Routes of Knowledge: Toward a methodological framework for tracing the historical impact of international organizations

This paper forms part of the lager international research project ‘Routes of knowledge:
The global history of UNESCO, 1945-75’ initiated early 2014 from Aalborg University, Denmark. The overall aim of this project is to trace the routes from the center to the periphery – from UNESCO’s headquarters in Paris to the member states – to assess the impact of UNESCO’s educational, cultural and scientific initiatives in the member states. In this paper we examine the methodological challenges that arise from this particular type of research question. Numerous research fields seem to be engaged in similar or related methodological questions (e.g. globalization studies, impact studies, comparative education, history of education, global history). But the communication between these fields is, however, rather limited. The overall purpose of this article is, through an eclectic scan in these related research fields, to develop a grammar of movement and impact that opens up the notion of transnational space as well as clarifying how this grammar is conducive to answering the methodological questions raised by this recent research agenda. In conclusion the article presents a manageable model based on the analytical discussions of impact, space and movement.