Writing we: Collaborative text in educational research

Abstract

In this chapter we examine the critical possibilities of collaborative writing, as multiple layers of voices intertwine to produce and understand collaborative authorship. We seek to challenge the politics and epistemological assumptions of the do-your-own-work mentality pervasive throughout education. Through a theoretical, methodological and ethnographically thick exploration of collaboratively produced text, we offer a different paradigm for understanding and producing knowledge. Cowriting is examined as an unfolding, polyvocal, and necessarily multifaceted journey toward a new critical pedagogy of working “with.