Cite as:
Okune, Angela and Adams, James. 2018. "Analysis of Collaboration in Political Practice/Praxis." In PhD Orals Document: Querying Analyses of Collaboration, created by Angela Okune and James Adams. PhD Orals Document. UC Irvine Anthropology. October.
This essay is part of three orals documents submitted by University of California, Irvine Anthropology doctoral student Angela Okune i n partial...Read more
Ordered by research life cycle phase:
Research Design
Holmes, Douglas R., and George E. Marcus. 2008. “Collaboration Today and the Re-Imagination of the Classic Scene of Fieldwork...Read more
This section foregrounds annotations based on our analytic structure specifically looking at collaboration in political practice.
For some analysts, collaboration at this phase meant negotiated alliances between researchers and stakeholders broadly speaking (Wood and Gray 1991; Fortun and Cherkasky 1998); for others, it explicitly meant researchers and community activists (e.g. Cervone 2015). Analysts differed in their perspectives on what constituted “good” collaboration. For example, Fortun and Cherkasky viewed collaboration as a politics of difference, “drawing in people with different interests, perspectives and skills into synchronized effort to accomplish something that could not be accomplished individually." They found that for collaboration to work, diversity or pluralism must be turned into a resource. Because collaboration requires and establishes difference, they found collectivity can not only be difficult to produce but also can be marginalizing and alienating. This echoed a point raised by Cervone (2015) who called collaboration “mutifaceted and rhizomic” and asked if it might be too weak of a word to describe the entanglements of complicity, cultural orientation, suspicion and paranoia, commitment and intimate involvement, credit and authority, and the production of reliable knowledge for partially articulated goals.
This is quite distinct from other readings of collaboration which honed in on the sharing of values and lines of similarity over difference. For example, Handgraaf and van Raaij (2005) viewed collaboration as cooperation and noted an increasing convergence between psychologists and economists. Rather than being a growing field of "cross" or "inter" disciplinary collaboration, the analysts noted that those working on the topic are becoming more similar to each other rather than working across differences. The analysts suggested that the growth of more economic psychologists/behavioral economists is particularly beneficial for society because it helps to increase the efficiency of "interventions."
Most analysts explicitly discussed collaboration as a process but had different perspectives on what the end goal of such processes and negotiations were, with some holding the assumed goal of collaboration as being arrival at a shared (stable) problem domain and every stakeholder’s place in it (Wood and Gray 1991) which is a goal starkly divergent from what Fortun and Cherkasky (1998) describe as the ongoing formation of new social alliances through the generation of new explanations and avoidance of grand theorization.
This essay is part of a broader orals document querying collaborative formations. Works were categorized under one part of the “research life cycle” as a heuristic. Sub-essays within the orals doc can be accessed directly through the following links: Research Design (Artifacts | Analysis); Data Gathering and Production (Artifacts | Analysis); Data Analysis (Artifacts | Analysis); Artifact Production (Artifacts | Analysis); Dissemination (Artifacts | Analysis); Political Practice (Artifacts | Analysis).
A few of the notable annotations are included below for quick review. Each can be clicked to view it fully. A full list of all annotations submitted for works included under this phase of the research life cycle can be found here.
AO: The author calls for more reflection on the intertwining of multi-textual forms of knowledge production to see how multi-textuality can address the complexity of the ‘global’ world...Read more
AO: This is a discourse analysis of the way that organizational theorists are thinking about collaboration (authors map nine papers over 6 domains of collaboration to
AO: Contrary to much of the development literature I have been reading which emphasizes the normative value of collaboration as empowering and benefiting, this piece highlights
AO: As the analyst’s definition showed (see Micro), they assume that a good collaborator follows the shared rules, norms and structures to act/decide. They note that the
AO: The analysts studied nine analyses of collaboration. They noted that at least 7 definitions of collaboration appeared (e.g. “collaboration as a process through which
AO: The analysts are thinking about collaboration as a politics of difference and the labour that is required to work across such different to turn diversity into a resource. They
AO: The analysts are thinking about “collaboration” as “cooperation.” They note severally the growing common language which is facilitating “more and more collaboration and cross-...Read more
AO: The analysts are thinking about collaborations between the fields of psychology and economics and believe it is important to have more in order for greater societal benefit:
