Higher education is one of many fields of practice that have undergone a so-called "dialogic turn" whereby processes of co-creation proliferate as a means of generating knowledge. According to dialogic ideals, co-creation harnesses the transformative potential of dialogue across difference and empowers participants as co-learners or co-researchers. But what does the "co" of "co-creation" entail in practice? The aim of the article is to explore the tensions in the "co" of co-creation through critical, reflexive analysis of the enactment of one particular approach to co-creation, "Academic Co-Creative Inquiry" (ACCI), in a social work course in a higher educational institution in Aotearoa New Zealand. Using the Integrated Framework for Analysing Dialogic Knowledge Production and Communication (IFADIA), the analysis identifies tensions arising in the interplay between top-down and bottom-up dynamics in a contested terrain of dialogic and neoliberal discourses. It is argued that ACCI's and IFADIA's reflexive sensitivity in relation to tensions offers some resistance to neoliberalism in higher education.