ICS Seminar Series – Amanda Third
Date: Thursday 19 May 2016
Time: 11.30am–1pm
Venue: EB.2.02, Western Sydney University, Parramatta South campus
Amanda Third
(Institute for Culture and Society)
The Engaged Researcher vs. The Robed Scholar, the Filing Cabinet, and the Ivory Tower: Thinking Through 'Engaged Knowledges'
Abstract
The extensive scholarship on knowledge brokering has elaborated a wide variety of perspectives on the practice of knowledge, including the structures and institutional formations that shape the production of knowledge; what 'counts' as knowledge in the 'knowledge economy'; effective strategies for translating research into practice; and the cross-pollination of disciplinary knowledges. This paper seeks to contribute to these debates by zeroing in on the role of the cultural studies researcher in emergent knowledge ecologies.
Drawing upon an ethnographic approach, this paper analyses the various subjectivities inhabited at different moments by the cultural studies researcher in dynamic knowledge brokering settings. Mobilising Michel de Certeau's theorisation of tactics and strategy, I argue that the most effective processes of knowledge brokering situate the academic researcher as a tactical agent who, rather than intervening in cross-sector dialogue to deliver 'objective' and 'definitive' insights to a semi- or non-expert audience, intervenes in dialogues with other 'expert citizens' (Henrik Bang) to hold competing ideas in productive tension in ways that potentially open up new perspectives for scholarship, policy and practice. In doing so, this paper asks what it means for the identity of the cultural studies researcher to engage in a collaborative process of knowledge production that is grounded in a community of practice, and how this impacts the ways we might think about 'engaged knowledges'.
Biography
Associate Professor Amanda Third is Principal Research Fellow in the Institute for Culture and Society at Western Sydney University and Program Leader in the Young and Well Cooperative Research Centre. Her research focuses on the socio-cultural dimensions of young people's technology use, with particular emphases on children's rights in the digital age, the intergenerational dynamics shaping technology practice, and vulnerable young people's technological engagements. She has conducted several large externally funded projects with industry organisations (e.g. Google Australia, Google UK, UNICEF, Starlight Children's Foundation, Telstra Foundation, Foundation for Young Australians) focusing on young people's everyday use of online and networked technologies and the potential for new technologies to support young people's wellbeing. She is also Chief Investigator on an Australian Research Council Industry Linkage project entitled 'Young People, Technology and Wellbeing Research Facility' that examines cross-sector knowledge brokering practices. She is a founding member of the Australian-based Technology and Wellbeing Cross-Sector Roundtable; a member of the international Digitally Connected Network; an Expert Advisor to Global Kids Online; and recipient of the 2015 Western Sydney University Vice Chancellor's Award for Engagement.
