Globalizing the Research Imagination - Tapa dura

'Overall, the book is an enjoyable and stimulating read. The interviews entice the reader to go read or reread the inspirational works of distinguished intellectuals, while the book’s emphasis on the location of both knowledge and the researcher is crucial in challenging disciplinary boundaries and hegemonic epistemologies, thus opening up ‘opportunities for thinking about globalization in fresh ways’. In particular, it should be of great interest to graduate students and young researchers, not just in globalisation, but across the social sciences.' - Bruno Charbonneau, Millennium - Journal of International Studies 2011 40: 194

In the provocative opening essay Kenway and Fahey explore ways in which the notion of the imagination itself might be mobilized by researchers. They are encouraged to develop 'defiant' global imaginations and communities with the capacities to think, 'be' and 'become' differently in a world of research increasingly governed by rampant reductionist rationality.

To support this view there follows a series of detailed interviews with some of the world's leading intellectuals where the editors explore what it might mean to globalize the research imagination. The interviewees, Arjun Appadurai, Raewyn Connell, Doreen Massey, Aihwa Ong, Fazal Rizvi and Saskia Sassen, are foremost in their research fields and their views related here are both influential and inspirational.

This thought-provoking book for students and researchers

• identifies and critically interrogates the various ways in which globalization reshapes research
• investigates the challenges that globalization poses for the social sciences and humanities
• creates an understanding of how globalization is transforming the practice of research and doctoral research training

Progressive researchers in the social sciences and humanities urgently need to decide for themselves how best to globalize research methodologies and communities, and this book will be an invaluable resource for them.