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(ii) aligning one’s own responses to the newly enhanced interpretations with the
responses being made by the other professionals while acting on the expanded object.
(p. 14)
Edwards ( 2010 ) goes on to argue that relational agency is a capacity that can be
learned and is crucial in the types of multidisciplinary teams that function across
several professions. For example, you might have a speech therapist, a physiothera-
pist, a teacher and several other participants all working together on meeting the
particular needs of a child. They’re not just bringing their different individual exper-
tise to the group but also working relationally to understand and respond to others’
interpretations of the complex situation, so that the solutions they jointly create are
beyond what any of them might have been able to do for the child individually.
Likewise, Downing-Wilson et al. ( 2011 ) use the term mutual appropriation in a par-
ticular way to emphasise the hybrid activities that are created when different partici-
pants work together. During this work, the participants ‘mutually appropriate’ each
other’s practices while striving to act in ‘mutually appropriate’ ways that allow all
partners to achieve not only their own unique goals but also new mutually shared
goals.
Linda
So, from what we’ve talked about, what are we feeling about the concept of cogen-
erativity that’s novel or different from the existing literature?
Helen
That’s a good question.
Debbie
That is a good question because I suppose what I’m drawn to with cogenerativity is
the focus on transformation. Cogenerativity seems to be about creating a space for
transformation. I’m not saying that the idea of creating a space for transformation is
not also featured in the literature we’ve discussed, just that with cogenerativity it is
accentuated more.
Helen
I suppose that’s the nature of ‘generativity’ – that you’ll generate something new –
and ‘co’, that we’re doing it together. What I think is really important, and I’m not
sure that this isn’t also in the existing literature, is that because of what each
L.-D. Willis et al.