Abstract
This chapter examines the approaches taken by the three authors in their respective doctoral studies to embracing, contesting and in particular respects subverting the discursive power of creating “an original and significant contribution to knowledge”. These approaches derived from, and were manifested by, the authors’ corresponding stories about their meaning-making about their studies, and also about their strategies for attaining success against this key performance indicator of doctoral work.
More broadly, the authors argue that it was through nuancing the narratives commonly associated with claims about developing doctoral knowledge contributions that they were effective in mobilising for their own purposes the discursive power of these claims. This argument highlights in turn the dynamic, differentiated and heterogeneous character of knowledge contributions at the doctoral level.