Virtual Collaborative Scholarship for Development

Potential/Challenges of virtual collaboration for scholars from or in developing countries

Practical examples

Why Collaborate?

Bakhtin, 1981

• “I am conscious of myself and become myself only while revealing myself for another, through another, and with the help of another… I cannot manage without another, I cannot become myself without another”

Four Types

• Learn together e.g. MOOCs
• Co-author/present
• Co-teach
• Other professional development

Power Dynamics

• Infrastructure/ Technology esp synchronicity
• Language
• Timezones
• Culture

BUT: Intersectional

• Power of being cultural hybrid
• Power of being a minority in spaces that are trying to be inclusive
• Effect of being exotic

Virtual Collaborative Teaching

• Soliya (cross-cultural web-video dialogue)
• #TvsZ

How to create spaces that subvert power

"enthusiasm for audiovisual synchronicity often comes without sufficient discernment, and without deliberative consideration of how asynchronous learning can be not only viable but productive" - Bali & Meier, 2014

"synchronous thinking and responding could not happen when you should think of the content in another language’s logic and translate your ideas to English" Participant quote from Bali & Meier, 2014

Timezone sensitivity

Open Collaborative Learning

• Critiques of MOOCs and other open learning
• What would a postcolonial MOOC look like?

On whose terms do we participate in

"we cannot find common bonds if we forget the paradox of trying to find similarity in difference" Sharma & Bali, 2014

Attempts

• Virtually connecting
• Digital Writing Month

Untitled Slide

Co-Authorship/Presentation

• How to initiate?
• The process
• The fruits

What Will You Do?

Thank You