Browse by author
Lookup NU author(s): Dr Astrid Wood
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0).
Policy flows are not quantifiable and calculating processes but part of the uneven movement of ideas and experiences that involves power and personalities. Processes of learning and policy circulation have thus proven difficult to study especially as the exchanges taking place between actors and localities rarely lead directly to uptake. This paper outlines a conceptual and methodological framework for conducting policy mobilities research by attending to the plethora of ordinary practices – be it through engagements with fellow practitioners, their toolbox of material solutions, or a particular moment of discovery – that form the assemblages of learning. The paper then unveils a set of procedures for unravelling the assemblage, first by “following the people” and their understandings of mobile policy; second, by “following the materials” to experiment with a Latourian approach to materiality; and finally, by “following the meetings”, that is, the conferences, workshops and seminars where the people and materials mingle. The proposed methodology is sensitive to the ephemeral, ethereal and experiential assemblages that carve and sustain the pathways for the movement of knowledge. This interpretation of the methods for studying mobile knowledge is a critical predecessor to any empirical analysis of policy mobilities.
Author(s): Wood A
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Environment and Planning A
Year: 2016
Volume: 48
Issue: 2
Pages: 391-406
Print publication date: 01/02/2016
Online publication date: 30/09/2015
Acceptance date: 30/09/2015
Date deposited: 28/01/2016
ISSN (print): 0308-518X
ISSN (electronic): 1472-3409
Publisher: Sage Publications Ltd.
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0308518X15605329
DOI: 10.1177/0308518X15605329
Altmetrics provided by Altmetric