The interpretive zone of knowledge production in international research collaboration

• In Event: Regional comparisons in higher education

Abstract

Purposes

This paper sets out to illustrate how researchers from different academic, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds embrace the production of knowledge when working in international research collaboration (IRC). In doing so, it aims to analyze how these practices of knowledge production in a research network become the space of researchers’ interpretive work.

The notion of knowledge production has been commonly assigned to the lone researcher. Moreover, even research produced among multiple researchers frequently appears under the name of a few of them or “submerged into one person” (Wasser & Bresler, 1996, p. 5) who enter in the path of writing and publication. But what kind of processes and preliminary tangibles does a research group develop during the time of a collaborative study? What “role [do] “researchers’ interactions with other researchers play in the interpretive process and the co-construction of knowledge” (Wasser & Bresler, 1996, p. 5)? What foundational ways of thinking as modes of knowledge production does a collaborative research group enact? (Mauthner & Doucet, 2008). How do individuals bring their own interpretations to the fore in a group performance? Are their voices present in the final result? As Smith (2001) states, in many cases the creation of new knowledge emerges when researchers share insights, esoteric knowledge, and complementary skills and expertise.

Conceptual Framework

The conceptual framework of this paper builds upon Wasser and Bresler’s (1996) approach regarding the interpretive zone. The interpretive zone is the relational space where multiple perspectives are held in dynamic tension in the processes of meaning making of fieldwork and co-construction of knowledge in collaborative work. These processes of interpretation involve matters of values which are directly connected to historical, political, economic, and socio-cultural conditions in a specific context. The coexistence of multiple voices implies overlapping assumptions and different discourses which define the notion of complexity in IRC.
This approach helps to analyze how knowledge is held by different members in a research network, and their individual and social processes of interpretation in the construction of knowledge that shape the research network’s epistemology/(ies). Therefore, “different ways of constructing knowledge produce different kinds of knowledge” (p. 6). The processes of construction of knowledge imply technical and procedural characteristics of researcher’s work, their methodological tools, the role each member plays, the different specialties members might have, the distribution of leadership, and the coexistence of multiple voices, power, and status. All of these features affect the interpretive process. In the process of the meaning making during the fieldwork, ideas are explored, considered, rejected, rewritten, fixed and held in the interpretive zone where also disciplinary and institutional conditions take place. Thus, it also implies critical methodological questions of collective interpretation and meaning such as the relevance and implications of consensus. The interpretive zone then involves ethical issues of multiple selves and multiple others (Wasser & Bresler, 1996).

Methodology

Based on data collected for the comparative and exploratory research of my doctoral thesis, I bring to this paper examples of practices from three research networks. These practices involve researchers’ relational experiences of production of knowledge in IRC which become the units of analysis (Yin, 2014) of the interpretive zone. I use qualitative methods to develop a situated, detailed and in-depth analysis within and across cases (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005; Yin, 2014).

Data Sources

The data sources include interviews with faculty members and graduate students of three research networks working in IRC in Canada and Colombia linked to research intensive universities. Also, it includes documents such as publications, conference proceedings, minutes, and research reports of the research networks.

Conclusions

In this paper, I provide a critical analysis of these models and practices regarding knowledge production in IRC. Differences and commonalities are observed in comparing research networks situated in different contexts. The practices illustrate thrilling and challenging experiences of researchers’ interpretive work in the production of knowledge in IRC.

Significance

This study focus on a new perspective in comparative and international education which opens up the opportunity to explore a fresh venue of qualitative inquiry by investigating the interpretive dynamics that emerge when scholars work in IRC. It contributes to addressing a gap in the literature regarding the reflection on practices of knowledge production in IRC, and offers new insights about the qualitative nature of these practices to other researchers interested in the internationalization of higher education, specifically in IRC.

Author

• Clara Isabel Tascon, The University of Western Ontario