Multiple temporalities of knowing in academic research

2015 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-176 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Smith

Based on ethnographic research at five Czech universities from 2011 to 2013, this article explores how academics make sense of and claims to three qualitatively distinct temporal regimes in which their activities as knowledge producers are inscribed: disciplinary time, career time and project time. This conceptual framework, a modification of Shinn’s distinction between disciplinary, transitory and transversal knowledge-production regimes, seeks to replace images of competition and succession between regimes with images of their recombination and intersection. It enables an interpretation of the empirical findings beyond the indigenous complaint that excessive speed is compromising the quality of knowledge production. The relationship between projects, careers and disciplines emerges from the study as problematic rather than synergistic. In this respect the paper does not contradict the claim by critical theorists that we are witnessing the disintegration of what used to be a functional relationship between the multiple temporalities of academic knowledge production based on standardized career scripts, nor the related claim that this may reflect a deeper crisis of modernity as a predictive regime for the production of futures. It proposes, however, that transversal projects can still be mediators of ‘disciplinary respiration’ insofar as their timeframes are available for variable calibration commensurate with the increasingly heteronomous ways of knowing and knowledge routines that academic researchers practise.

2011 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann Light ◽  
Paul Egglestone ◽  
Tom Wakeford ◽  
Jon Rogers

Too often in social research for design, academic knowledge is privileged at the expense of other knowledge and ways of knowing, although by overlooking insights from other participants this academic meaning-making may be wasteful and/or damaging to relations. In this paper, we describe a project that focuses on establishing academic/community relations to look at how knowledge issues are handled in setting up participative projects. We touch on the ethics of the ‘informed consent’ required for the ethics approval process and that of generating and sharing project outcomes in a way that reflects team membership, considering how to share credit, encourage diverse opinion and ensure some value in participating for all participants. Since a key outcome of the study is intended to be policy recommendations as to how to involve community groups in research projects, we take a highly reflexive approach. We reflect here on how we, as academic researchers, became participants and what we made available to our partners in research to do the same.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah E. Knowles ◽  
Dawn Allen ◽  
Ailsa Donnelly ◽  
Jackie Flynn ◽  
Kay Gallacher ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Knowledge mobilisation requires the effective elicitation and blending of different types of knowledge or ways of knowing, to produce hybrid knowledge outputs that are valuable to both knowledge producers (researchers) and knowledge users (health care stakeholders). Patients and service users are a neglected user group, and there is a need for transparent reporting and critical review of methods used to co-produce knowledge with patients. This study aimed to explore the potential of participatory codesign methods as a mechanism of supporting knowledge sharing, and to evaluate this from the perspective of both researchers and patients. Methods A knowledge mobilisation research project using participatory codesign workshops to explore patient involvement in using health data to improve services. To evaluate involvement in the project, multiple qualitative data sources were collected throughout, including a survey informed by the Generic Learning Outcomes framework, an evaluation focus group, and field notes. Analysis was a collective dialogic reflection on project processes and impacts, including comparing and contrasting the key issues from the researcher and contributor perspectives. Results Authentic involvement was seen as the result of “space to talk” and “space to change”. "Space to talk" refers to creating space for shared dialogue, including space for tension and disagreement, and recognising contributor and researcher expertise as equally valuable to the discussion. ‘Space to change’ refers to space to adapt in response to contributor feedback. These were partly facilitated by the use of codesign methods which emphasise visual and iterative working, but contributors emphasised that relational openness was more crucial, and that this needed to apply to the study overall (specifically, how contributors were reimbursed as a demonstration of how their input was valued) to build trust, not just to processes within the workshops. Conclusions Specific methods used within involvement are only one component of effective involvement practice. The relationship between researcher and contributors, and particularly researcher willingness to change their approach in response to feedback, were considered most important by contributors. Productive tension was emphasised as a key mechanism in leading to genuinely hybrid outputs that combined contributor insight and experience with academic knowledge and understanding.


2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph P. Gone

Within the domain of academic inquiry by Indigenous scholars, it is increasingly common to encounter enthusiasm surrounding Indigenous Research Methodologies (IRMs). IRMs are designated approaches and procedures for conducting research that are said to reflect long-subjugated Indigenous epistemologies (or ways of knowing). A common claim within this nascent movement is that IRMs express logics that are unique and distinctive from academic knowledge production in “Western” university settings, and that IRMs can result in innovative contributions to knowledge if and when they are appreciated in their own right and on their own terms. The purpose of this article is to stimulate exchange and dialogue about the present and future prospects of IRMs relative to university-based academic knowledge production. To that end, I enter a critical voice to an ongoing conversation about these matters that is still taking shape within Indigenous studies circles.


Author(s):  
Dave Ayre

This chapter assesses the history of the relationship between public and private sectors and the extent to which the political and regulatory environment of governments and institutions such as the European Union (EU) can help or hinder the efforts of public bodies in seeking to deliver services that determine the health and quality of life for communities. The relationship of public and private sectors in the United Kingdom (UK) and the commissioning, procurement, and development of public–private partnerships is driven by the prevailing political and economic environment. However, rigorous academic research on the benefits of partnering to organisations, societies and between countries is limited. Evidence is needed to fill the policy vacuum. A bolder approach is necessary to work with public and private sectors to develop and implement successful partnering alternatives to the outsourcing of public services. The growing catalogue of outsourcing failures in construction, probation, rail franchising, health, and social care is creating an appetite for change, and the exit of the UK from the EU provides the opportunity.


2020 ◽  
Vol 177 (1) ◽  
pp. 165-175 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan McKee

Thirty experts in the assessment of the quality of Non-Traditional Research Outputs (NTROs) as academic research outputs were asked to rate the importance of 19 criteria that might be used in making these judgements. Analysis of responses identified four criteria where there is substantial agreement among the community of experts: (a) demonstrated familiarity in the research statement with the current state of knowledge in the relevant academic disciplines (very important); (b) demonstrated familiarity in the research statement with the current state of knowledge in the relevant industry (important); (c) evidence that the work has been engaged with by other academic researchers (relevant); (d) whether the NTRO creator is a substantive university staff member or an adjunct/honorary (unimportant). Fifteen other criteria either reached a less than ‘fair’ level of agreement, or larger numbers of respondents nominated ‘It depends’. Qualitative analysis of comments also revealed noteworthy disagreements in the expert community about how the criteria should be applied.


2015 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Denis Harrington ◽  
Jeremy C. Short ◽  
Briga Hynes

Abstract Oscar Wilde once quipped, ‘Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.’ Whilst business scholars have challenged this premise, debate rages concerning what elements are most worth knowing. Specifically, the value of rigorous academic research is often weighed against the merits of specific student experiences that may have more immediate value in the marketplace. Within this changed context, academics are challenged to embrace collaborative forms of research activity and re-imagine the nature of the academic-practitioner exchange and accompanying knowledge transfer. We explore this changing role of the business school with an eye towards outlining potential bridges between academic knowledge and benefits of interactions with practice. Specifically, we consider the academic-practitioner interface in the context of the wider debate on ‘rigour and relevance’ in management education and research. Participatory modes of knowledge production are discussed, and current ideas on the ‘management practice’ gap are discussed. We conclude that more innovative forms of research engagement are required to encourage academic-practitioner collaboration. To that end, we discuss a number of potential approaches to help foster co-learning and discovery and debate their student, educator and broader instructional implications.


2022 ◽  
Vol 98 (1) ◽  
pp. 125-143
Author(s):  
Jan Wilkens ◽  
Alvine R C Datchoua-Tirvaudey

Abstract This article addresses the broader question of the special issue by reflecting on the coloniality of knowledge production in a context of global climate governance. Drawing on the rationale of the special issue, we highlight key dynamics in which knowledge shape climate policies and propose a decolonial approach at the nexus of academic knowledge production and policy formation by accounting for diverse ways of knowing climate justice. To this end, the article asks how to develop a decolonial approach to researching climate justice in order to identify the meaning-in-use of climate justice by affected people in what we describe as sensitive regions of the Arctic and the Mediterranean. To this end, the article develops a research design that accounts for diverse ways of knowing. The article proceeds as follows: first, we will discuss how diverse ways of knowing are related to global climate governance and climate justice; second, we outline our practice-based research framework that addresses research ethics, decolonial approaches and norm contestation; and third, we discuss how our approach can inform not only the co-production of research in climate governance, but also current debates on climate justice.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
Author(s):  
Galina Kallio ◽  
Eeva Houtbeckers

We have seen an emergence of transformative food studies as part of sustainability transitions. While some scholars have successfully opened up their experiences of pursuing transformation through scholar-activism, assumptions underlying researchers' choices and how scholars orient to and go about their work often remain implicit. In this article, we bring forth a practice theoretical understanding of knowledge production and advocate that researchers turn to examining their own research practice. We ask how to make our own academic knowledge production/research practice more explicit, and why it is important to do so in the context of transformative food studies. To help scholars to reflect on their own research practice, we mobilize the framework of practical activity (FPA). We draw on our own experiences in academia and use our ethnographic studies on self-reliant food production and procurement to illustrate academic knowledge production. Thus, this article provides conceptual and methodological tools for reflection on academic research practice and knowledge production. We argue that it is important for researchers to turn to and improve their own academic practice because it advances academic knowledge production in the domain of transformative food studies and beyond. While we position ourselves within the qualitative research tradition, we believe that the insights of this article can be applied more broadly in different research fields and across various methodological approaches.


2017 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 157-176 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nuria Rodríguez-López ◽  
M. Eva Diz-Comesaña ◽  
Adrián E. Coronado Mondragón

Abstract The analysis of interorganizational relationships continues to attract academic research because of the influence that management of supply chain relationships has in business competitiveness. However, there are almost no studies about this decision in the mineral products industry. The purpose of this study is to investigate customer-supplier relationships in the non-metallic mineral products mining and manufacturing industry in order to determine what relational forms enable achieving better business competitiveness and higher quality relationships. To carry out this research, we propose a cohesive model comprising variables to characterize the transactions, the forms of governance and both economic and relational results. The paper is based on a transactional framework; thus, the adoption of one or another form of governance is addressed through the length of the relationship, the transmission of information and the dependencies between the agents. As for the outcome, the quality of the relationship is highlighted because of its importance in business competitiveness. The relational quality is understood as the stability of the relationship or the importance given by the buyer to maintaining the relationship or relational commitment.The hypotheses generated are contrasted by a structural equation model in a sample of 293 Spanish companies. The results confirm the importance of past relationships and integrated forms to get better results. In this sense, managers should encourage trust and dependencies because they positively affect performance. Trust and dependencies determine the choice of a vertical form of governance, and these factors, along with information, intervene in the quality of business relationships. Thus, it is possible to say that forms of governance do have effects on the interrelations between the characteristics of the transactions and the business performance.


2010 ◽  
pp. 54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert J. Topinka

Arguably the most famous heterotopia that appears in Foucault’s work is the Chinese encyclopedia, which originates in the fiction of Jorge Luis Borges. Drawing on this citation of Borges, this article examines Foucault’s notion of the heterotopia as it relates to order and knowledge production. Frequently, heterotopias are understood as sites of resistance. This article argues that shifting the focus from resistance to order and knowledge production reveals how heterotopias make the spatiality of order legible. By juxtaposing and combining many spaces in one site, heterotopias problematize received knowledge by destabilizing the ground on which knowledge is built. Yet heterotopias always remain connected to the dominant order; thus as heterotopias clash with dominant orders, they simultaneously produce new ways of knowing. This article first explores the tensions between Foucault’s two definitions of heterotopias before connecting these definitions to Foucault’s distinctly spatial understanding of knowledge as emerging from a clash of forces. Finally, the paper ends by returning to the relationship between Foucault, Borges, and heterotopias.


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