Jumping out of the Fishbowl. Swimming to the Sea: Scholars’ Reflexive Agency in Shaping Global Opening Research System

Abstract

This essay argues that scholars have the agency to reshape the research cultures of the global research system they are in. However, their agency cannot independently generate, just like the constraining fishbowl and its single-type water that the fish live in, the dynamics of scholars to jump out of the fishbowl and swim to an open ocean of knowledge not only demand their criticality and reflexivity of perceiving what their water is like but also should be guaranteed by an enabling structure aligning with the values of an ecological global opening science system. Firstly, to explain the dynamics of agency, the essay discusses the interdependent relationality between researcher-agency interaction and multipolarised structural and cultural changes in global sciences. Then, the study explains three stages for the scholars to act their agency in participating in global science by comparing and contrasting the analogies of ‘fish jump to another fishbowl’ and ‘fish jump into the ocean’ to call for the scholars’ agential imaginary of the global opening science system. The study shows the implications of critically recognising the university scholars’ reflexive agency as the autonomous foundation of the global science system, and envisions the supportive multi-level structure and ecological research cultures for empowering pluralistic knowledge as global common goods.