Facilitating knowledge democracy in a global North/South academic collaboration

ABSTRACT

This article explains an action research response to the need for knowledge democracy in research projects between academics in global North and global South countries. It argues that if unspoken assumptions about knowledge creation are left unexamined, such collaborations can replicate forms of ‘epistemic injustice’. The paper is premised on the belief that such collaborations should be based upon practical acknowledgement of plurality in the domain of knowledge and upon the right and responsibility of people to contribute to research conceptualisations and questions as equals. The article focuses on the facilitation processes applied during an initial, five-day strategic planning meeting for athree-year Erasmus Mundus research project, in which academics from universities in Spain, Portugal, Peru and the UK participated, and the conceptualisations and strategic direction of the project were established. The authors draw upon their experiences as project co-designers and joint co-ordinators. We conclude that if international research projects are to promote knowledge democracy, processes need to be established in which relevant concepts and objectives can be articulated and the research questions established by all partners, in order to accommodate multiple perspectives. The insights offered also have relevance for collaborations between multiple stakeholders inside and outside of academia.

KEYWORDS:

• Knowledge democracy
• action research
• erasmus projects
• North/South collaboration

Acknowledgments

The social economy project described in the article was partially funded by the Erasmus Mundus programme of the European Union, project no. 372558-1-2012-UK-ERA MUNDUS-EMA3.

Participating institutions: Centre for African Studies, University of Oporto, Portugal

Mondragon University, Spain

Universidad San Antonio Abad del Cusco, Peru

York St John University, UK

The facilitation tools applied in the strategic planning meeting were based on and adapted from methods by the non-profit organisation the Institute of Cultural Affairs International: http://www.ica-international.org/top-facilitation/. These are designed to support intercultural groups to explore and organise their ideas around a complex topic.

Thank you to La Salete Coelho (Portugal/Africa) and Ana María Villafuerte (Peru) both project partners, for comments on a draft of this manuscript. We would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers of Educational Action Research for their constructive comments and suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency [372558-1-2012-UK-ERA MUNDUS-EMA3].