Conference Agenda

This methodological paper explores the application of network ethnography—a novel and ‘developing’ approach put forth by Stephen Ball (2016)—within a larger empirical research project on the ‘ILSA industry’, a study of contractors involved in international large-scale assessments and, more broadly, of education privatisation.

In the last two decades, education policy, practice, and research have been transformed by the appearance and growing influence of international large-scale assessments (ILSAs). Alongside growing participation in ILSAs, the global ILSA industry is also expanding and becoming more complex. While scholars have extensively studied the impact of ILSAs on education practice and policy, they have largely ignored the contractors involved in developing ILSAs: mainly private companies, including for-profit and not-for-profit; research institutes; and universities.

During the first part of this project, we used network ethnography techniques to map the global ILSA industry by identifying the actors involved in the development of ILSAs, their roles, and their network relationships. Here, our particular aim is to analyse ways in which we, as scholars, ‘become with our methodology’ (Law 2004) and come to terms with the ‘messiness’ of research (Addey and Piattoeva 2022). While most methodologies in the social sciences are presented as standardised procedures that, when applied, lead scholars to the same findings and conclusions, we use our application of network ethnography as a case study of the complex, subjective, and deeply personal process of research. We explore how our methodological choices are influenced by the nature of the research field, our access to it, and our perception of it—and how these choices shape us, our research process, and the knowledge we produce. In doing so, we propose that ‘heterogeneity and variation’ (Law 2004) are an inherent part of any methodological application.

Drawing on Science and Technology Studies (STS) to understand the constitutive role of methodology and the performativity of knowledge-making, intervening in the world but also in the researcher (Law & Singleton 2013, Rimpiläinen 2015), we ask questions such as: How does our encounter with the ILSA contractors and space generate practices of method that shape the way we make knowledge? How are we deeply implicated in our epistemological practices and the worlds in which we are intervening? This approach shows how our methodology is performative: as we take decisions about our practices of method, it constructs what we are studying and ourselves. With an STS approach to our application of network ethnography, we present the complex and provisional nature of knowledge.

Finally, we discuss the challenges of visually representing the network of ILSA contractors. We apply Galloway’s (2011) notion of ‘conversion rules’ to make explicit the categories and relationships which give structure to this network, as well as accounting for absence and what went unrepresented in our attempt. We conclude by exploring what value might be drawn from this set of visualisations and, looking forward, what new approaches might be inspired by its limitations.

Global education actors like the OECD exemplify the ways in which the notion of diversity is so often engaged in contradictory ways. While its ‘Strength Through Diversity’ project suggests a celebratory embrace of diversity, its established commitment to global testing standards is arguably aimed at bringing national systems of educational thinking, policy, and practice into line with a vision for ‘One World’ (Auld et al, 2019, p.213). Similarly, the concern with numbers, impact, and ‘best practice’ in the Higher Education sector results in policies that ‘flatten and homogenise institutional forms and knowledge systems’ (Mills, 2022, p.475). While the social justice basis to much of the rhetoric in support of diversity suggests a commitment to finding ways to live together well for a sustainable future, the dominant neoliberal evidence-based, “what works” logic governing education seems to contribute to a vision of a singular, deterministic future. In this paper we argue that global education agendas around diversity are subject to ‘the perils of the one’ (Gourgouris, 2019) which results in a failure to address pressing societal issues and questions of human flourishing for the common good.

In a previous paper, we explored utopia as method, inspired by the work of Ruth Levitas, as a possible approach to interrupt and resist the “what works” logic that does not seem to work. Through the exploration of utopia as method, and its three modes: archaeology, ontology and architecture, we attempted to create possibilities for engaging in futures-forming practices that are informed by principles of relationality, interconnectedness and solidarity. This orientation towards possibility instead of problem solving puts imagination and self-organisation at the centre. However, utopian agendas have often been criticised as imposing (singular) blueprints for a better world. Utopia, it is sometimes argued, imagines a transcendentalised, universal, future. In this paper, we wish to build on our previous work on utopia as method by problematising the ‘monotheism’ (Gourgouris, 2019) that underpins organisations such as the OECD. We argue that utopia, when conceptualised and enacted as a process and a method, can act to resist the homogenising effects of the neoliberal paradigm. Utopia as method can function as a catalyst for futures-forming practices in education, offering possibilities for the emergence of alternative futures across the diverse lived experiences of individuals and communities. We consider the vital role of imagination as an individual as well as a collective practice and self-organisation and autonomy as the mode and being of collective practices toward alternative futures.

Our central question is thus: How can imagination and self-organisation contribute to the work of education researchers and practitioners who wish to engage in futures-forming practices? In our conceptual exploration, we draw on the work of Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Cornelius Castoriadis, Chiara Bottici, and Stathis Gourgouris, among others, to reclaim the imagination from the clutches of deterministic neoliberal thinking. Careful consideration of how we conceptualise the imagination, we argue, is required for education researchers and practitioners who wish to contribute to plural, participatory and inclusive futures, starting from actions in the present. Ethical and organisational principles rooted in anarchist philosophy, drawing on thinkers such as David Graeber and Rudolph Rocker, among others, helps us to formulate how autonomous self-organisation can be approached in the face of (neoliberal) authority, enabling a genuine commitment to diversity as a political and ethical response. We will offer an in-depth conceptual exploration and, together with the audience, work through the productive tensions that emerge from the much-needed futures-forming practices with which education researchers and practitioners should be concerned.