of collaborative class debates coordinated through creative educative content including an infographic and educational film) and in the field (in the form of a guided walking tour abroad). The vignettes illustrate how a critical pedagogy aims to instigate “awakenings” and deconstructions of norms (e.g. heteronormativity) and privileged positionalities (e.g. cisgendered, white (gay) male). The analysis indicates multi-sited levels of praxes: critical reflections and critical actions that may stretch beyond the teaching space into “real-world” contexts. The paper demonstrates the value of putting personal experience central by interlocking research and teaching practices. It thereby shows the value of collaborative knowledge production for situated, nuanced understandings of self/culture. This study advocates further “first-person” investigation into the ensuing challenges of negotiating topic sensitivity and the disclosure of positionalities (of both educator and learner).

The public mission of universities in South Africa: community engagement and the teaching and researching roles of faculty members

Community engagement as a public mission of higher education is widely accepted in South Africa. This is articulated in White Paper 3 on the transformation of higher education and in institutional policies that promote different forms of community engagement. However, compared to the traditional roles of teaching and research, community engagement remains contested. It is most often viewed as voluntary and perhaps even peripheral. Given the serious social disparities in South Africa, community engagement needs to be invigorated and placed on par with the teaching and researching roles of universities. Furthermore, it should not only involve collaborative knowledge production, but should combine epistemological and ontological dimensions and involve holistic human development capable of dealing with social disparities A combined epistemological-ontological conception of community engagement is developed in this study and interventions are proposed at three levels. First, university induction programs, which tend to prioritize the teaching and researching roles of faculty members, should consider community engagement as equally important. Second, just as the teaching and researching roles tend to be well planned and/or incentivized, so too should community engagement. Third, community engagement should adopt a mode 2 knowledge production lens where community members reflexively produce knowledge together with faculty members and contribute to holistic human development. Finally, strategies are suggested to embed an epistemological-ontological conception of community engagement.

The Unfamiliar Grey Matter(s): Talking Brains

I’m interested in collaborations between artists and scientists, and how they generate new knowledge. In this discussion I will consider Visual Art Practice as Research. I’ll be speaking about my art practice, and in particular my exhibition entitled ‘Talking Brains’ at King’s College Cambridge in February 2018. In the article, I offer a brief discussion of the concepts of ‘artful inquiry’, and how this concept as a research model can be generative. I then go on to raise questions of personally situated knowledge production as a research strategy that crosses the disciplinary boundaries of art and science. I will consider how my exhibition - operating as a hosted space for display and conversation much like the 17th and 18th Century Salon - functions as an opportunity to engage in (thereby generating) dialogue between artists (me), scientists (neuroscience and other students at Cambridge), and educators (PGCE Art & Design teachers). Generating trans-disciplinary conversation on the brain, ways of seeing, and ways of being. I’ll conclude with reflections on how collaborative knowledge production generates multi-perspectives and thus unanticipated knowledge.

Risk frames and multiple ways of knowing: Coping with ambiguity in oil spill risk governance in the Norwegian Barents Sea

The opening of new areas for offshore drilling in the Arctic is highly controversial. As ice cover in the region is melting at an alarming rate, new areas have been opened for petroleum industry in the Norwegian Barents Sea. Our qualitative analysis examines risks related to the petroleum operations in the newly opened areas and provides insight into the complex and socially constructed nature of the risks. With the use of visual influence diagram- based mental modelling approach, we demonstrate the multiple ways in which the risks are understood and defined. We also analyse the type of knowledge that the risk frames are based on. The influence diagrams present the risk frames in a clear, visual, form. The study indicates that the existing governance framework fails to treat the ambiguity around oil spill risks: the current risk assessments and risk management do not reflect on the multiple ways in which the participants in this study 1) frame the problem situation, 2) how they identify different measures to manage risks, and 3) what are considered as key knowledge needs and knowledge producers by the participants. We suggest that social learning and collaborative knowledge production are needed to move towards developing shared understanding of the problem situation. Finally, we suggest that the rigorous examination and the unveiling of ambiguity may help developing deliberative risk governance measures and moving towards sustainability transformations.

Copyright law and the promotion of scientific networks: some reflections on the rules on co-authorship in the EU

In the digital era the co-creation of content by several authors has become easier in a number of ways. Networks, the symbol of today's information society, are reshaping and supporting our communication, education, creativity and professional development. Embracing the prospective of co-creators, this paper aims to provide a new insight into the on-going debate on the effectiveness of copyright rules in the European Union (EU). The focus lies on the scientific sector, which offers both empirical evidence of the co-production phenomenon and specific policy goals set by the EU legislator with regard to collaborative knowledge production. The analysis shows how the EU copyright framework neither includes a comprehensive body of harmonized rules on co-authorship nor displays prospective plans to do so, while the related national regulations present highly diverging approaches. The paper highlights how the impact of this regulatory inhomogeneity is increasingly at odds with the policy objective of a collaborative and high-profile European Research Area, thus calling for a more substantial harmonization under an inclusive definition of co-author and an enhanced valorization of joint endeavours in the networked system of production of knowledge.

Prototyp_ome. (Re)articular la biomedicina desde la investigación artística

<p>A lo largo de 2015 y 2017 ha tenido lugar Prototy_ome en Hangar. Un proyecto inter(in)disciplinar con formato de colaboratorio basado en la bio(info)tecnología Do it yourself [DIY] y Do it together [DIT]. En colaboración con Pechblenda Lab, el parque de Investigación Biomédica de Barcelona, DIYBioBcn, Faboratory y subvencionado por la Fundación Nina Caruso, Protoyp_ome ha reunido a artistas, científicas, (bio)hackers, makers, teóricas y diferentes colectivos sociales para re-visitar, re-pensar, co-diseñar y desarrollar procesos, herramientas y tecnologías de exploración biológica, especialmente aquellas relacionadas con la biomedicina. A partir de la premisa de la colaboración, Prototyp_ome ha reunido a un equipo híbrido, abarcando distintas competencias y saberes entorno a sus laboratorios, así como las comunidades que se generan en estos espacios comunes. La inter(in)disciplinariedad como condición de posibilidad de la producción colaborativa de conocimiento(s) ha abierto una grieta desde la que tomar como punto de partida la perspectiva de la usuaria, anteponiendo ésta a la articulación histórica, en términos de jerarquía, de las instituciones y disciplinas reconocidas como únicas generadoras de concimiento válido. En este proceso compartido, la investigación artística no sólo ha tenido un papel fundamental sino que ha posibilitado un trabajo donde la experimentación ha desplazado a los parámetros cuantitavos, configurando formas de contacto-experiencia desde las que re-pensar las relaciones que median los cuerpos, trabajando desde la coimplicación de materia y forma, generando procesos de constitución transversales que abren la posibilidad de articular, otros vínculos y otros modos de operar.</p>

Improving collaborative knowledge production for climate change mitigation: lessons from EU Horizon 2020 experiences

Scientific knowledge is key to climate mitigation governance. However, effective exchange between science and policy is challenging. Science-policy theory suggests collaboration, stakeholder participation and iterative communication as key principles for improving the science-policy interface. The Horizon 2020 project “Coordination and Assessment of Research and Innovation in Support of climate Mitigation Actions” (CARISMA) attempted to implement these principles. To help other projects learn from CARISMA’s experiences, this Guideline article critically discusses how the CARISMA project fared. CARISMA’s activities included stakeholder engagement through feedback loops, interviews with Advisory Board members, and an information platform. Experiences were discussed in a workshop with science-policy practitioners. Theory and workshop participants’ insights led to the identification of seven practical directions towards a more effective exchange between science and policy, aimed at policymakers, funding agencies and researchers: 1) Know the researcher’s role; 2) Work with policy dynamics; 3) Use alternative communication means; 4) Allow for flexibility in projects’ deliverables and milestones; 5) Be realistic about the possibility of stakeholder engagement; 6) Adjust funding criteria; 7) Invest in stable knowledge infrastructures.

Introduction: Visualizing Protest: Transnational Approaches to the Aesthetics of Dissent

In this issue of Ada: A Journal of Gender, New Media, and Technology, we invited contributors to engage with how protest is visualized, that is, rendered visual in the form of iconography and through social media, and imagined as a utopian project of feminist, queer, and anti-racist worldmaking. Inviting scholarship and creative engagements from the overlapping perspectives of feminist media studies, transnational feminist theory, critical race studies, visual studies, and postcolonial digital humanities, this special issue examines the aesthetics of feminist protests in terms of their networked circulations as well as their affective bonds and material contexts. Exploring the emerging modes of visibility, networked solidarity, and collaborative knowledge production, “Visualizing Protest: Transnational Approaches to the Aesthetics of Dissent” examines the relationships between the aesthetics of feminist transnational protest and digital revolt in a dynamic, polymedia context characterized by amateur remixing, instantaneous sharing, immaterial labour, corporate ownership of digital platforms, and institutionalized state surveillance of social media.

“On slippery ground” – beyond the innocence of collaborative knowledge production

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to discuss the ethical complexity and dilemmas, which arise in the co-production of knowledge between researchers and other participants.Design/methodology/approachThe starting point for the paper is a narrative from a conference the authors attended where the authors, as researchers, found themselves on slippery and emotionally charged ground. Using a critical, reflexive approach informed by post-structuralism, the ambition was to deconstruct gaps between rhetoric and practice and critique normative understandings of the nature of ethically sound co-production processes in collaborative research. More specifically, at the conference, the authors sought to expose and discuss the gap between the good intentions and the own practice as researchers in a collaborative research project at a major hospital. However, instead of reflexive discussions with the research community, the authors experienced that the conduct was criticized and categorized as unethical practice.FindingsInstead of omitting sensitive phenomena from the research process, the authors argue that it is an ethical imperative to investigate these phenomena in order to gain insight into what is at stake in dialogical, reflexive processes not only between researchers and research participants—but also between researchers in the research community. An awareness of the emergent nature of power relations in all processes of knowledge production may strengthen the practical validity of “co-produced” knowledge in action research.Originality/valueA poststructuralist perspective on collaborative research processes reveals normative expectations regarding ethical research practice and provides insight into the tensions in collaborative research that arise irrespective of the individual competence (or not) of the researcher.

Itis-Kombinatorik auf den Diskussionsseiten der Wikipedia: Ein Wortbildungsmuster zur diskursiven Normierung in der kollaborativen Wissenskonstruktion

AbstractThis paper presents a corpus study of talk pages on Wikipedia combining morphologic and discourse linguistics approaches. The study reveals that –itisis a highly productive suffix in meta(-linguistic) discourses of the online-encyclopaedia: Wikipedia authors using word formation products with the suffix –itis(e. g.NewstickeritisorWhatsAppitis) try to standardise the collaborative knowledge production with the help of these linguistic innovations. The corpus analysis delivers evidence for the fact that certain linguistic innovations and special types of word formation characterise the community of Wikipedia authors and their discourse traditions. Thereby, this paper contributes to the discussion about digital discourse analysis of natively digital data taking stock of the Wikipedia corpora in the German Reference Corpus (Deutsches Referenzkorpus). The peculiarities of Wikipedia's data will be explained, modes of analysis discussed and the challenges of the suggested integration of morphology and discourse linguistics will be explored.

The importance of collaborative networks in Canadian scientific research

This study investigates co-author and co-inventor collaborations using scientific articles and patents to measure collaborative knowledge production. This paper assesses how a scientist’s position within the joint co-publication and co-invention network affects its production and citation impact. Our findings reveal that number of publications is strongly associated with the scientists’ position in co-author/inventor networks and that a scientist’s technological production actually increases with collaboration in such networks. These academic relationships have a significant impact on the future number of publication citations and appear to benefit the number of patent citations in the same measure.

Navigating the safety implications of doing research and being researched in Kyrgyzstan: cooperation, networks and framing

ABSTRACTMuch security-related research conducted in Central Asia appears to disregard the nexus between the data gathered and participants’ and researchers’ experiences of safety during the research. This article explores the interconnectedness of these factors and their effects on the knowledge produced on security. It investigates the legal and institutional context researchers encounter when conducting research in Kyrgyzstan; namely, a state monopoly over knowledge on certain subject matters linked to political stability and security. Furthermore, drawing on the combined fieldwork experience of the authors, the article explores the roles of cooperation, networks and framing in navigating the security implications of doing research. To conclude, we suggest a long-term and collaborative production of knowledge on security in Central Asia to counter the prevailing modes of knowledge production which lean towards epistemically violent and politically provocative topics.

Transdisciplinary research as transformative space making for sustainability: enhancing propoor transformative agency in periurban contexts

In this paper we discuss how transdisciplinary development research (TDR), if approached in particular ways, can not only to produce new knowledge, but also foster deeper systemic changes in the knowledge system itself. We are concerned with systemic change that supports pro-poor sustainability transformations, and conceptualise the processes that contribute to this type of systemic change as 'transformative space making' (TSM). TDR as TSM can generate possibilities for the integration of diverse knowledges into decision making, whilst also creating new opportunities for subaltern knowledges to achieve greater influence, through enhancing the transformative agency of the poor. Thus, our conceptualization goes beyond the idea of TDR for the co-creation of solution-oriented knowledge, and recognizes the need to address structural injustices in knowledge systems. In TDR as TSM the development of strategies to reveal power relations and navigate the politics of structural injustices becomes as important as refining the principles for robust collaborative knowledge production. To demonstrate the operationalization of TDR as TSM, we draw insights from our long-term involvement in TDR case studies of emergent environmental and health challenges in peri-urban contexts in India. We identify mechanisms which build legitimacy of pro-poor knowledges, whilst simultaneously creating ‘readiness’ to take advantage of opportunities for interventions to support change in policy and practice at multiple scales. We highlight the politics of alliance building both within and beyond the research team; arguing that attention to alliances is central to understanding the role of TDR in creating possibilities for transformative change. Finally, we argue that development research funding and commissioning agencies should pay attention to the mechanisms of TSM, alongside more recognised aspects of the planning, monitoring and evaluation of TDR initiatives, in order to provide appropriate support for enhanced impact.

A critical reflexive perspective on othering in collaborative knowledge production

PurposeThe purpose of the paper is to show power mechanisms of in- and exclusion in moments where certain participants appeared to be othered in two collaborative research and development projects in a healthcare setting.Design/methodology/approachThe paper contributes to critical-reflexive analyses of reflexive processes within collaborative knowledge production. The authors use an analytical framework combining Bakhtin and Foucault to investigate processes of inclusion and exclusion in the interplay between dominant and subordinated voices in a moment-by-moment analysis of two incidents from interdisciplinary workshops.FindingsThe analysis illuminates how differences between voices challenge participants’ reflexive awareness and lead to the reproduction of contextual power and knowledge hierarchies and the concomitant silencing of particular participants. Thus, the findings draw attention to the complex and ethical nature of collaborative knowledge production.Practical implicationsTo invite researchers to be reflexive about the complex, situated and emergent character of reflexive processes and consider ethics to be a critical stance that encourages continuous reflection and critique of collaborative knowledge production.Originality/valueTo show the importance of not sweeping incidents in which participants are othered “under the carpet” in collaborative research. To present an analytical framework for analysing the contextual and emergent nature of collaborative research processes and discuss the ethical conundrums, which arise in the research process.

The Big Data Game : On the Ludic Constitution of the Collaborative Production of Knowledge in High-Energy Physics at CERN

This article looks at how games and play contribute to the big data-driven production of knowledge in High-Energy Physics, with aparticular focus on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), where the author has been conducting anthropological fieldwork since 2014. The ludic (playful) aspect of knowledge production is analyzed here in three different dimensions: the Symbolic, the Ontological, and the Epistemic. The first one points towards CERN as place where acosmological game of probability is played with the help of Monte-Carlo simulations. The second one can be seen in the agonistic infrastructures of competing experimental collaborations. The third dimension unfolds in ludic platforms, such as online Challenges and citizen science games, which contribute to the development of machine learning algorithms, whose function is necessary in order to process the huge amount of data gathered from experimental events. Following Clifford Geertz, CERN itself is characterized as asite of deep play, aconcept that contributes to understanding wider social and cultural orders through the analysis of ludic collective phenomena. The article also engages with Peter Galison's idea of the trading zone, proposing to comprehend it in the age of big data as aPlayground. Thus the author hopes to contribute to awider discussion in the historiographical and social study of science and technology, as well as in cultural anthropology, by recognizing the ludic in science as acentral element of understanding collaborative knowledge production.

Getting-to-know

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the sociocultural underpinnings of wiki-based knowledge production in the videogame domain, and to elucidate how these underpinnings relate to the formation of wikis as resources of videogame documentation.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is based on a three-month ethnographic investigation of knowledge practices on the Dark Souls Wiki (DSW). In focus of the analysis were the boundaries and knowledge aims of the DSW, together with how its contributors organized inquiries and used various sources, methods of investigation, and ways of warranting knowledge claims.FindingsThe principal result of the paper is an empirical account of how the DSW functions as a culture of knowledge production, and how the content and structure of the wiki connects to the knowledge practices of its contributors. Four major factors that influenced knowledge practices on the wiki were identified: the structures and practices established by the community’s earlier wiki efforts; principles and priorities that informed wiki knowledge practices; the characteristics of the videogame in focus of the site’s knowledge-building work; the extent and types of relevant documentation provided by videogame industry, the videogaming press included.Originality/valuePrevious research has shown interest in investigating the mechanisms by which community-created knowledge and online resources of documentation emerge, and how these are utilized in play. There is, however, little research seeking to elucidate the sociocultural structures and practices that determine and sustain collaborative online videogame knowledge production.

Doing digital team ethnography: being there together and digital social data

With the digital availability of social data helping reshape ethnographic research and thus broadening the mainstream understanding of ethnography, this research proposes a set of strategies to overcome current limitations in doing ethnography. Based on a two-year online and offline ethnographic project on social media use in later life, insights are provided into how the practices and meanings of ethnography are being reconstructed and negotiated in response to the explosion of digital social data and through team practices. This paper reviews how collaborative and interdisciplinary ethnographic reflection is sustained and extended by digital tools, creating a live source of data that can be analysed within the framework of ethnography. As a contribution to current debates on the ’Social Life of Methods’, it also reviews epistemic issues associated with digital data and team ethnography, such as the role of the ethnographer(s), the field(s) and computational data analysis. The article reaches the conclusion that digital team ethnography is a viable option for undertaking thick and descriptive studies about the use of social media, which in turn favours a collaborative, non-hierarchical and dialogue-driven knowledge production process.

ACADEMIC COLLABORATIONS IN THE AMERICAS: SOME REFLECTIONS ON THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF LEGAL KNOWLEDGE

The article proceeds in three parts. The first, the articles’ analytical heart, considers the political economy of legal knowledge. It describes briefly the free market of legal ideas and the colonial model for the production of legal knowledge. It illustrates how these two models work using examples from our “South-North Partnerships” (SNP), that is, our collaborative practices in the creation of legal thought as they play out in the legal academies of the global North and South. The second part is both descriptive and reflective, focusing on four different SNP examples that illustrate challenges in the creation of truly collaborative legal knowledge production processes. It identifies common challenges in these endeavors, from surmounting basic organizational issues such as language barriers to jostling with fundamentals like conflicting academic calendars. Most importantly, the second part indicates how the dynamics of the political economy of legal knowledge played out in the SNPs described. It also highlights possible ways to equalize these relationships and activities, with an end to creating SNPs focused on truly collaborative legal knowledge production. The third part offers conclusions and recommendations.

Women's Lives, Well-Being, and Community

This paper discusses a participatory arts-based research project undertaken with a refugee support organization in the United Kingdom, the Regional Refugee Forum North East (RRFNE), and a local women's group. The project used photography, storytelling, and walking methods to explore ways of seeing women's lived experiences, well-being, and sense of community in the context of their lives in the North East of England. Arts-based biographical methods, predominantly photo-walks, were undertaken within a participatory action research frame. Together the women cocreated a collective story that involved collaborative knowledge production as well as corporeal attunement and empathic witnessing through walking their stories of living in the North East of England.