Assembling narratives: Tensions in collaborative construction of knowledge

Scientific and scholarly research is heterogeneous in that divergent viewpoints, and different interests must be brought together to achieve coherent accounts of research. The tensions caused by this multiplicity of interests and singularity of output frame most collaborative research practice. The goal of present study is to identify areas of tension in such collaborative and heterogeneous efforts. To this end, the present study investigates the co‐construction of archeological narrative at one of the largest multinational archeological campaigns in the world, the Çatalhöyük project in Turkey. This study conceptualizes archeological narratives as epistemic assemblages. Following Actor Network theorists, the archeological process is conceptualized as a series of translation processes (of heterogeneous engineering) that inscribe the found material remains of archeological investigation into a narrative. This complex process takes place within a heterogeneous sociotechnical network. This study decomposes this heterogeneous network to identify the areas of tension and struggle. Two sources of such tensions are identified as fragmentation and fault lines. Overcoming fragmentation and fault lines is key for the success of heterogeneous scientific work and maintaining productive scientific collaboration. The findings of this study have applications beyond archeology and can inform the design of cyberinfrastructure for heterogeneous collaborations.