ABSTRACT
The conceptual framework of collaborative-dialogic practice and its core assumptions owe a great debt to the work of many philosophers, social scientists, linguists, and other scholars involved in the evolution of social constructionism and postmodernism. Postmodernism is simply one perspective among many. It also emphasizes the deterritorialization of academic and disciplinary borders. This is a call to come out of our monophonic, homogenized silos and to carefully step into a heterogeneous, polyphonic space. The construction or creation of knowledge is situated in historical, cultural, social, environmental, and language contexts, among so many others. These contexts influence shared culturally and traditionally derived and supported knowledge, its sustainability, and its transformation. The beliefs, ideas, and icons that hold up our identities feel increasingly lost or at risk, and people are quick to defend (and sometimes even willing to die for) those that remain.
