Whose power? Whose knowledge? Tensions in collaborative production of knowledge

This speech is a critical, reflexive gaze on my own research practices and ideals about creating knowledge through collaboration between researchers from universities and professionals in dialogical processes. Here the aim is often to give voice to differences and dissenting meanings in order to produce long-lasting, relevant and socially robust knowledge where complexity is seen as a quality rather than a problem. Looking back at the many rich processes I have been involved in makes it clear to me how the quality of the relations which were established became crucial for the outcome of the research projects
In social sciences and humanities it is possible to find especially poststructuralist (and feminist) researchers who refer to a discourse about knowledge production as a messy and entangled way of extending our understanding of the world. Social and natural phenomena are recognized as complex, relational and constantly open to negotiation in processes that we as humans do not, but wish to, understand. In this context, collaborative methodologies that include a number of knowledge forms are regarded as a way to enrich academic knowledge by generating new questions, different kind of relationships and new responses to topics born out of this complexity. One way to expand on the complexity and get closer to new insights seems to be the inclusion of affective and sensual dimensions in human existence.