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The Association for Critical Heritage Studies (ACHS) was created, in part, to address underrepresentation in the study and management of heritage. However, achieving genuinely inclusive representation within global heritage conversations remains elusive, exacerbated by entrenched power dynamics and the dominance of Western epistemologies. Here, we discuss ACHS's efforts to foster a more democratic, inclusive discourse through its organizational structure and international collaborations. As we argue here, although significant strides towards diversifying heritage discourse are evidenced by the creation of chapters and networks aimed at amplifying underrepresented voices, challenges persist in ensuring equitable participation. We discuss the importance of strategic regionalization and language inclusivity in advancing a platform that reflects the diversity of global heritage perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper delves into the evolving academic and educational dynamics between Singapore and China, highlighting their mutually reinforcing relationship. It examines both historical connections and current academic linkages, focusing on the key factors driving Chinese international student migration to Singapore. The paper details diplomatic and economic connections that have led to educational exchanges and migration, emphasising how early interactions laid the groundwork for robust training and educational cooperation. Furthermore, it underscores the substantial presence of Chinese students in Singapore's tertiary education and the distinctive attributes that make Singapore a sought-after study destination in Southeast Asia—such as the city-state’s approach to higher education prioritising human capital development over tuition revenue generation, the global reputation of its higher education institutions, English-speaking environment, and promising career prospects due to the presence of multinational companies. Finally, the paper explores cross-border academic mobility and joint knowledge production between the two countries. In doing so, it seeks to augment the existing understanding of regional student mobility and knowledge production, shedding light on the evolving dynamics between China and Singapore within the domain of higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the interwoven history of hydrological studies and water infrastructure development on the Mekong floodplains. On the basis of an extensive literature review, archival work, and key informant interviews, we unravel the making of an expert-led understanding of the Mekong floodplains – from the detailed reports written by colonial engineers during the French protectorate in the late 19th century to the development of the first computational models, developed in the 1960s on punch-cards and in Fortran. We show how these studies not only reflect the objectives of successive powers and their relationships to local communities but also shaped the landscape and hydrology of the Mekong floodplains and continue to do so through a variety of water infrastructure development projects. This serves as a call to conceive of hydrological knowledge as contingent rather than as a neutral depiction of physical processes that exists independently from the conditions of its production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Driven by concern with the quintessentially political decisions made in the interest of “the economy”—and the widely disparate outcomes produced in the process—the project of public economic geography is interested in how knowledge production in economic geography can be imagined to produce more just outcomes. This is an introduction to a Focus section in which four interlocutors reflect on what economic geography could look like if it engaged more directly with the politics of knowledge production. A public economic geography seeks to dislocate, spatially and figuratively, conventional academic considerations of expertise and audience, while also explicitly locating itself in a public purpose for publics both inside and outside the academy. Three themes informing this project emerge from the contributors’ reflections: revealing (making public) economic knowledges, reimagining economic relations, and reeducating ourselves and our publics about normative economic concepts and the performance of academic authority. Together, these contributions point to some fundamental moves toward a more “public” orientation within the subdiscipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article contributes to the emerging literature on decolonial research capacity-sharing (the process of strengthening individual/organisational capacity to shape research agendas, assess, design, produce, disseminate, and apply evidence). It provides a discussion of a participatory research capacity-sharing initiative led by Joint Learning Initiative on Faith and Local Communities (JLI), which was aimed at practitioners, activists, and researchers, with valuable experience as professionals and activists but little to no prior research experience, from various parts of Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. While existing literature (including publications on decolonial research capacity-sharing) often assumes that research capacity-sharing is led by and aimed at academics, our article reflects on the question of how decolonial research capacity-sharing can be implemented in interventions led by and aimed at non-academics. It therefore makes an important contribution to existing literature on research capacity-sharing, pointing to the important role practitioners, activists, and community members can play, especially in interventions informed by decolonial principles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how the OECD acts a broker of knowledge-making in the development of PISA, the most widely known International Large-Scale Assessment. Drawing on the work of Bandola-Gill, Grek, and Tichenor (2022) and analysing empirical data gathered through interviews with OECD staff and PISA contractors and experts, the paper analyses how the OECD brokers the making of comparative knowledge on learning outcomes. The paper does this by unpacking what counts as expertise in the making of PISA, and how the OECD manages and uses this expertise. Exploring the ways that international organizations broker experts and utilize expertise reveals how IOs first select experts and then delegate their expert-brokering role; they then seek to share the delegated process; and finally, take back expert-brokering and knowledge-production by creating, or decreeing, consensus. The paper also shows how expertise – beyond informing on a technical level – is used to shift scientific responsibilities and build global consensus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this interview, we explore the innovative research that earned Soomi Kim the Best Paper Award at DRUID 2024. As a partner of DRUID, Industry and Innovation presents an exclusive view into the research journey behind Kim's celebrated work. Her study 'Shortcuts to Innovation: The Use of Analogies in Knowledge Production' examines how innovators venture into uncharted territories, using analogies to transfer knowledge from related domains. Using structural biology as the empirical setting, her findings highlight both the advantages and limitations of employing analogy-based technologies, such as machine learning, to speed up discovery. In this conversation, Kim reveals the inspiration, challenges, and breakthroughs that defined her research, providing a unique perspective on the paths leading to her pioneering work. Just as her paper examines how analogical reasoning and its technological automation serve as shortcuts in knowledge production, this conversation offers a unique lens on the pathways that shape groundbreaking research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of COVID-19 on teachers’ relationships with students, parents, and other teachers as well as on the knowledge which they produce as their teaching and learning spaces are reconceptualised and their workplace relationships are redefined. The study adopted bricolage as a research approach and single-group case study as a research design, and used data obtained from a range of individual semi-structured interviews with elementary teachers which were supported by a series of naturally occurring data. The findings reinforce the conclusions that have been drawn in previous studies in terms of the significance of the social and relational aspects of educational settings and of the view of teachers as legitimate knowledge producers. Additionally, however, the results expand on our current understanding of teacher relationships and professional knowledge production by illustrating how participants collaboratively addressed the unprecedented challenges which the pandemic posed in order to strengthen their workplace relationships with significant others and enhance student educational experiences. The diversity of the strategies the teachers used provides evidence of growth in multiple dimensions of teacher knowledge and of different forms of agency, and has implications for teaching, teacher education, and future research in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this commentary, I pull out the threads that weave through the eight papers included in this special issue. Key themes untangled include: 1) how researchers maneuver through times of turbulence, 2) the ways in which research is peopled and practiced, 3) the emotional discomforts and ethical dilemmas that come with doing engaged scholarship, 4) the epistemological implications of these messy struggles, and 5) the short-term and long-term strategies offered by the contributors moving forward. I then offer a potentially transformative intervention designed to address systematic barriers related to knowledge production that can create more engaged, impactful scholarship. I conclude with a call to stay with the trouble to ensure more promising futures. The knottiness of knowledge production is present throughout the discussion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on rights politics in most of the world and on knowledge production 'after rights'. It assembles a few key elements of anti-imperial epistemic justice which it argues is a necessary lens for producing knowledges on rights politics in most of the world 'after rights'. Its key argument is that knowledge production on rights politics 'after rights' is one that is invested in challenging existing coloniality, structural injustice, exploitation, oppression and methodological nationalism. It is also one that is invested in producing conceptual descriptions of rights politics in most of the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This omnibus paper brings together a number of esteemed editors and associate editors in order to share a variety of perspectives on academic publishing within the marketing discipline. Together, they provide glimpses into current thinking on some of the most pressing and current debates which we are struggling with, for example: impact, originality, bias, alienation, and the need for communities of thought. Polyvocally, this omnibus reflects on the many failures of our discipline and provides some routes forward in reframing our field's epistemic assumptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Participants in open collaboration communities coproduce knowledge despite minimal explicit communication to coordinate the efforts. Studying how participants coordinate around the knowledge artifact and its impacts are critical for understanding the open knowledge production model. This study builds on the theory of stigmergy, wherein actions performed by a participant leave traces on a knowledge artifact and stimulate succeeding actions. We find that stigmergy involves two intertwined processes: collective modification and collective excitation. We propose a new measure of stigmergy based on the spatial and temporal clustering of contributions. By analyzing thousands of Wikipedia articles, we find that the degree of stigmergy is positively associated with community members' participation and the quality of the knowledge produced. This study contributes to the understanding of open collaboration by characterizing the spatial-temporal clustering of contributions and providing new insights into the relationship between stigmergy and knowledge production outcomes. These findings can help practitioners increase user engagement in knowledge production processes in order to create more sustainable open collaboration communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China has a rich Central Asia studies literature and in recent years, it has seen an expansion in the number of research institutions with a regional focus. We apply a Structural Topic Model, a quantitative method that estimates thematic prevalence through machine learning, to analyse publications on Central Asia in Chinese academic and specialist journals to show how the field has evolved over time. Aside from the methodological contribution we offer an original dataset of 10,563 publications scraped from China's CNKI database. We test our strategy on two assumptions in Western literature on Chinese academics' understanding of Central Asia: (1) China's research institutes are primarily concerned with economics and (2) China's thinking on strategic regions is lacking in local context, unique cultural concepts and insights. We argue that while China's scholarship on the region is often Sinocentric, some research shows diversity and nuance, with more analytical depth that has been traditionally understood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While previous studies have mainly emphasised the role of structural factors in explaining how and why Chinese environmental NGOs (ENGOs) have become more engaged in policy advocacy since the early 2000s, this study offers an alternative perspective on these dynamics by adopting an organisational learning framework. Through in-depth case studies, we identify the production and application of knowledge – specifically regarding the significance, viability, and practical expertise of policy advocacy – as a pivotal driver that compels organisations to proactively engage in policy advocacy. Moreover, we delineate two primary approaches to organisational learning used by ENGOs – intra-organisational learning and trans-organisational learning – and illustrate their internal mechanisms. This study also underscores the significance of individual learning by organisational leaders in the Chinese context, which occurs in parallel with collective learning at the group level. This article thereby enriches our understanding of the trajectory of environmental activism in contemporary China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Narratives about children whose parents have migrated exhibit a common global trend, with these children and their families being widely pathologised, creating a stereotyped image of this group. Hence, it is timely and necessary to interrogate the category construction of left-behind children and the politics surrounding the knowledge produced. This article explores the global construction and widespread stigmatisation of left-behind children through the lens of a postcolonial critique and criticises the hegemonic notion of childhood promoted primarily by the Global North. It then explores the indigenous category of 'liushou children' for left-behind children in China – revealing its cultural expectations and Indigenous construction. Although the pathologisation of such children occurs in both global and indigenous dimensions, the understanding and causation of such pathologisation differs since diverse actors often present different understandings of this phenomenon, which refract different expectations, moral and value judgements, or political motivations. Therefore, this article calls for research on the lives of these children in the context of global economic and social structural shifts and how these are reshaped in local and national dimensions. In so doing, it provides insights into ongoing debates on the politics and ethics of knowledge production in childhood studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the critical shift in geographical knowledge production under the increasingly authoritarian political regime in Turkey, particularly in the aftermath of the unsuccessful 2016 coup attempt. In this context, semi-structured interviews were conducted with sixteen young geographers who experienced the authoritarian shift in the political regime during their graduate studies. The narratives of the interviewees indicate that the young geographers have undergone a critical transformation with two significant aspects: firstly, they reject the traditional style of geographical knowledge production and instead embrace approaches integrated with social theory, drawing from the extensive portfolio of contemporary geography. Secondly, they approach socio-spatial phenomena in a libertarian and critical manner, distinct from the lenses of the authoritarian system. However, due to their legitimate concerns, they often refrain from presenting such research on academic platforms. In this regard, under an authoritarian regime, the critical transformation consists of two dimensions: the arena where geographical products are shared, and the underground, where geographical ‘black boxes’ are held and kept hidden from public view. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How important is Google for scientific research? This paper exploits the exogenous shock represented by Google's sudden withdrawal of its services from mainland China to assess the importance of access to information for the knowledge production function of scientific scholars in the field of economics. For economists, a type of scholar with a simple knowledge production function, results from difference-in-difference analyses, which compare their scientific output to scholars located in the neighbouring regions, show that the scientific productivity declines by about 28% in volume and 30% in terms of citations. These results are consistent with the view that information accessibility is an important driver of scientific progress. Considering that the negative effect of the shock is stronger for top scholars located in China, Google's sudden exit bears the risk that researchers lose touch with the research frontier and persistently lag behind their foreign peers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a cyclical nature to the dilemmas confronting international donors willing to operate in Myanmar. Brief periods of relative openness led to rapid surges in development assistance, regularly interrupted by long phases of military rule and disengagement by donors. Amidst all this, many predicaments remain. This article engages with one of them: the inequality between regions. How have international donors reacted to the issue of domestic regional inequality? Recent studies suggest that official development assistance (ODA) does not target poor regions very well, but it is not always clear why this is the case. Myanmar's sudden, yet uneven and unequal liberalization from 2011 to 2021 catalyzed huge inflows of ODA, while it also confronted donors with new policy dilemmas. The article shows that aid providers struggle with the problem of rising regional inequality, especially for political reasons. Donor and recipient interests often do not align well on this issue. In the case of Myanmar, donors who press for regional inequality to sit prominently on the agenda might fare less successfully than those who address the issue indirectly. The article concludes that regional inequality and the politics of targeting deserve a more central role in the political economy of ODA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article traces the evolution of Palestine Studies from its nascent stages in the 1960s to its current status as a recognized and integral part of global academic discourse. It highlights the field's vital role in dissecting the multifaceted structures and functions of Israeli settler colonialism, and standing firm amidst well-funded and systematic counter-efforts to delegitimize it. The ensuing discussion foregrounds Palestinian scholarly achievements in advancing their narrative and countering marginalization, particularly within the academic institutions of the Global North. By examining the political dynamics shaping research methodologies in Palestine Studies, this article elucidates how the field has emerged as a legitimate academic discipline, offering new pathways in graduate education. In asserting that Palestine Studies is inherently linked to activism, aiming for transformative change, decolonization, and liberation, this article underlines the contribution of the field to challenging dominant colonial epistemologies and methodologies and reshaping power dynamics. Thus, Palestine Studies not only elucidates the realities faced by indigenous Palestinian populations but also vocalizes their struggles and aspirations, positioning itself as a critical lens to understand, and engage with, Palestinian scholarship and its broader anti-colonial implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whilst increasing literature elucidates academic ableism and its impact upon faculty and PhD students, far less attention is paid to aspiring academics who are excluded from academia altogether. Through a first-person narrative, this article explores the experiences of a disabled postgraduate seeking a PhD placement, who is largely unable to leave home owing to the interplay between 'rare' and neglected health conditions and an ableist society. The impact of academic exclusions, notably institutional resistance to providing remote access, is explored through the lens of psycho-emotional disablism. It is contended that, for all the talk of equality, diversity and inclusion, the academy represents yet another landscape of power and exclusion where disabled people struggle to be recognised as fully-fledged citizens. The emergence of long Covid and persistent threat of infection adds urgency to the academic and wider social need to include disabled people who are unable to leave the home. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the growing trend of research using digital trace data to study human activities and opinions across different contexts, networked China has emerged as a prominent area of interest. However, research that critically examines the use, strengths, and weaknesses of existing digital trace methods, and the extent to which they can reveal the true landscape of digital China remains limited. To address these gaps, this study proposes a framework for examining and evaluating the knowledge production of digital trace research within a sociotechnical system comprising state actors, platform governance, digital civil society, and international forces. We then provide the first empirical examination of the knowledge claims and epistemic approaches used in digital trace communication scholarship that has studied China across different phases in the past 30 years. Grounded in the resulting empirical evidence, we discuss two common practices in existing digital trace research on China, how these approaches and perspectives could affect the validity and reliability of offering diverse viewpoints for studying and understanding digital China, and directions for improving these practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'Migration background' has been an official category of population statistics in Germany since 2006 and has become an integral part of knowledge production about Germany as an immigration country. However, 'migration background' is not only a way of constructing 'migrant' and 'native' populations; it is also employed as a marker of ethnic inequality and often differentiated into subgroups to stand for national links or ethnic descent. I reflect on these observations as utterances of methodological nationalism inscribed into data practices and (non)knowledge production in migration research. I link them to ideas about statactivism (Bruno et al. 2014. "Statactivism." Partezipatione & Conflitto 7 (2): 198–220) as a means of intervention. I give some examples of how I have tried to destabilize the usual (non)knowledge production in migration research and reflect on the possibilities for individual researchers to do so. My ethnographic analysis is based on a close reading of national statistical reports, fieldwork in statistical offices, participatory observations in workshops, informal and formal interviews, and my own involvement in (non)knowledge production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What we propose in this paper is to elaborate on what it means to consider 'migration' as part of an oikonomia. This is not an 'economic perspective on migration' but a genealogy of migration as a way of managing people in light of both colonial divides and questions of labor and race. First, we argue that 'migration' is constituted as an effect of accounting, of the registration of comings and goings and of belonging within a reference space of governed territories. We illustrate how migration is born out of the specific accounting inventions made by Ernst Ravenstein. Second, we argue that the accounting of a singular thing called migration only starts to take off when nineteenth-century empire reaches its tipping point. Third, we illustrate how this accounting constitutes a form of double bookkeeping. To record or register migration is to make a record of what the nation would be if the people marked as migrants were not present, and it is to simultaneously record what it costs the nation now that they are. In this oikonomia, migration is enacted as a form of debt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses weaknesses in critical policy studies (CPS), by proposing we move toward adopting radical critical policy studies (RCPS) theory and empirical methodological approaches. This moves away from the euro-centric colonized/colonizer dichotomy, decentering whiteness/white gaze and situates racialized personhood at the center of decolonizing knowledge production. RCPS' intervention forces racialized academics/researchers to be cognizant of how although we navigate our own oppression/colonization within colonial institutions (academia, the state) we are not immune to reproducing this same system of harm we wish to dismantle by using Colonial Logics (the colonizers tool of whiteness, performative colonialism, systemic oppression and harmful practices) and engaging in Colonial by Proxy (see Diagram 5). We expand on RCPS with the concept of Decolonizing Self-Reflexivity and Positionality/Social-Location (Diagram 3, Decolonizing Self-Reflexivity and Positionality & Social-Location Checklist tool) with the aim to hold ourselves accountable to higher standards, to be more critically self-aware of the complex duality of our privileged social-location/positionality, while de-colonizing our self-reflexivity with an active duty to prevent the reproduction of systemic performative colonialism throughout policy-making (as policy-makers) or in academia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Universities, both in Canada and throughout the global North, are predicated on empiricist and positivist understandings of knowledge and knowledge production which are communicated and strengthened through research practices and protocols. Drawn from a larger study exploring research leadership among accomplished academic staff, this paper examines interviews with eight racialised female academic staff who focus on social justice research predicated on co-producing knowledge with marginalised communities. Building on the rich scholarship which conveys the consequences of systemic discrimination for racialised and Indigenous scholars working in Canadian universities, we explore how participants navigate systems that fail to understand their epistemological and methodological orientation towards research and consider what it reveals about research culture and claims of inclusiveness in the Canadian academy. Drawing on Sara Ahmed's work on performative diversity in academia, we consider how academic structures, protocols and policies associated with research influence the social production of knowledge and resist change toward greater equity and Reconciliation demanded of Canadian higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Doctoral education in South Africa is at crossroads between the transformation agenda of higher education and the production of knowledge, whereas policy imperatives to produce more doctorates may come at the expense of quality. This article examines how universities assure the quality of doctoral education in Education at the point of access, its implications on transformation and the production of knowledge through doctoral education. The research employed a qualitative research approach. An exploratory research methodology was used. Data was generated through analysis of policy documents and structured interviews from 20 universities. The findings revealed that the assurance of quality perpetuates and privileges disciplinarity while transformation and the production of knowledge were narrowly conceived. Some implications were identified. The article concludes that the assurance of quality at the point of access to doctoral education should be a regulatory balancing act between quality, transformation and the production of knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is growing recognition that diversity and representation matter to the intellectual health of fields and disciplines. This article takes stock of knowledge production on the Caucasus region, paying particular attention to the question of who has "voice" in academic debates on the North and South Caucasus. Through analysis of publications in, and the editorial boards of, "leading" International Relations (IR) and Area Studies journals, we examine the biographies of scholars, the topics covered, and citation levels. We demonstrate the marginality of the Caucasus within IR and limited representation for scholars educated and employed in the region within Area Studies, as well as distinct differences according to background in the topics covered. This research provides a foundation for further exploring disciplinary inequalities and their consequences in relation to the Caucasus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In her 'Manifesto to Decentre Theatre and Performance Studies' (2021), Swati Arora explores the intangible and invisible borders that function to exclude certain people and knowledges, usually indexed by race, gender, class, and geography, from the academy. As a new working group convenor, I'm interested in thinking through what hidden borders might operate through the Call for Paper and panel selection process. What are prospective panellists really being asked to demonstrate? What unofficial knowledges are privileged and who has access to these? How can we reorient this process towards questioning and away from demonstration of knowledge? In this short provocation I reflect my own experience of selecting abstracts and ask what work might be done to develop a more transparent and empowering model of panel curation. This is a short provocation that was prepared for the roundtable discussion on 'Decolonisation and Solidarity' as part of the conference, Borderlines IX: Seeking Solidarity and Wonder Through Performance, which took place at De Montfort University in Leicester, UK, on 30 June and 1 July 2022. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a 2016 bill, the Swedish government tasked state-governed research councils with incorporating sex and gender perspectives (SGP) into their assessment of research quality. The present article examines the response to the bill and subsequent measures in Swedish public debate from 2016–2021, as well as justifications for such measures in preceding policy documents. The analysis focuses on how different arguments in the debate articulate the relationship between research, politics, and quality and how these articulations can be analysed with the help of theoretical perspectives on the contemporary production of knowledge as well as previous scholarly work on gender mainstreaming. The article demonstrates that most critics describe politics, research, and quality as incompatible. The defenders argue for the implementation of SGP by invoking either a quality perspective and/or an equality perspective. While some actors argue that SGP is of significance only when it enhances quality, others point to the political value of the criteria, adhering to a post-academic emphasis on the societal value of science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Development discourses have been widely criticized for creating hierarchical dichotomies, such as "developed" (the global North) and "developing" (the global majority), with the former being the ideal standard to which the rest must catch up. The development paradigm has infiltrated academic spaces globally, including international research collaborations, creating various categories such as (non)scientific (local) expertise. We see such hierarchies as mechanisms of legitimation to maintain the ongoing subjugation of African scholars based on the historical and contemporary asymmetries in global knowledge production. Informed by the experiences of five female African doctoral researchers in the Netherlands, this paper problematizes and disrupts the concepts of "Expert" and "local expert". We question the relevance of these concepts in a context where global knowledge production continues to feed from coloniality and also question the old power relations that continue to enable knowledge inequalities between the global North and global South. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The publication of social work research and scholarship is integral to generating and disseminating knowledge for the profession and the human services field. Previous research has found a large proportion of nonresearch articles in social work journals, but there has been little exploration of the nature of this scholarship. Using a scoping review method supplemented by analysis of national research assessment output data, this study examined the quantity, format, and characteristics of scholarly publications between 2010–2020 by Australian social workers. It found they produced proportionately more journal articles than other disciplines and relatively fewer books and book chapters. Of 1,389 Australian social work articles published in top-cited social work journals, 821 (59.1%) were research articles. Of the nonresearch articles, almost half provided an analysis of policy or practice without stating a method. Understanding the scope of social work research provides a foundation for reflection on the discipline's research endeavours. Information about the scope of social work research is useful for developing both individual and disciplinary research strategy. A clear statement of method that describes the processes used for observation and analysis would enhance the quality of nonresearch social work publications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the intermediaries or brokers who participate in the constitution, negotiation, and production of peace and security policies in West Africa. These security brokers possess social and knowledge capital, making them the preferred interlocutors of international actors, institutions, and researchers to produce security knowledge to inform policy. Thus, this article seeks to explain how these security brokers interact with and shape the construction of a security assemblage in West Africa. Based on three ethnographic sites in Bamako (Mali), Niamey (Niger) and Abidjan (Ivory Coast), social trajectories of these intermediaries of securitization processes allow us to understand how material and symbolic resources are attracted. Security brokers oscillate between instrumentalist, pragmatic, and reflexive stances toward the (re)production of security practices promoted by (trans)national institutions and actors. Just like any international institutions or actors, they can either participate to the (re)production or challenge the premise of the security assemblage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces a special issue on practices of religious and scholarly knowledge exchange in Southeast Asia and the Caribbean. In both regions, the makings of religion have been informed by unsettling encounters between religious experts on the one hand and academic scholars of, and in, religion on the other. These encounters, we argue, can be revealed and productively analyzed through a focus on sites of learning and exchange, such as schools and universities, temples and monasteries, holy shrines, conferences and workshops, but also texts and archives. At such sites, alternative actors, referred to in this special issue as 'strategic amateurs and accidental experts', often emerge as unexpected agents of religious change. After explaining the central theme and approach, we draw together and synthesize two strands of argument found in the separate articles, respectively the centrality of moral geographies and geographic imaginations to the making of religion and the intriguing role played by performances of expertise, either as a form of gatekeeping in religious communities and institutions or as alternative sources of religious knowledge and authority. The article concludes with a reflective note on the role of scholars in both fortifying and destabilizing understandings of region and religion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The human impact on nature has now reached a level at which the well-being of future human society is at risk. Therefore, transformative change in society is needed. Environmental assessments contribute to shaping environmental policy, potentially leveraging transformative change. Red Lists are a key information source on the state of biodiversity. Our aim was to study the Red List authors' perceptions of how Red Lists contribute to leveraging sustainability changes. We interviewed 15 of the authors of the forest and peatland sections of the Finnish Red List of Ecosystems 2018. We used the framework of sustainability leverage points to locate sustainability changes that Red Lists have leveraged in the social part of the Finnish social-ecological system. Our results show how the assessors perceived the influence of the Red Lists at most of the leverage points, including the deepest ones, and how these influences simultaneously co-exist in several leverage points. The most prominent sustainability changes were linked with legislation and information flows, whereas current paradigms, system goals and legislation appeared to prevent Red Lists from leveraging sustainability changes in Finland. We conclude that the production and dissemination processes of Red List knowledge can make an important contribution to sustainability changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

2016 witnessed the birth of the first baby conceived using mitochondrial replacement technology (MRT), a procedure conducted by an international team in a Mexican clinic. The story soon made it to the international press, where authorship was assigned to the USA team and Mexico was described as lacking regulation, thus a suitable location. The Mexican media offered a different version. The baby was stamped as "made in Mexico" and the Mexican physician involved was described as a remarkable citizen and bold scientist. The story served as a counter-narrative to the one circulating in the press and academic circles. It dismantled the notion of Mexico as a country with "no rules" and instead offered a story of a country producing cutting-edge technology and of a government ready to back up scientific progress. In this paper, we analyze the performative acts that transformed this breakthrough into a national success and we ask about the role the Mexican team had in this accomplishment. This analysis contributes to the conversation held within the field of postcolonial science and technology studies, regarding knowledge production, authorship, and the role of science stories in the process of nation building. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article problematizes the interaction between diverse actors for the production of knowledges. From a phenomenological approach of three different experiences, I argue that the concept of interculturality and the practice of knowledge production based on it, will allow more symmetrical processes, with better knowledges, with a greater empowerment of non-academic communities, and with a more inclusive knowledge production from academic communities. I rely on political ontology to show that interactions cannot aspire (only) to dialogue and collaboration as a normative horizon, but that the production of knowledge requires the recognition of conflict. I consider interculturality can help to produce an interaction that incorporates conflict as an expression of ontological difference, which enhances its transformative character by recognizing asymmetries, establishing meeting points, and rethinking the methods used in interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the predictors of gender-specific literature production in the field of social sciences and humanities (SSH). The research used bibliometric information on 1132 gender-related articles by authors with Romanian affiliations. Binary logistic regression shows the individual and institutional factors of a paper's likelihood of including gender-related words in its title. Weak institutionalisation of Gender Studies marks this national context, reflected in the marginal and discontinuous integration in the curriculum of higher-education institutions. Our findings suggest that the female gender of the first or a single author, as well as the authors' affiliation with Romanian universities running master's programmes in Gender Studies, are positively associated with the outcome variable. Likewise, single-author articles have greater odds than co-authored articles of including a reference to gender in their titles. Conversely, articles published in journals in the JIF third quartile of the JCR hierarchy have less chance of having a title that conveys an orientation towards gender-specific research. The implications of our findings suggest that the decision-makers at the level of faculties and research institutes in SSH must focus on creating a facilitating environment for scholarly interest in feminist research. We propose tackling the negative stereotypes regarding feminism's ideological underpinnings and its ostensible lack of epistemological foundation. Romania is a country still facing significant domestic violence and poor gender equality, so these findings have further implications at the societal level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Peace education prepares people to deal peacefully with conflicts of various scales. The authors want to enrich this education by paying attention to situations when international tension increases, and it is still possible to defuse it. Social movements sometimes highlight the hidden conflicts in society. They provoke the authorities to act and sometimes even force them to reveal their intentions. In this article, the authors look at the use of 'intervention' so-called militant research in the face of growing international conflicts and utilise the example of the humanitarian crisis for exiled people on the Polish-Belarusian border that has taken place since the summer of 2021. The possibility of using militant research is considered an inspiration to restore and preserve peace on the basis of the activism of 'Grupa Granica' [Border Group] in Poland. The case selection is based on the criteria adopted from the literature on militant research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasingly, competing discourses shape tensions between the role of the contemporary university and the global markets in which universities must exist. This paper draws on the examination of interviews with nine education academics in Australia to illuminate the construction of ‘global’ in the production of the global graduate (GG). Discourse analysis is used to explore how, against the backdrop of COVID 19, participants construct different identities variously related to current and future orientations for the GG. This paper uses two big ‘D’ discourses – efficiency as centralised imperative and boundless productivity – to explore knowledge production and accountabilities, neoliberalism, internationalisation and the construction of marketised universities operating in global knowledge economies. We conclude, the GG is an elusive notion, which draws mobile and multiple positionings to reveal unsettled and often ambiguous constructions of ‘university’ and ‘teacher’, with related tensions for the role and identity of education academics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"High-tech" provides a cachet of futuristic wonders to localities claiming cutting-edge technological research and industrial innovation. But the high-tech electronic manufacturing processes release hundreds of chemicals and are no doubt ridden with extremely high but hidden environmental health risks. This article aims to increase our understanding of "ignorance" about electronics hazards in the Asian context. It argues that the electronics industries have been under constant innovation, and novel uses of chemicals are introduced to the industrial operation at a much faster pace than the health and environmental assessment can work to comprehend the impacts of the chemicals. In such a context, regulatory science has often failed to effectively monitor and control toxic waste discharges in the high-tech electronics sector. Taking several high-tech pollution disputes in Taiwan as examples, and based on interviews with experts in pollution regulation, this paper discusses multiple constraints on scientific advance in studying toxics that are exacerbated by lagging regulations. These are further entangled with research resource limitations, privileging of high-tech industries in suppressing negative information about toxicity risks, and knowledge repression within the scientific community due to dependence on government and industry, all of which has crippled building knowledge for effective regulatory science–resulting in knowledge gridlock. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This systematic review (a) identifies birth cohort studies (BCSs) established in the Nordic countries, (b) describes their basic characteristics, and (c) explores how these characteristics have evolved over time, discussing their implications to knowledge production. To identify Nordic BCSs, cohort databases and relevant scientific articles were systematically searched and screened. The review shows that since 1959, more than 600,000 index children have participated in the 79 Nordic BCSs (22 Danish, 20 Finnish, 12 Norwegian, 24 Swedish, one Icelandic), over half of them still ongoing. The Nordic BCSs cover a wide geographical area including the Nordic Arctic. The topics of BCSs have varied over time but most have focused on examining the developmental origins of diseases. A quarter of them had a general scope, while the rest started with a specific focus, commonly atopic diseases. All BCSs collected questionnaire and/or interview data and over 60% of the BCSs announced exclusion criteria for participants, typically insufficient language proficiency. NBCSs have produced crucial scientific knowledge for over six decades, but there are underutilised opportunities including systematic interdisciplinary collaboration, inclusion of children's own views of their health and well-being, intergenerational data collection, and specific knowledge of Arctic indigenous peoples and other minorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents key concepts for collaboration, participation and co-production in practice research, based on a cross-analysis of three research cases. The article aims to explore questions such as: 1) Who should be involved? 2) What preconditions are necessary from all participants? 3) What nuances arise in the process of becoming a partner? The article investigates how partnerships, participation and knowledge production can be performed in social work practice research, and highlights that any collaborative process is complex, and the questions may thus be intertwined. Such processes require researchers to be aware of the communicative, power-relational, dialogical and democratic processes involved. One of the key takeaways from the cross-analysis is that successful collaboration demands conscious attention and effort towards effective communication, power-sharing and democratic processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geography instructors have a role to play in helping their students to become more information literate. This is especially important today, given the complex and dynamic nature of our informational landscape, and given the evidence that young people lack much of the knowledge that is needed to engage with information critically. This paper reports on the effectiveness of an information literacy module that was included as part of a course on the Geography of the Middle East. It describes the design and rollout of the module, and the results of a study designed to assess the effectiveness of the module and the class on students' information literacy, and to better understand students' existing relationship to information about the Middle East. The findings of the study suggest several ways that future iterations of the module might be improved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The term 'intersectionality,' coined by the African American legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989, has been widely used in many contexts and disciplines; it has greatly transcended the field of Critical Race Theory. This research explores the intersectional scholarship in Hispanic America to track its critical reception in Spanish, with a special focus on the role given to race in this context. Understanding that knowledge circulates and is shaped by the material and geographical conditions of its production, this qualitative research has used mixed methods to make sense of the scholarly production of knowledge that used the concept. The sample was constructed through a search using the keyword 'interseccionalidad,' in Spanish, in the databases Scielo and Scopus. 134 authors responded to a questionnaire we had put together to approach their individual perspectives on the concept. This article wants to open an ethical and epistemological discussion of intersectionality and its political and analytical contents in the Spanish-speaking scholarship that deals with race and racism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The field of death studies has a rich interdisciplinary history but little scholarship examining the process of interdisciplinary collaboration. The development of, and inquiry into, a more rigorously interdisciplinary death studies is a topical pursuit. The aim of this paper is to shed critical light on researcher experiences in an interdisciplinary collaboration on the topics of dying, death of grief, and examine what possibilities and challenges it prefaces for future interdisciplinary research in the field. An interdisciplinary study group called Exploring Narratives of Death (END) is examined over a period of one year through participant observation and semi-structured interviews. The conclusion is that researchers strongly advocate for more interdisciplinary agendas in death studies in order to develop greater intellectual advancement in the field and/or practical application of research in society. However, a lack of structural and temporal latitude in researchers' professional roles in the university could inhibit their ability to perform such research in the long term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How does a reflexive scholarly practice matter for producing useful cybersecurity knowledge and policy? We argue that staking relevance without engaging in reflexivity diminishes the usefulness of knowledge produced both in academia and in policy. To advance a reflexive research agenda in cybersecurity, this forum offers a collective interrogation of the liminal positionality of the cybersecurity scholar. We examine the politics of 'the making of' cybersecurity expertise as knowledge practitioners who are located across and in between the diverse and overlapping fields of academia, diplomacy and policy. Cybersecurity expertise, and the practices of the cybersecurity epistemic community more broadly, rely heavily on the perceived applicability and actionability of knowledge outputs, on the practical dependency on policy practitioners regarding access, and thus on the continuous negotiation of hierarchies of knowledge. Participants in this forum reflect on their research practice of negotiating such dilemmas. Collectively, we draw on these contributions to identify obstacles and opportunities towards realising a reflexive research practice in cybersecurity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how civil society organisations are able to shape the politics of knowledge production of truth commissions (TCs). The article argues that their capacity varies according to the ongoing power dynamics resulting from local, national and international factors that shape the establishment of a TC. The interactions of these factors are studied through an analytical framework that assesses three dimensions, namely: the standardisation and diffusion of global transitional justice (TJ) norms; the footprint of these norms in the design of TCs at the national level; and the negotiation of the mandate of a TC with civil society actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reflexivity has been central to recent debates in migration studies, focusing on how migration scholarship can become more equitable, inclusive, and attuned to the power dynamics inherent in research processes. In this article, we advance these debates by demonstrating the role of emotions as crucial tools for knowledge production. Drawing on feminist qualitative research, we introduce our emotionally-sensed approach to account for the role of emotions across the different, yet inter-related, stages of the research process. More specifically, we operationalise the processes of constructing, generating and producing emotionally-sensed knowledge and illustrate them with examples from our ethnographic research on the impact of Brexit on EU migrants in the UK. The paper makes the case for emotionally-sensed knowledge as part of the reflexive turn in migration studies and provides strategies to more consistently incorporate researchers’ emotions in processes of knowledge production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors provide an introduction to the special issue and the Central Asia Research Cluster project. This transnational project brought together an interdisciplinary group of scholars to examine the roots of knowledge production and preservation in Soviet and Post-Soviet Central Asia, recontextualizing cultural heritage, histories, and memory that illuminate and complicate the many layers of center-periphery relations at local, national, and regional levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'Research is a major aspect and fundamental component of many social struggles and movements for change' [Choudry, A. 2013a. "Activist Research Practice: Exploring Research and Knowledge Production for Social Action." Socialist Studies/Études Socialistes 9 (1): 128 151. doi:, 128]. For Palestinians, research and knowledge production are vital for their ongoing anti-colonial struggle. However, there are various factors that restrict these processes and create an unsafe environment to produce liberatory knowledge(s) related to political and social activism. Some of these factors are the colonisers' prolonged oppression of Palestinian thought, narrative(s) and theorising, which is exacerbated by an oppressive Palestinian Authority – essentially an authoritarian body governing the Palestinian population in the West Bank and Gaza Strip; and the imposed hyper institutionalisation of academic and intellectual spaces, by donors' strategies which create a need to meet global academic criteria by Palestinian institutions. This article engages with research ethics as a specific aspect within the process of knowledge production and dissemination. It critically looks at procedural research ethics that frame research conduct, including data generation, data analysis and modes of dissemination. In Palestine, research is being conducted under settler colonialism, apartheid and repressive ruling authorit(ies). This poses unique conditions that challenge standardised institutional ethics procedures and existing power dynamics within academic and research institutions. Additionally, in Palestine, there is a situation of excessive research – that is almost entirely dependent on foreign funding and the avoidance of clashes with the ruling authorit(ies). Hence, research ethics could be used as a tool for objectification and violence normalisation [Abdelnour, S., and M. Abu Moghli. 2021. "Researching Violent Contexts: A Call for Political Reflexivity." Organization, 1–24]. The article argues that within the Palestinian context, institutionalised ethics procedures in universities and research institutions are almost never sensitive to the particularities of the context and/or the knowledge production and dissemination needs of a nation struggling for liberation. It also argues that utilising research ethics beyond standardised institutional procedures could be a tool for emancipation and the building of collective anti-colonial consciousness and critical education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]