Innovations in Public Diplomacy: Knowledge Diplomacy

Professor Natalia Chaban (co-PI), PD-PCF UC/ UC Department of Media and Communication

Associate Professor James Headley (co-PI), Department of Politics, University of Otago

Sophie Hill (researcher), MA student, UC Department of Media and Communication

In late 2022-early 2023, Prof. Chaban and Assoc. Prof. Headley conducted their joint research “Responsibility not to be silent: Academic knowledge production about the war against Ukraine and knowledge diplomacy” with a focus on academia in Aotearoa New Zealand. This research has resulted in their co-authored article selected for publication in the Special Forum of Journal of International Relations and Development, “The Responsibility to Remain Silent? On the politics of knowledge production, expertise and (self-) reflection in Russia’s war against Ukraine”.

The research undertaken by our team explores the role that academics have played in knowledge production about Russia’s war against Ukraine. Focusing on Aotearoa New Zealand – a like-minded country with Ukraine but distant from it and with few historical links – we examine how many academics chose to engage with the war through their teaching, public outreach and interactions with policymakers. We situate our analysis within the emerging literature on knowledge diplomacy, the “contribution that education and knowledge creation, sharing and use make to international relations and engagement” (Knight, 2015, 4). Drawing on 20 in-depth interviews with academics across seven NZ universities and a range of disciplines, we show that academics who undertook the responsibility not to remain silent have become spontaneous contributors to knowledge diplomacy processes. In doing so, they have avoided its potential trap, namely to use knowledge for power-projections and manipulations. On the contrary, the reflections revealed how academics – as subject and objects in knowledge-production – exercise their independent self-motivated agency to ensure a two-way process: (1) to foster knowledge among students and various communities as a tool for better-informed, critically-approached international relations, and (2) to use international relations developments to strengthen higher education tools and research.

Chaban N. and J. Headley  (2023) Responsibility not to be silent: Academic knowledge production about the war against Ukraine and knowledge diplomacy. Journal of International Relations and Development, https://doi.org/10.1057/s41268-023-00300-7.

Professor Natalia Chaban (co-PI), PD-PCF UC/ UC Department of Media and Communication

This study started as am invited contribution to the international Symposium “Educating Global Communicators” (Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia, December 6, 2021, 14 presenters, 88 audience members) led by Associate Professor Sky Marsen (Flinders University, Australia) and Professor Donald Matheson (University of Canterbury, New Zealand). It explores the intersection of pedagogical research in communication and research on public diplomacy and engages with the notion of knowledge diplomacy. It revises the concept of the “collaborative” central to both public diplomacy and higher education pedagogy. With both fields emphasizing the importance of co-creation, the paper theorizes and operationalizes this concept, and argues that co-creation (as a process and a framework) is one solution to the challenge of dominance argued by the scholarship of knowledge diplomacy. Empirically, the study engages with two cases of grassroots knowledge diplomacy initiated by a tertiary communication program at the UC in collaboration with diplomats.

Later, the study has become a part of the the Special Issue "Educating Global Communicators" with the Journal of Technical Writing and Communication co-edited by Associate Professor Sky Marsen (Flinders University) and Professor Donald Matheson (University of Canterbury).

Chaban, N. (2021) Research-Teaching-Practice Nexus. International Symposium “Educating Global Communicators”, Flinders University, Australia, December 6.

Chaban, N. (2023) Collaborative Settings of Co-Creation: Knowledge Diplomacy and Pedagogical Thinking in Communication. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/00472816231188652.

Professor Natalia Chaban (co-PI), PD-PCF UC/ UC Department of Media and Communication

This study followed an invitation by the Jean Monnet Network on European Studies supported by the Erasmus+, European Commission led by Professor Sharon Pardo and Dr Hila Zahavi of the Ben Gurion University at the Negev, Israel.  The JM Network organised an international workshop “The Internationalisation of European Studies”, 26-27 January 2023 at the University of Piraeus (Greece) and invited a PD-PCF contribution from New Zealand. This study explored the intersection of two sets of concepts rarely talking to each other – public diplomacy (and knowledge diplomacy within it) and internationalization of higher education. It theorizes public diplomacy from a dual perspective of strategic information and relational approaches and engages with McClellan’s Public Diplomacy Communication Pyramid model as a conceptual bridge between the two approaches. Linking the Communication Pyramid Model to the notion of knowledge diplomacy, the paper uses this conceptual model to explore the potential of small intercultural groups to tertiary knowledge diplomacy in its search for a more inclusive, relational approach. Empirically, the study engages with two cases of the EU’s knowledge diplomacy engaging university students of media and communication (University of Canterbury) in a third country (New Zealand).

Later, the study became a chapter in the volume “The Internationalisation of European Integration Studies” with Routledge co-edited by Prof. Foteini Asderaki, University of Piraeus, Greece ; Prof. Sharon Pardo, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel ; and Dr. Hila Zahavi, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and The Open University of Israel, Israel.

Chaban, N. (forthcoming) “EU Knowledge Diplomacy as a Potential for the EU’s “New” Public Diplomacy: Theory and Practice of Intercultural Group Learning’, in Foteini Asderaki, Sharon Pardo and Dr. Hila Zahavi (eds). The Internationalisation of European Integration Studies, Routledge.

Chaban, N. (2023) EU Knowledge Diplomacy: Intercultural Small Group Learning as a Potential for the EU’s “New” Public Diplomacy, paper at the UACES conference, Belfast, Ireland