Absences and imaginings: the production of knowledge on globalisation and education

Abstract

In his paper ‘Grassroots globalization and the research imagination’, Arjun Appadurai challenges academics to develop ways of researching and engaging with the victims of globalisation. A key objective of Appadurai's is to sketch out the problematic and build up the terrain on which a democratisation of research about globalisation might take place. I argue that in order to proceed in ways that are productive for developing a critical research imagination, we must begin by first interrogating the conceptual tools we use to understand globalisation. I identify three absences that are evident in current approaches by researchers working on globalisation and education which seem to me to be particularly pressing; first, the absence of a critical spatial analytic; second, the absence of subaltern or alternative knowledges; and third, the absence of research reflecting on the altered terrain and politics of democratic representation as a result of global processes. In the concluding section I return to the idea of a social imaginary and introduce several experiments with the development of dialogical approaches to knowledge production based on participatory parity.

Keywords:

• Appadurai
• Education
• Globalisation
• Research
• Santos
• Space

Acknowledgement

I wish to thank Jane Kenway and Johannah Fahey, organisers of the Conference Globalising the Research Imagination, hosted by Monash University, Prato, Italy, 24–26 October 2005. Thanks also go to Ajun Appadurai whose initial paper and intellectual stimulation through the conference were so influential in writing this paper.

Notes

1. Representing the Workers' Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores—PT, formed in 1979 by a coalition of unions, social movements and other leftist organisations).

2. Thomas Muhr is doing his ESRC funded doctoral research in the Bolivarian Universities in Venezuela, using a Participatory Action Research (PAR) methodology. He will work with the communities in the construction of local accounts of knowledge production and change.