(Un)doing collaboration: reflections on the practices of collaborative research

Collaboration is often put forward as a programmatic ideal, or invoked as an antidote to conventional research methods in the humanities and social sciences. Collaboration also increasingly features in the lexicon of ‘innovation’, ‘interdisciplinarity’, ‘partnership’, ‘engagement’ and ‘impact’ that accompanies the restructuring of Higher Education as well as the production, circulation and consumption of knowledge. But despite this turn to ‘collaboration’ and the set of tensions it generates, there has been comparatively little sustained attention to the actual practices of doing collaborative research. In this Working Paper, researchers from the CRESC Encounters Collaborative reflect on their experiences of collaborative research, offering a series of case studies that describe research with actors ranging from City Councils to a feminist community allotment, from Eurostat to intra-academic projects. Through these case studies we unpack the research process in ways that serve to disrupt conventional representations of research as a linear, sequential activity resulting in a set of knowable outputs. Rather we find that collaborative research often requires that the definition of research problems, methods or outputs be left open or remain undetermined, whilst at the same time posing questions about the authorship and ownership of knowledge production that are often otherwise foreclosed in conventional research. Furthermore, via an analysis of our research encounters, we find that the relationships that underpin collaborative research are often sustained through the production and exchange of particular kinds of ‘gifts’, which may be missed in contemporary regimes of ‘impact’. In these ways, the accounts presented in this Paper throw into relief the artefactual character of representations of research that as academics we are often incited to construct. Yet, by paying attention to the mundane and opportunistic ways in which collaborative research often proceeds (or fails to proceed), the case studies also serve to complicate a reified opposition between conventional and collaborative research. Rather, we find that the distinctiveness of collaboration lies less in a deviation from some kind of imagined, non-collaborative research process, than in the way it forces a reflexive acknowledgment of the emergent quality of knowledge in research relationships across time and space

Coalitions and public action in the reshaping of corporate responsibility: the case of the retail banking industry

This paper addresses the question of whether and how public action via civil society and/or government can meaningfully shape industry-wide corporate responsibility (ICR) behaviour. We explore how, in principle, ICR can come about and what conditions might be effective in promoting more ethical behaviour. We propose a framework to understand attempts to develop more responsible behaviour at an industry level through processes of negotiation and coalition building. We suggest that any attempt to meaningfully influence ICR would require stakeholders to possess both power and legitimacy; moreover, magnitude and urgency of the issue at stake may affect the ability to influence ICR. The framework is applied to the retail banking industry, focusing on post-crisis experiences in two countries—Spain and the UK—where there has been considerable pressure on the retail banking industry by civil society and/or government to change behaviours, especially to abandon unethical practices. We illustrate in this paper how corporate responsibility at the sector level in retail banking is the product of context-specific processes of negotiation between civil society and public authorities, on behalf of customers and other stakeholders, drawing on legal and other institutions to influence industry behaviour

Efeito da densidade de estocagem sobre a efici\ueancia alimentar de juvenis de Pirarucu (Arapaima gigas) em ambiente confinado

O objetivo deste trabalho foi verificar o efeito da densidade de estocagem sobre a eficiência alimentar de juvenis de pirarucu em tanques-rede de pequeno volume. Foram usados 12 tanques-rede de 1m³ em um viveiro de 120m³ perfazendo três tratamentos (15, 20 e 25 peixes/m³) com quatro repetições. Os peixes foram alimentados com ração comercial extrusada com 45% de proteína bruta, 3 vezes ao dia, durante 45 dias. O peso médio inicial foi 10,1 ± 0,3 g, e a análise estatística da pesagem inicial mostrou que todos os lotes eram homogêneos. O desempenho dos peixes não apresentou diferença significativa entre os tratamentos (p&gt;0,05). Entretanto, a eficiência alimentar melhorou com o aumento da densidade de estocagem (p<0,05). A densidade de estocagem tem influência sobre a eficiência alimentar de juvenis de pirarucu em tanques-rede de pequeno volume

Cultivo do Pirarucu (Arapaima gigas) em viveiro escavado

Foi avaliado o desempenho de juvenis de pirarucu em criação intensiva em viveiros escavados. Oitenta e cinco peixes com peso médio inicial de 133,3 ± 1,3g foram estocados em dois viveiros de 120m² cada (densidade de 1 peixe/3m²), com profundidade média de 1m e alimentados duas vezes ao dia (9:00 e 14:00h) com ração extrusada para peixes carnívoros contendo 40% de proteína bruta. Foi verificado diariamente o consumo de ração, enquanto mensalmente os peixes foram amostrados para a realização de biometrias com a finalidade de verificar seu desempenho em peso e comprimento. Após 12 meses de cultivo os peixes atingiram peso médio de 7,0 ± 1,1kg, comprimento total de 88,2 ±6,4cm, com conversão alimentar de 1,5 e produtividade de 2,5kg/m². Estes resultados mostram o grande potencial do pirarucu para a piscicultura intensiva na Amazônia

Tax doesn't have to be taxing: London's 'onshore' finance industry and the fiscal spaces of a global crisis

In this paper I will explore London’s onshore finance industry and how it facilitates corporate tax avoidance programmes. In doing so, I will discuss how financial elites design transactions and corporate activities so as to minimise their exposure to taxation, and how these structures are shaped by the international geographies of taxation. I will investigate an area of London’s financial sector that has previously been neglected by geographers and social scientists. Finally, I turn to illustrate how tax minimisation strategies are implemented, through the example of residential mortgage-backed securitisation, and how tax-minimisation strategies made securitisation a practical tool for financiers. This provides new insights into how taxation elites facilitated the increased financialisation of Britain’s economy and the severity of its exposure to the credit crunch