Practising Comparison

0462087 - SOÚ 2017 RIV GB eng M - Část monografie knihy
Stöckelová, Tereza
Frame Against the Grain: Asymmetries, Interference, and the Politics of EU Comparison.
Practising Comparison. Manchester: Mattering Press, 2016 - (Deville, J.; Guggenheim, M.; Hrdličková, Z.), s. 166-186. ISBN 978-0-9931449-4-3
Grant CEP: GA ČR(CZ) GAP404/11/0127
Institucionální podpora: RVO:68378025
Klíčová slova: academic knowledge * comparison * EU research
Kód oboru RIV: AO - Sociologie, demografie

This chapter reflects on two interrelated research projects the author was involved in between 2006 and 2010. Both projects intended to make multiple comparisons between European countries, between ‘East and West’, selected academic disciplines, and different types of research institutions. At the same time, the investigated realities already involved a number of framings such as assessment exercises comparing the ‘research performance’ of teams (in an institute) or researcher organisations (in a country). This chapter looks into how and with what (collateral) effects we as researchers practised comparisons in these two projects: What was taken as the frame of comparison? How did researchers’ framings interfere with those of research participants? How were the frames reflected, taken into account, or made an object of inquiry sui generis? What epistemic and geopolitical asymmetries were embedded in our practices of comparison, and how may they have become destabilised over the course of the two projects? It argues that while we cannot stop framing, there are alternatives to how we compare, and we should try to frame (in the EU projects) ‘against the grain’. It suggests that we should be more courageous and challenging in relation to epistemologically and politically established framings.
Trvalý link: http://hdl.handle.net/11104/0261615