Technical versus socio-technical: Conflict in Bolivian and Dutch academic collaboration in irrigation

This dissertation examines north-south academic collaboration through a qualitative case study of an inter-university program between a Bolivian and a Dutch university established with the purpose of promoting academic innovations in the teaching and research of irrigation at the Bolivian university.;After a discussion of the transition of the university development aid from the development (university) to the collaborative university model, the analysis focuses on the negotiation, implementation, and effects of the academic collaboration from an actor-oriented perspective. The main argument of this study is that the negotiation and implementation of north-south academic collaboration programs is characterized by the dialectics between collaboration and conflict; contradiction which partly arises from the existing structural asymmetries between northern and southern higher education institutions, as well as from the competing academic cultures (technical versus socio-technical) between collaborating actors and institutions.;The study also proposes a three-stage actor-oriented perspective for the study of north-south academic collaboration programs (1) contextualization, (2) interpretation, and (3) explanation. It outlines some lessons learned from the case for the negotiation and implementation of north south academic collaboration programs, and suggests a research agenda on the dialectics between process and product in sociological research.