The Challenges and Benefits of Employing a Mobile Research Fellow to Facilitate Team Work on a Large, Interdisciplinary, Multi-Sited Project

Abstract

Over the last few years research funding has increasingly moved in favour of large, multi-partner, interdisciplinary and multi-site research projects. This paper explores the benefits and challenges of employing a full-time research fellow to work across multiple fieldsites, with all the local research teams, on an international, interdisciplinary project. The article shows how such a 'floating' research fellow can play a valuable role in facilitating communication between research teams and project leaders, as well as in building capacity and introducing disciplinary specific skills. It also highlights some key challenges including problems of language and translation, and the complex power relations within which such a researcher is inevitably embedded. This paper contributes to the development of strategies for collaborative projects to facilitate coordination between research teams. It is based on a five-site, cross-cultural project, involving nine partners with a mixture of natural and social science backgrounds, researching aquatic resource use, rural livelihoods, work and education in China, Vietnam and India.

Systems Research in Education: Designs and methods

“…One option is for a single research fellow to support in-country teams across the study countries. This can provide coherence in data collection and comparative analysis, but does raise questions about the relative power and authority of the role as a 'go-between' for principle investigators and in-country researchers (Sugden and Punch, 2014). Osborn (2004), in describing the construction of a transnational research team for a study of attitudes to secondary schooling, argues for in-country teams to collaborate closely and to write up observations of countries other than their own.…”

A two‐sided medal: On the complexity of international comparative and collaborative team research

“…They basically have emerged as explicit project auto‐ or self‐ethnographies (e.g., Brew et al, ; Hoffman et al, ; Jonsen et al, ) or as by‐product reflections based on experience reports from one or several team members or on interviews, field notes, email conversations, etc. (e.g., Bagshaw, Lepp, & Zorn, ; Brewster, Mayrhofer, & Reichel, ; Easterby‐Smith & Malina, ; Gardner et al, ; Sugden & Punch, ; Tartas & Muller Mirza, ; Thomas, Tienari, Davies, & Meriläinen, ). These studies provide insights into what happens in the research practice and on the micro‐level of research teams when groups are stretched over geographical distance, generations, cultural beliefs, values and norms, etc.…”

“…On a similar note, the study by Brew et al () demonstrates that deceptive similarities, once made visible as differences within the team, can be managed through reflexive awareness of research team members and deliberate actions, and can eventually contribute to the team's success. Additionally, the study by Sugden and Punch () suggests another innovative strategy of coping with challenges of comparative collaborative projects: the inclusion of a mobile researcher who rotates between geographically dispersed teams and thus acts as methodological and social facilitator.…”

Cross-world and cross-disciplinary dialogue: A more integrated, global approach to childhood studies

“…Although direct comparisons of Majority World and Minority World childhoods are rare (Chawla, 2002;Katz, 2004), there is increasing evidence that global processes can affect children and young people in similar ways (Aitken et al, 2008;Benwell, 2009;Kaufman and Rizzini, 2002;Punch, 2014). However, a key danger of attempting global comparisons is to over-homogenise the Majority and Minority Worlds, masking the diversity within and across different countries.…”

“…It is also worth bearing in mind that while some international organisations such as Childwatch International or Save the Children conduct empirical studies within the Majority World by researchers from the Majority World, in general most research on Majority World childhoods is carried out by Minority World academics. Partly this is due to limited resources, training and research capacity, including a tendency to focus on natural sciences and on more quantitative rather than qualitative approaches to research (Sugden and Punch, 2014). Another possible reason is that many university degrees in the Majority World have a vocational focus, as well as limited scope at the postgraduate level, so there is a comparative lack of sociologists, geographers and anthropologists who would be available to research in the field of childhood studies.…”