Knowledge and Power in Collaborative Research: A Reflexive Approach

Collaborative research embraces a multiplicity of practices in which social actors are invited to participate in the research process as co-producers of knowledge. But what is actually meant by “co-production” in collaborative research? Knowledge and Power in Collaborative Research presents a range of critical, reflexive strategies for understanding and tackling the challenges emanating from the tensions that arise in the meeting between different participants, knowledge forms and knowledge interests. The chapters anchor discussion of ethical, epistemological and methodological questions in sustained empirical analyses of cases of collaborative knowledge production.

The book covers diverse theoretical approaches such as dialogic communication theory, actor network theory, poststructuralist writing as inquiry, institutional ethnography, dialogic action research, and pragmatic action research. The empirical cases span a broad spectrum of empirical fields of social practice: health services, organisational change, research, science communication, environmental communication in intermediary NGOs, participatory governance in relation to urban planning, and digital communication and virtual worlds.

Louise Phillips is Associate Professor in Research Methods in Communication Studies at the University of Roskilde.

Ewa Gunnarsson is Professor in the Department of Business Administration, Technology and Social Sciences at Luleå University of Technology.

Marianne Kristiansen is Associate Professor in the Department of Communication and Psychology at Aalborg University.

Marja Vehviläinen is Academy Research Fellow in the School for Social Sciences and Humanities at University of Tampere.