Hanna Schwamborn

Experimenting with Collaboration – Between Transformation and Transformism

This research project focuses on collaborative work as a contradictory practice/practice in contradictory contexts. The tensions between hopes for the transformation of hegemonic/exclusive/colonial/discriminatory spaces and structures through collaborative forms of working together and an instrumental practice that accompanies the institutionalization of collaboration, create a contradiction and tension. However, these contradictions often remain invisible and therefore non-negotiable within collaborative practice. This doctoral project raises questions about how projects at the intersections of cultural work, art, activism, and science navigate and negotiate collaborative work and research, as well as the inherent contradictions of this practice, in the context of normative processes, discourses of hope, and power structures. The aim is to bring different fields of application of collaborative practice into dialogue, apply experimental and collaborative ethnographic methods, and co-develop spaces for negotiation.