The BRCSS Knowledge Space: Configuring Experimentation in Knowledge Production and Social Science Imaginaries

Nick LewisRichard Le HeronErena Le Heron

School of Geography Geology and Environmental ScienceThe University of Auckland

Funded by BRCSS: Theme funding programme 2009

A walk through a BRCSS Knowledge Space

• Why the metaphor?

• Architecture of BRCSS as knowledge space

• What was practised / achieved

• Potency of knowledge space as an extraordinarily insightful generative category (way of framing)

• for understanding institutional experiments

• our performance as a social science collective

• Three moments of interrogation: 2005, 2007, 2009

A Moment

• TEC tenders $8 million worth of funding for capability building programmes in the social sciences– attracted three bids– the most substantial /innovative was the BRCSS bid

• There was an agreement among six universities, and a private social researcher a TEC contract, the money, a set of deliverables, 9 nodes, 36 programmes, some themes, a College of 50+, an Advisory Board ....

• But what was BRCSS, what would it do .....

A mid-term reflection

• by definition, innovative and distinctive– challenges the established competitive model– only capability building initiative in any area of

research that links all of New Zealand’s universities

(Bedford and colleagues 2006)

The Metaphor

What is a knowledge space?

• Relational nexus that adds meaning• extension of practices and relations beyond immediate

physical sites through new connections to other sites• describe assemblages of exchanges, transformations, sites of

knowledge production, and virtual connections• capture, categorise, stabilise, make visible and available for

action networked approaches to learning• generative confluence of intellectual and political projects

emerging from the co-production of knowledge and learning

Adopting the Metaphor

• Guiding imaginary for investigating what/how/why we were doing what we were doing

• Leads us to ask the deep capability questions• Lewis and Thorns (2005,2007) two dimensions of use

– hopeful conceptualisation - potential to alter the landscape of the social sciences

– generative conceptualization - begun to frame an alternative guide as our interpretation of it

– Derived from regional meetings

… requires a Genealogy

Political Times• Shaking up foundational commitments and

disciplines • After-neoliberal political projects

– agenda to rebuild social and economic institutions after the failures of laissez faire …..

– AND an ethics and politics of inclusion, collaboration, facilitation, participation, and pragmatism,

– more than the economic transformation agenda– language of steering, framing, and enabling – Improving the Knowledge Base 2001

Coming of age and conceiving BRCSS

• Crisis narrative• Guided understandings of the social sciences at key time of

rebuilding the national knowledge base for a new economic and social development agenda (Bedford 2005)

• Aimed to reposition social science for agenda– co-ordination, interdisciplinarity, strategic planning, better funding,

long-term research– contribute knowledge to sciences and technology– more stable and institutionally fairer funding– investment in capacity building– Social Sciences Research Academy– inclusiveness, collaboration, and a demand for new social institutions

• Conservative and defensive

In short: BRCSS established• Strong links between Coming of Age and BRCSS e.g. Towards

2020• BRCSS to contribute by linking social development agenda to

the national economic development project in commitment to economic nationalism

• Creature of, and challenged to overcome, competitive environment

• Established in image of existing problem

A full genealogy

• A future project …. weaving the personal reflections, documentary records through the context

Emergence

It is not simply what is (or was) that should be of interest, but

how assemblages of projects take form, how they are mobilised, how they are made coherent, what work they do, and what

subjects and spaces they foster (Lewis et al. 2008)

Early activity

• ...extending the moment of conception• Access Grid development• Regional meetings

– fighting tired thinking, old models– glimpsing the inventive opportunities

(congratulations ... collective gasp ... escaping the collective grasp)

– AG as catalyst (...more coming)

Institutionalising work

• Imagining a mandate from contested spaces• Designing platforms• Establishing practices: Awards

guidelines/protocols, Distinguished Visitor expectations, conventions for funding requests, meeting protocols, roles of ....

Proactive

Reactive

Capacity building

Research

BRCSS: Contested dimensions of a mandateBRCSS: Contested dimensions of a mandate

Instrumental/domestic

Reflective/global

Policysupport

Critical

Project-centric

Exploratory-conceptual

AcademyCommunity

Inclusive

Exclusive

EstablishedNew

Engagement

Engagement Engagement

EngagementAdvocacy

Advocacy

Academic pursuit

Key Milestones 2004-2005

• September 2004: BRCSS launched / Access Grid investment planned• November 2004: The BRCSS Research College meeting• January – May 2005: Workshops on research themes• May 2005: Second meeting of the BRCSS Research College; Lewis and

Thorns paper on BRCSS Occasional Paper Series• May 2005: First BRCSS Distinguished Visitors for Research College meeting

and seminars• July 2005: First independent BRCSS Distinguished Visitor, Dr James

McCarthy - post-graduate workshop, writing workshop, community research workshop in Kaitaia

• July – August 2005: Finalised arrangements for appointment of a Director and Business Manager; initial postgraduate research training workshop

• January - October 2005: Agreements for the design and implementation of an Access Grid network – first AG system linking so many institutions on existing internet infrastructure

• November 2005: BRCSS Management Group meeting via the AG; Distinguished Visitor, Professor Marilyn Taylor presented seminars co-sponsored by SPEaR

Taking early form

‘Time to get traction’ (Bedford 2006)– imagine and invent itself– capture interest / support

• January – March 2006: Applications for initial competitive grants for research projects and Masters thesis research, with BRCSS Objectives and Guidelines to Policies and Awards published on web

• March 2006: Inaugural postgraduate research seminar (50 postgraduate students and staff)

• April 2006: Third meeting of the BRCSS Research College (considered capability building initiatives and nature of the research awards)

• April 2006: BRCSS Distinguished Visitors Professor Robert Stimson, Professor Graeme Hugo participate in the BRCSS Research College meeting and a two-day seminar for policymakers and researchers

• May 2006: BRCSS Distinguished Visitor, Professor Katharine Rankin (University of Toronto) delivered public lectures in Auckland and Christchurch, facilitated a post-graduate workshop in Auckland and the second BRCSS Grid postgraduate research seminar on trans-disciplinarity, met researchers in Palmerston North and Wellington

• October 2005 – June 2006: Research staff at SHORE (Massey University, Auckland) scope, develop and implement an on-line survey of around 1,600 social scientists in the universities.

• June 2006: Professor David Thorns released a second reflective paper entitled Creating E-Research Communities: The Aotearoa/New Zealand National Project

• December 2006: Research Colloquium to present research from programmes, accent on postgraduate students in programmes

Key Milestones 2004-2005

Working in the BRCSS Knowledge Space

Ongoing research agendas

Postgraduateteaching

programmes

Innovative research directionsSocial theory

Policy analysis and

evaluation

Knowledge Production

BRCSS Themes

Networks

David Thorns, Nick Lewis SPRE Conference 2007

Building

• Platforms (connections across):– themes, international visitors, meetings, communities

of interest, workshops, access grid• Connections (to):

– disciplines, institutions, policy (SPEAR, SPRE conference, Progress Report), publics (teachers, Dutch immigrants, community researchers), science, international

• Take-up and engagement– full value not achieved because of slowness of some

groups to take up

The Access Grid: Axes for performing BRCSS knowledge space into being

• Forced action• Generated sense of BRCSS as a space • Forced BRCSS to experiment, confront new imaginaries and

modalities, and unfamiliar practices at a formative stage• Forced a transdisciplinarity (had to be invented)• Set rhythms of BRCSS• Fashioned nature of BRCSS relationships and framed

understandings of BRCSS by others• Fostered the knowledge space metaphor• A new space that overcame boundaries simply through its

practices

BRCSS Revealed in Practices

BRCSS Activities Read From the Funding Record Type of funding $ Total (excl

GST) No. of awards / events*

Research and project grants $ 1,527,294 46

Masters scholarships $ 450,000 57

Doctoral completion scholarships $ 380,000 38

Post doctoral scholarship $ 360,000 4

Conference/workshops ** $ 334,741 22

Access grid funding (Pasifika, New Settler, Postgrad, General, Other)

$ 69,000 5

Postgrad conference support and travel $ 53,580 10

Summer studentships $ 35,200 16

Distinguished visitors $ 33,541 8

Other - support for postgrad journal $ 12,000 1

Academic travel grants (mostly 'conference') $ 2,814 4

BRCSS planning day, strategic day $ 2,611 2

Total $ 3,260,781 213

Connectivity

BRCSS use of the Access Grid 2007-2008 BRCSS Access Grid Usage No. meetings 2008 No. meetings 2007  

Meetings  

He waka tangata (+RunningHot) 15 3  

Pasifika conference / research committee 4 3  

Dutch community Hoe Wie 9 2  

Maori Social Sciences Network (MASS) 7 -  

BRCSS management meeting 5 8  

Biological economies group 9 1  

BRCSS what's next/strategic group 2 -  

Other 2 3  

Total 53 20  

Seminar series type Registrations

Research 12 - 293

Talanoa 13 10 407 / 195

New Settler 13 2 252 / 30

Methodology - 17 411

Workshops 5 - -

Total 96 49 1588 +

Extent of involvement across the nodes

Meetings in 2008

Number of node

s connected

Nodes Connected

Massey Albany

*

UofA AUTWaikat

o

Massey PN*

VUW

Massey Wn *

Canterbury

Lincoln

Otago

He Waka Tangata (HWT)

5  y   y y   y    

Pasifika Conference Committee

6  y y y   y   y   y

Dutch Community Hoe Wie

5    y y y y   y    

He Waka Tangata 6   y   y y y   y    

Maori Social Sciences Network (MASS)

5   y y y y        

Pasifika Conference Committee

5  y y     y   y   y

BRCSS Management Committee

4        y y       y

Pasifika Conference Committee

7y y y y   y   y   y

HWT Running Hot Oxygen Group

2  y           y    

MASS Meeting 7 y   y y   y y y   y

Dutch Community Hoe Wie

4    y y   y   y    

Meetings over February – May 2008

Registrations - Research Series 2008

Massey Albany

UofA AUT WaikatoMassey

PNVUW

Massey W'n

Canterbury Lincoln OtagoFamily Centre

6 42 35 30 21 43 5 45 13 35 2

New BRCSS forms and practices of connection

Target Constituencies: Postgraduate students, Pasifika, New Settlers, Maori researchers

Graduate Journal of Asia-Pacific Studies

SocCon 2007 – Schools Social Science conference

NZSSN Workshop

Postgraduate workshops with international scholars – AG and in-person

Strategic support for Postgraduate students attendance at conferences: Centre for Applied Cross-cultural Research Conference, New Zealand Institute for Research on Ageing

SAANZ / TASA 2007

He Waka Tangata

Objects, ideas, readings, stuff from outside the rooms (research)

Knowledge Making Away from Content

Working Papers and Reports• Access Grid and e-social science

– Access Grid and Video Conferencing as Real Life Simulation by Mary Allan and David Thorns

– Access Grid Environments as Spaces of Mixed Spacial Interaction by Mary Allan and David Thorns

– Virtual Conferencing Technologies: A Survey of Users by David Thorns, Mary Allan, Bindy Barclay, Gina Chamberlain, Roslyn Kerr and Jenna Scott

– Creating E-research Communities: The Aotearoa/New Zealand National Project • Social science surveys

– BRCSS National Survey of Social Scientists 2006 report – BRCSS: The Social Sciences and Policy-Research Use by Penelope Carroll, Michael

Blewden and Karen Witten– Trends in Human Capital in the Social Sciences in New Zealand – Mapping the Social Sciences: Characteristics of Academic Research Outputs – National Survey of Social Scientists

• Studies of BRCSS– BRCSS Portfolio Research Programmes Survey 2007 by Karen Witten, Melissa Girling and

Jenny Neale– The BRCSS 2005-2006 Progress Report – BRCSS: Building a Network and a Knowledge Space in Critical Conditions

• Mahi Awatea: A Sociology for the 21st Century in Aotearoa • Report from the Foundation Conference for the International Data Forum

December 2007 Research Grants• Associate Professor Julie Park & Associate Professor Judith Littleton - Historical and

Contemporary Migrant Social Inclusion: A Focus on Health and Tuberculosis. • Professor Richard Le Heron , Associate Professor Hugh Campbell , Dr Nick Lewis & Professor

Mike Roche - Centring Social Science in Building Diverse and Resilient Biological Economies.• Dr Hannah Badland , Scott Duncan , Dr Mitch Duncan & Melody Oliver - Moving Through the

Built Environment: Where, How, and Why? • Dr Ruth McManus & Dr Cyril Schafer - Final Arrangements: Attitudes to Funeral Costs in NZ. • Professor David Thorns & Dr Mary Allan - Building Collaborative Research Capabilities in Virtual

Research Environments.• Professor Harvey Perkins , Dr Stephen Fisher, Michael Mackay - Interpreting Rural Landscapes

of Production and Consumption: Multifunctionality in Two Central Otago Districts.• Dr Lesley Patterson - Lifelines: Imagining Familial Futures.• Associate Professor Henrik Moller & Associate Professor Hugh Campbell - Securing Mahinga

Kai: Building Capacity Among Emerging Maori Researchers in the Te Tiaki Mahinga Kai Project.• Associate Professor Karen Witten , Associate Professor Robin Kearns , Penelope Carroll, Lanuola

Asiasiga , Sandy Kerr & Dr En-Yi Lin - Characteristics of Intensive Urban Environments that Support Family Wellbeing.

• Professor Sally Casswell , Associate Professor Karen Witten , Dr Tim McCreanor , Dr John Huakau & Dr En-Yi Lin - Perceptions of Social Cohesiveness in New Zealand Neighbourhoods.

• Associate Professor James Liu , Katja Hanke , Arama Rata & Keri Lawson-Te Aho - Testing a Culture-sensitive Model of Intergroup Forgiveness.

• Dr Amanda Wolf & Associate Professor Robin Peace - Policy-directed Research on Social Change in Diverse Societies: Prospects for Innovative Methodologies in New Zealand.

• Professor Colleen Ward - Integration and Adaptation in Muslim New Settlers.• Professor John Gibson , Assoc Prof Bonggeun Kim & Dr Alan de Brauw - Building and E-research

Network to Analyse an Experiment Comparing Longitudinal Surveys with Retrospective Recall.• Professor Ted Zorn - The Current and Potential Impacts of Web 2.0 Applications on New Zealand

Not-for-Profit Organisations.

Talanoa Series 2007

Title or Theme Presenter/sNodes

connectedRegistrations

Your Health is in your hands: Factors that influence Samoan women’s food choices within a church context. Use of Grounded theory.

Aliitasi Tavila 8 33

Living the Dream? Pacific Young Women in New Zealand

Karlo Mila-Schaaf 8 34

What kinds of relationships enhance the well-being of Samoan Youth attending secondary schools in Auckland

Fuafiva Fa'alau 6 18

Builing a talanoa research path: American deportees in Tonga

Lea Lani Kinikini and Mo'ale 'Otunuku

5 24

The Embodiment of God: towards a theology of the Samoan male body

Tavika Maliko 4 11

Tufunga Fonua: Tongan Indigenous Leadership in a Globalised Society

Sioni Tuitahi 7 21

Tongan Social work approaches to practice Tracie Mafileo    

The academic reading experiences and profiles of Pasifika students in their first year of tertiary study

Ruth Davidson-Toumu’a

6 12

Family Centred learning at home Ramona Tiatia    

Talanoa as a Tongan research methodology Linita Manuatu 6 15  James Prescott    Perceptions of English use among South Pacific Islanders at the University of the South Pacific Rajni Chand

6 11

Research Series 2008Title or Theme Presenter/s

No. nodes connected

Total Registrations

The Researcher Development Initiative at the ESRC

Professor Joan Orme 6 16

Meta -Analysis of Empirical Evidence on the Labour Market Impacts of Immigration

Dr Simonetta Longhi 8 14

Working internationally to address the social determinants of health and health equityProgramme

Frank Pega 8 24

Knowledge exchange: Models of knowledge co-production

Sir Howard Newby 8 20

Trans-disciplinary knowledge production: Insights from UK and Norway

John Bryson 7 29

Bourdieu, chickens and cars: Research methods for cultural economy analyses

Jane Dixon 7 16

Is it working? : Low-income children's perspectives on managing work and care in lone-mother families

Tess Ridge 8 33

Economic Geography and Science Bill Clark 8 26

Working interdisciplinarily: a case study of TB and Citizenship

Deborah Dunsford, Annika Phillips and

Jody Lawrence7 16

Social Work and Community Development Postgraduate Research Presentations

Druinie Perera and Kathleen Gavigan

6 14

How can we make communities healthy by design? Billie Giles Corti 8 71Rural Restructuring and Spatial Planning Alister Scott 4 14

New Settler Series 2008Title or Theme Presenter/s Nodes Reg’ns

Connecting Research to Practice: A gambling perspective

Pauline Chan, Gus Lim and John Wong 6 23

Media and Minority Elena Maydell and Phoebe Li 7 17

Technology and Social Sciences Wan Munira Bt Wan Jaafar and Theodore Lee

5 11

International Graduates Fen Lu and YingJing Yuan 8 23

How to Apply for a Scholarship Hong Jae Park and Wendy Li 6 23

Be Scholarship Savvy: A Scholarship Officer's Perspective

Phillipa Hay, Gwenda Pennington, Julie Park8 43

The Construction of Social Memory in Chinese Documentary Hybrids

Wei Luo6 11

Economy and Organisation Benjamin Lindt and Albert Kuruvila 4 13

Health and Wellbeing of New Settlers Pheobe Guo 5 29

Poster Preparation Matthew Gerrie and James Liu 6 21

South African Migrants in New Zealand: Two Case Studies

Annika Phillips and Carina Meares5 15

(De)constructing the Korean NZer's Return Migrations to 'Homeland'.

Jane Lee5 16

A Matter of Development: Economic and Community Development

Daisy Lepon and Julius Marete3 7

Methodology Series 2007Title or Theme Presenter/s Nodes Reg’ns

BRCSS summer students seminarStudents (Canterbury,

Victoria and Lincoln)- -

Alas Poor Darwin: arguments beyond evolutionary psychology Hilary Rose, Stephen Rose 6 17

Domestic violence and mental illness/substance abuse Debbie Hager 7 54

Building and Usinag Microsimulation Models for the Analysis of the Effects of Social Policy

Holly Sutherland 3 17

BRCSS Seminar Series: Workshop Arun Agrawal 7 15

Balancing Social and Economic Policy: Comparing Countries in the Analysis of Best Practice

Joakim Palme 5 10

The power of Discourse Rendt Gorter 9 46

Internationalising Imaginaries in New Zealand Tertiary EducationLewis, Le Heron, Friesen,

Rees- -

'Socio-Spatial Exclusion in the city of Kolkata'.  Dr Sohel Firdos 5 13

Data Archiving in Australasia: lessons from across the ditch Sophie Holloway 7 17

Polynesian Migrant Women at Work in New Zealand: Self-perceived Knowledge,Skills and Sense of Identity

Karin Menon 5 13

Planning for urban agriculture in Japan and east-Asian megacities Makoto Yokohari 3 4

Combining Rehabilitation with Accountability and Safety Judge Eugene Hyman 7 32

Demystifying Academic WritingJenny Cameron, Jane

Higgins7 60

Mauri Ora in ActionDi Grennell, Leland

Ruwhiu, Moana Eruera8 71

Politics of Connectivity

Spread of applications

Type of application No. listed on application (e.g. student and supervisor, x researchers)

No. of departments

listed

No. of institutions

listed

1 2 3 4 5 6 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4

Masters 0 41 15 1 0 0 52 5 0 0 all - - -

Doctoral completion 1 22 15 3 0 0 35 5 1 0 35 2 0 1

Post doc awards 1 3 0 0 0 0 4 0 0 0 4 0 0 0

Research awards 6 20 11 4 1 1 34 8 1 0 37 4 2 0

Totals 7 64 26 8 1 1 125 18 1 0 133 6 2 1

Breadth of applicants on particular applications – cross disciplinary, cross institutional

Extensivity and reach

No. of applicants associated with Count

One contact 233

Two contacts 21

Three contacts 6

Four contacts 4

Five contracts 2

Six contacts 3

Seven contacts 2

Eight contacts 1

  272

Which disciplines were interested in which themes?

Discipline/department New wealth social justice transmission sustainability e-research

Geography 8 17 4 19  

Psychology   16 6 7  

Anthropology 2 10 7 9  

Sociology 7 6 4 7 3

Public health/health   8 4 8 1

Management 4 4 1 2  

History 2 3 3 2  

Education 2 3 2 2  

Political studies/ science 4 4 2 3 1 

Social sciences 1 3 2 2  

Environment, society and design (Lincoln) 1 3   3  

Development studies   3 1 1  

Economics 2 1 2   1

Theme counts 34 89 40 73 6

Distribution of Awards by Number

Auckland

AUT

Waikato

Massey

Victoria

Canterbury

Lincoln

Otago

Number of successful award applications

BRCSS: building core capabilitiesCommunity Contributions: Community Contributions:

‘‘public’ social sciencepublic’ social science

TeachingTeachingResearchResearch

Knowledge production

Core Social Science

Capability building

IdentitiesCreative/futures

Commissioned research

Training / capacitie

s

Critic and Conscience

HWT P

Hui

PG Workshops

Research Awards

Access Grid ER

CoRE bids

NI

Commissioned Research

Multiple traces and effects: enhanced capability and a remapped a

landscape

Our contention is that the work achieved by BRCSS described above has had multiple effects and left multiple traces on the landscape of the social sciences. Many of these are difficult to quantify, and most are difficult to tie directly to measures of a

better future. All however, are dimensions of a new knowledge space that has remapped social science

BRCSS’ Achievements• Network development• Reinvigorate research and lead research agenda• Capability building• Achieving what otherwise could not have been achieved at

disciplinary or other level .....… at minimal cost

Multiple traces• New connectivities, new groupings, platforms for

new capabilities• New spirit of experimentation• New sense of community, new communities of

practice• New social science identities• New postgraduate identities / practices• New networks, engagements, connections, platforms• Investments in multiple particular individuals

Multiple effects• Fostering knowledge of conditions of NZ social science – a

new basis for knowing• Widening range of dedicated activities• Blunting the axes of contest • Demonstrating NZ social science as novel• Making visible, giving recognition, resourcing, fostering

marginal or shadowed groups• Assembling basis for new research/career trajectories• Shifting collective voice and identity to positive

• Extraordinarily – Inclusive and integrative

• Generated– Imagination and boundary crossing– a national project with new, post-foundational architecture– impetus to consider how to perform social science– greater knowledge of ourselves

• Demonstrated – knowledge can be made differently and that knowing is in the doing– framework for reconfiguring NZ universities– innovative graduate teaching model– value of giving research community freedom to get on and do it

• Allowed – groups to imagine and give imagination substance

Pluses on the Report Card

Shaping What Next

What Next 2008 … imagined from BRCSS

• Excellent, meaningful social science for NZ• Pathways and networks, breadth of engagement, ‘national

knowledge project’, independent social science ‘centre’, transdisciplinarity, distributed leadership

• Also requires commitment, enhanced connections, Access Grid, strong constituencies, funding

Source: Peace, R. 2008 ‘BRCSS What Next?’ Document prepared for What Next Group

Forward to the conception

• Messages from Coming of Age high on BRCSS II agenda (Peace et al. 2009)– BRCSS II requires strong stable funding– thicker institutional space– social science-led interdisciplinary research and knowledge production – stronger recognition of the social embeddedness and grounding of

economic relations and value

• BRCSS has given the Coming of Age project a politics and practice of knowledge production, replacing under-intellectualised vision with new and theorised imaginaries of a 21st century social science, a record of performing it and prescription for practicing it, and a tried model of engagement across multiple boundaries. The recommendations of Coming of Age are now open to a deep debate.

BRCSS A Knowledge Space

Creating a new social science generation/paradigm for 21st century Aotearoa

New ZealandBRCSS initiated practices that have allowed different groups to perform different imaginaries in ways that have proven capable of accommodating a diversity of visions across the professional, critical, policy and public realms. Its distributed, relational and performed forms mapped a knowledge space in which institutions, places, social projects, research agendas and social knowledges became rearticulated in generative practices that have afforded it a temporary yet flexible stability.

• BRCSS has changed things – new connections, networks, platforms, experiences to confront changing conditions

• Things have changed: how does BRCSS now sit within Government policy objectives, new balances of its formative tensions

BRCSS as ExperimentationExperiment ‘Results’Access Grid Available to be integrated into all social science practice ... taken up by many

Hardware of connectivity, capability building, aspirationThorns et al. - world now knows how it works

Priortised Networks

AspirationalFormative momentum – something new

Methodology / Research Series

Discrete (but connected) injections of global flavour to BRCSS experience

Research Seeding New practices for new times – creating different social science worlds

Connectivity / bottom-up collaboration

Wide reach and touch in universitiesAltered institutional landscapeHigh returns on investment

Postgraduate emphasis

New generations folded in - innovation, enthusiasm, excitement for allPractising in this novel space what is good about the social sciencesNew capacities

Capability Building Knowledge production capability, enhanced capacities, reshaped landscape

Making Social science visible

We can all see / walk in the landscapePlatform for connectivity

Emergence Not a top-down creation – yet not a creation of academic mind alone

Reading BRCSS as a knowledge space allows us to…

• See and know social science as co-constituted political and intellectual projects

• Connect social theory to policy/institutional context through innovative / deeper reflection beyond the survey

• Reveal– the interplay of imaginaries, political projects, institutions, agency– imaginaries to be the drivers of value creation and what it is to be good in the

world– BRCSS as emergent, stitched together entity requiring different metrics– capability building as on-going, never finished– potential creativity of living the tensions between intellectual and political

trajectories – Knowledges spaces as a category for the 21st century

• Highlight relationality in the production of knowledge

‘Knowledge with’ for inventive futures