In this chapter, we illustrate how the mobile phone application WhatsApp provides a third space (Gutierrez et al., 1999) where postgraduate students who come to the university intermittently from different parts of Southern Africa and speak multiple African languages, including English, interact, share resources and engage in research and writing sessions. We use the New London Group's (NLG) 'pedagogy of multiliteracies' (2000) to shape and frame our discussion. Our focus is on how a group of postgraduate students devised a collaborative space to support writing such as PhD proposals, thesis chapters and conference papers. The chapter has four key aims: (1) to show the relation between a real-time writing group and its redesign on an online platform; (2) to outline how we used WhatsApp to sustain a virtual postgraduate writers' group; (3) to illustrate how both novice and expert resources were shared by members of the group, thus challenging the individualisation of knowledge building and writing and assumptions about a clear divide between 'novices' and 'experts'; and (4) to signal how a safe space was enabled for translinguaging as a resource for research and writing. The chapter is self-reflexive as we turn the lens on ourselves and discuss how this virtual group is enriching our writing and supporting our development as emerging academics.

Background and Context

In South Africa and at our university, coursework generally ends at the master's level, and there is a long tradition of PhD by thesis only. A small number of departments and faculties offer PhD by coursework, but these are the exceptions. The School of Education, where members of the WhatsApp group are registered, offers the PhD by thesis only. PhD study is based on individual research, with academic interaction taking place between student and supervisor and at four events where PhD students present their proposals and work in progress during the year. Doing the PhD is thus often an isolating experience for students, whether they are coming from taught master's programs, the workplace or other universities and cities.