Collaboration. Seven notes on new ways of learning and working
together
Florian Schneider
PDF [144 KB]
If one principle could be seen to inform the opaque surface of
what in the 1990s was called a "new economy" – the shifts
and changes, the dynamics and blockades, the emergencies and habit
formations taking place within the realm of immaterial production
– it would certainly be: "Work together".
Facing the challenges of digital technologies, global communications,
and networking environments, as well as the inherant
ignorance of traditional systems towards these, 'working together'
has emerged as an unsystematic mode of collective
learning
processes.
Slowly and almost unnoticeably, a new word came
into vogue. At first sight it might seem the
least significant
common
denominator for describing new modes of working
together, yet "collaboration" has
become one of the leading terms of an emergent
contemporary political sensibility.
Often collapsed into the most utilitarian understanding,
'collaboration' is far more than acting together,
as it extends towards a network
of interconnected approaches and efforts.
Literally meaning working together with others, especially
in an intellectual
endeavor,
the term is nowadays widely used to describe
new forms of labour relations
within the realm of immaterial production
in various fields; yet despite its significant
presence there is very little
research and theoretical reflection on it.
This might be due to a wide
range
of partly contradictory factors that are
interestingly intertwined.
As a pejorative term, collaboration stands
for willingly assisting an enemy of one's
country, especially an
occupying force or
malevolent power. It means working together
with
an agency with which one
is not immediately connected. Most prominently, "collaboration" became
the slogan of the French Vichy regime after the meeting of Hitler
and Marshall Petain in Lontoire-sur-le-Loir in October 1940. In
a radio speech Petain officially enlisted the French population
to "collaborate" with the German occupiers, while the
French resistance movement later branded those who cooperated with
the German forces as "collaborators".
Despite these negative origins, the term
collaboration is mostly used today as
a synonym for cooperation.
Dictionary
definitions
and vernacular uses are generally more
or less equivalent; but etymologically,
historically
and politically it seems
to make
more sense to elaborate on the actual
differences between various coexisting
layers of meaning.
Is it in principle, possible to make
a relevant distinction between cooperation
and collaboration
and to what end? If
so, what characterizes
the constellations, social assemblages
and relationships in which people collaborate?
And last but not
least: Does this
have any
impact for the current debate on education?
What follows are seven notes and propositions
in which I try do adress these questions
in a very preliminary, eclectic
and
sketchy
way.
1.
In pedagogical discourse, both cooperation
and collaboration are relatively
new terms. They
emerged in the 1970s
in the context of "joint learning activities" and "project-based
learning", which were supposed
to break with an authoritarian
teacher-centred style of guiding
the
thinking of the student.
What might be defined as "educational teamwork" corresponds
to an idea promoted at the same
time by management theory; that
is, in a teamwork environment,
people
are supposed
to understand
and believe that thinking, planning,
decisions and actions are better
when done in cooperation.
At the beginning of the last
century and well ahead
of his time, Andrew
Carnegie, steel-tycoon
and
founder of
Carnegie
Technical
Schools, said: "Teamwork
is the ability to work together
toward a common vision, the ability
to direct
individual
accomplishments toward organizational
objectives.
It is the fuel that allows
common
people to attain uncommon results."
To this day, this famous
quote has probably featured
prominently
in
a myriad powerpoint
presentations
by human resource managers
across the globe, but
its central argument only became
a reality
in the early
1980s, when the
crisis in the car manufacturing
industries triggered
the first large scale proliferation
of
the concept of
teamwork in the realm
of industrial production.
Factories that had hitherto
been characterized
by a highly specialized
division of
labour usually coupled
with a strong self-organization
of the workers in trade
unions
were turned
upside down: teamwork
started being considered
as a
prerequisite for breaking
the power of the unions,
dropping
labour costs and moving
towards so-called
'lean' production,
which was seen at the time
as a response
to global
competition
and the
success of Japanese
exports to the
US and Europe in particular.
In late industrial
capitalism the notion
of teamwork
represented the subjugation
of workers'
subjectivity
to an omnipresent
and individualized
control regime. The
concept of
group
replaced
the
classical one of "foremanship" as
the disciplining force. Rather
than through repression, cost
efficiency was
increased by
means of peer-pressure and the
collective identification of
relatively small groups of multi-skilled
co-workers.
The model of teamwork
soon spread across
different industries
and
branches, yet without
any
great success.
Meanwhile, various research
studies showed
that teams often
make
the wrong decisions,
especially when
the task involves
solving rather
complex problems.
Teamwork frequently
fails for
the
simple fact that
internalized modes
of cooperation
are characterized
by "hoarding" or
stockpiling, quite the opposite
of knowledge sharing: in the
pursuit of a career,
relevant information must be
hidden from others. Joining forces
in a group or team also increases
the likelihood
of failure
rather than success; awkward
group dynamics, unforeseeable
external pressures
and bad management practices
are responsible for
the rest.
This overall failure
is even more
staggering if
we consider
that
rapid technological
development and
the availability
of global
intellectual
resources were supposed to
have increased
the pressure
on individuals
to exchange knowledge
within
and between groups.
Yet as knowledge
became the
main productive
force,
neither the free
wheeling and
well-meaning
strategies
of anti-authoritarianism
nor the brutal
force of
coercing cooperation
seemed capable
of establishing
any new dimensions
of
the dynamics
of 'working
together'.
2.
Increasing evidence
shows that
'working together'
actually occurs
in rather unpredictable
and
unexpected
ways. Rather than through
the exertion
of the
alleged generosity
of a group
made up of
individuals in the pursuit
of solidarity,
it often works
as
a brusque and
even ungenerous
practice,
where
individuals
rely on
one another
the more they
chase their
own
interests,
their mutual
dependence
arising through
the pursuit
of their
own agendas.
Exchange then
becomes
an effect of
necessity rather
than one
of mutuality,
identification
or desire.
This entails
an initial
level of
differentiation
between
cooperation
and collaboration:
in contrast
to cooperation,
collaboration
is driven
by complex realities
rather
than romantic
notions of
common
grounds or
commonality.
It is an
ambivalent process constituted
by a set
of paradoxical
relationships
between co-producers
who affect
one another.
In "Le Maître ignorant", published in 1983, Jacques
Rancière
indicates that ignorance is the first virtue of the master
or teacher. He gives the example of Joseph Jacotot, an exiled
French
revolutionary, professor of French literature at the University
of Louvain
in Belgium from 1815. Jacotot taught French to his Dutch-speaking
students
in the absence of a shared language, through what appears
to be an
entirely collaborative method: without setting up a common agenda,
identifying a common ground or communicating through a
shared
set of tools, he "placed himself in his students' hands
and told
them, through an interpreter, to read half of the book with the
aid of the translation, to repeat constantly what they
had learned,
to quickly read the other half and then to write in French what
they thought about it." This "teaching without
transmitting
knowledge",
as Rancière
defines it, seemed to be incredibly successful,
because
it granted
a level
of autonomy to the students who
acquired
their own knowledge as they deemed
useful
and independently from their teacher.
Rancière's
example
is particularly
enlightening
in
the context
of collaboration
and its
relation
to notions
of
hierarchy
which
so much of
collaborative
disoiurse
deems
to have
vanquished.
It exposes
the hypocrisy
of
the supposed
anti-authoritarianism
that
essentially
underlies
many
notions of
cooperation.
This
misconception might
be seen
as
the practice
of liberally
weakening
the position
of
power,
yet ignoring
the
inherent
paradox
of
doing
so, so
that
in an infinite
line
of regression
power
reappears even
stronger
than
before.
The
more
it tries to
explain,
mediate,
communicate
or
teach,
the more
it reaffirms
the
distance,
inequality
and dependency
of those
who
lack
knowledge on those
who seem
to
possess
it.
The same
applies
to cooperation
and
teamwork:
a
presumption
of equality
actually
extends
both
discrimination
and exploitation
while
seemingly providing
continuous
evidence
in support
of
such
an illusion,
as
if there
were
no radically
different
modes
of working
together.
3.
The work
of
Jacotot's students
can
be
seen as a
form
of
collaboration
with
their
teacher
that
flattens
the
hierarchies and does
away
with
the
teacher-student relationship
altogether,
without
romanticising
it.
Through
collaboration
hierarchies
are
neither criticised
nor
morally
disapproved
of
and hypocritically
discarded.
This
way
of
working together
is
capable
of
ignoring the ignorance
of
the ignorant
and
of
pauperizing the poverty
of
the pauper
precisely
because
collaborators
are
neither questioning
obvious
authority
nor
pretending to be
equal.
Instead
they
have
worked
out
a system
not
of exchange
but
of
flow in
which
these
positions
are
avoided
altogether.
Collaborations
are the
black holes
of knowledge
regimes. They
willingly produce
nothingness, opulence
and ill-behaviour.
And it
is their
very vacuity
which is
their strength.
Unlike cooperation,
collaboration does
not take
place for
sentimental reasons,
for philanthropical
impulses or
for the
sake of
efficiency; it
arises out
of pure
self interest.
Collaborations could
reveal the
amazing potential
whereby an
ignorant, poor
or otherwise
property-less person
can enable
another ignorant,
poor or
otherwise property-less
person to
know what
he or
she did
not know
and to
access what
he or
she did
not access.
It does
not entail
the transmission
of something
from those
who have
to those
who do
not ,
but rather
the setting
in motion
of a
chain of
unforseen accesses.
Shifting
the focus
away from
its components
and outcomes,
collaboration is
a performative
and transformative
process: the
sudden need
to cross
the familiar
boundaries of
one's own
experiences, skills
and intellectual
resources to
enter nameless
and foreign
territories where
abilities that
had been
considered "individual" marvellously
merge
with
those
of
others.
In
this
sequence,
outcomes
and
processes
follow
an
inverse
relation
as
do
the
relations
of
power.
For
what
comes
about
is
not
the
'granting'
of
access
but
a recognition
across
the
board
of
those
involved
in
the
process,
that
it
is
the
unexpected
multiplicity
and
uncertain
location
of
the
points
of
access
that
is
at
stake
in
the
exchange.
4.
Translating
the concept
of collaboration
back to
the context
of education
also points
to a
reverse-engineering of
the teacher's
role. Etymologically,
in Greek
and Latin "pedagogue" or "educator" means "drawing
out" or "pulling out" and refers to an ancient Greek
practice: a family slave called "pedagogue" used
to walk
the child
from the
private house
to a place
of learning.
Rather than
the teacher,
who was
supposed to
have and
transmit knowledge,
the pedagogue
was the
person who
accompanied the
student to
the place
where the
teacher imparted
it.
This
rather spatial
notion of
bringing somebody
across a
specific border
evokes striking
associations with
human trafficking.
The escape
agent or "coyote" -
as it
is named
at the
US-Mexican border
- supports undocumented
border
crossers who
want to
make it
from one
nation state
to another
without the
demanded paperwork.
Permanently on
the move,
only temporarily
employed, nameless,
anonymous and
constantly changing
faces and
sides, the
coyote is,
in an
ironic way,
the perfect
role-model for
both education
and collaboration.
As a metaphor
it serves
the purpose
of destabalising
the idea
of 'knowledge
in movement'
away from
its always
assumed progressive
direction. Instead
it allows
for a certain
degree of
illegitimacy inherent
in
all forms
of collaboration
and distinguishes
it from
the always
perfectly sanctioned
and legitimate
nature of
cooperation. By
extracting a principle
of
mobility and
perceiving the
lack of
legitimacy as
enabling as
opposed to
criminally inhuman
and disabling,
the 'coyote'
who may
or may
not be
motivated by
self gain
without ideological
committment, produces
a
possibility whose
parameters cannot
be gaged.
The "coyote's" motivations remain unclear or, shall we
say, do not matter at all. The "coyote" is
the postmodern
service provider
par excellence.
The fact
that there
is no
trust whatsoever
between those
engaging in
the transcation,
does not
actually play
any part
in the
unfolding of
its play.
Here ,
we might
say, conceptual
insecurity overrides
the financial
aspects of
the collaboration
and triggers
a redundancy of
affects and
perceptions, feelings
and reactions.
Those who
do not
need the
coyote's support
hunt and
demonize it;
those who
rely on
the coyote's
secret knowledge
and skills
appreciate it
all the
more. The
extreme polarities
of these
responses instantiate
the range
of the
collaborative field
and the
impossibility of
navigating it
through moralising
vectors.
Ultimately,
collaboration with
a coyote
generates pure
potential: ranging
from the
dream of
a better
life to
the reality
of pure
living labour
power ready
to be
over-exploited in
the informal
labour market.
If it
wasn't for
its totally
deregulated character,
this practice
would bear
similar results
to that
of traditional
educational systems;
we might
say that
in this
exchange nothing
can be
claimed for
material existence,
let alone
possession, but
neverthelss something
very precious
and entirely
precarious comes
into being;
pure imagination,
yet potentially
powerful beyond
measure.
5.
Against
the background
of postmodern
control society,
collaboration is
about secretly
exchanging knowledge
independently of
borders. It
stands for
the attempt
to regain
autonomy and
get hold
of immaterial
resources in
a knowledge-driven
economy. It
no longer
matters who
has knowledge
and who
owns the
resources; what
matters is
access: not
a generously
granted accessibility
but a
direct, immediate
and instant
access, often
gained illegally
or illegitimately.
While
cooperation involves
identifiable
individuals
within and
between organizations,
collaboration
expresses
a differentiated
relationship
made
up of
heterogeneous
elements
that are
defined as
singularities.
As
such they
are not
identifiable or
subject to
easy categories
of identity,
but defined
out of
an emergent
relation between
themselves. As
such collaboration
is extra-ordinary
in so
far as
it produces
a discontinuity
and marks
a point
of unpredictability,
however deterministic.
Its unpredicatbility
takes the
form of
not being
able to
entirely categorise
the components
of the
collaborative
process,
even when
its general
aim or
drive may
be steering
it in
a particular
direction.
Rationality
has here
been replaced
by a
kind of
relationality
that
constantly
decomposes
and recomposes
information
in
order to
make temporary
use of
unexpected
dynamics
and contingencies:
from stock
market speculation
to the
development
of
network protocols,
from the
production
of
new forms
of aesthetics
in art
and culture
to a
generation
of
political
activism
with global
aspirations.
People
meet and
work together
under circumstances
where their
efficiency,
performance
and labour
power cannot
be singled
out and
individually
measured;
everyone's
work
points
to
someone
else's.
Making
and
maintaining
connections
seems more
important
than
trying
to
capture
and
store ideas.
One's own
production
is
very peculiar
yet it
is generated
and often
multiplied
in
networks
composed
of countless
distinct
dependencies
and constituted
by the
power to
affect
and
be affected.
At no
point in
the process
can this
be arrested
and ascertained,
for it
gains its
power by
not having
explicit
points
of entry
or exit
as a
normative
work
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