Co-constructed transnational learning in postgraduate research supervision: exploring issues of power and trust

This paper considers the challenges and affordances relating to shifts in supervisory encounters arising from the COVID-19 pandemic, within a transnational postgraduate student-tutor supervisory relationship. It explores particularly the co constructional nature of transnational learning, reflecting on issues of power and trust, from masters to doctoral research in education practice. Rachel and Mark worked together in a student-supervisor relationship, firstly on the MA Education and then on the Doctorate in Education (EdD) programmes, jointly offered by the Mauritius Institute of Education and the University of Brighton, UK. Rachel’s research considers narrative and autoethnographic inquiry into educational professionalism, agency and becoming and parallels Mark’s own research interest and experience. Our reflections were developed through a series of email exchanges and online discussions, theorised through meta reflection and analysis. Informed by postcolonial perspectives, the paper notes that the complexity and inequalities of power distribution in such a transnational supervisory relationship are likely to be compounded through shifts to online only encounters. A call for a more rigorous exploration into this aspect of postgraduate research supervision ismade, particularly in the context of international and transnational provision.