Considering ‘knowledge mobilization’ in educational research: What knowledge, what mobilities, what responsibilities?

Abstract

Art forms such as feature film productions, visual art and drama are figuring as "alternate" ways to represent research in recent considerations of knowledge mobilization. These re-considerations invoke all sorts of long-standing questions about the meanings, engagements, politics and processes of art in combination with intentions, ethics and logics of research - if indeed art and research can even be separated. When coupled with the growing policy emphasis on 'knowledge mobilization' of research — whatever that might mean — these questions acquire a certain urgency. This brief essay draws from one researcher's attempt to combine drama with conventional social science research, an attempt whose mixed results invites reflection on the nature of knowledge, mobilities, and responsibility in the enterprise of 'using' art for 'knowledge mobilization'.