Collaboration as a Site of Personal and Institutional Transformation: Thoughts from Inside a Cross-National Alliance

Collaboration in an applied development context has the power to be transformative at the institutional, communal, interpersonal, and individual levels. This commentary seeks to share one story of collaboration-building as a way to explore the concept of reciprocal transformation in cross-national collaboration more broadly. The authors discuss the background and context of the collaboration. Throughout the collaboration-building process the authors have learned that developing a substantive understanding of each other's process, goals, values, and contexts is a precursor to a successful and sustainable collaboration. When collaboration is developed between systems that share similarities in culture, language, and philosophy, cooperation between these systems to achieve shared and individual objectives is potentially more easily negotiated since core dynamics are often similar enough to employ and maintain a dialogic process essential for balance and cooperation between the interested parties. The authors believe that building authentic collaboration relies upon the development and ongoing refinement of multiple, intersecting core values and approaches. (Contains 1 endnote.)