The term Work Integrated Learning (WIL) is connected to knowledge production. It is as central in organizing ways of combining academic studies with working life as in abstract reasonings on how knowledge in itself should be understood. Any facilitation of WIL-based education carries an idea of knowledge production and its relation to what knowledge is, while any theory of knowledge and knowledge production include, implicitly or explicitly, understandings of what processes knowledge and knowledge production are related to. Even though it may not always make it to the surface, the negotiation between these different strands is unavoidable in any WIL endeavor.

This presentation is concerned with such a negotiation over time. It concerns the development and construction of a master program in work integrated political studies. The program is a collaboration between University West in Sweden and the University of the Western Cape in South Africa. After several years of work, both collaborative and independently, the program is set to be launched in the fall of 2020. In this sense we now have a result of the first part of the negotiation (it will naturally continue in the actual realization of the program). But how did we get to where we are? Why did we get to where we are? What was involved in the construction of WIL in the field of political studies?

From the theoretical perspective of the social construction and character of science, I analyze – through participatory observations and close readings of documents – both how definitions and understandings came to be and what these definitions came to include. The analysis shows that a multilayered collective process, not even always made conscious or manifest, is involved and that it is set in everyday surroundings. This discussion is then taken a step further. WIL has now been installed as a discipline in which you can receive a doctoral degree at University West. I argue that the process behind the establishment of this degree and WIL's disciplinary status as well as content constitute a relevant and fruitful case from the perspective of theory of science. Big questions often loom large in small proceedings.