Seeking superaddressees: research collaboration in a doctoral supervisory relationship

Abstract

One key potential research collaboration is the relationship between doctoral students and their supervisors. While this relationship is vital to training new researchers and expanding knowledge frontiers, it is fraught with the risks of miscommunication, exploitation and learned dependency. This chapter presents an account of a small section of a digitally-recorded conversation among the authors: a current doctoral student and his principal and associate supervisors. The account is presented as three reflections on the data, with an analysis centred on M. M. Bakhtin’s concept of ‘superaddressee’ or ‘third listener’ who is implicitly called on by each speaker in the conversation to support her or his view of what doctoral supervision should entail. Seeking to make these superaddressees explicit and involving them in ongoing dialogue with the authors constitute an effective strategy for enhancing effective research collaboration and sustaining the doctoral supervisory relationship.