How social sciences and humanities can contribute to transformative science

Ejderyan, Olivier; Schneider, Flurina; Bornemann, Basil; Kläy, Andreas

doi:10.14512/gaia.28.2.15

Cited by 10 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 6 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The degree of intervention of the researcher is reduced to that of facilitator of the process, thereby undermining the asymmetric relationship between researchers and researched and potentially inverting the logic of power of scientific knowledge. This is in line with Ejderyan et al (2019) assertion that critical Social Science and Humanities researchers must provide methods that sharpen the critical skills of all those involved. There are limits to this, however, as the complexity of the approach requires trained facilitators: the participants are thus dependent on a certain scientific expertise.…”

Section: Reflexivitysupporting

confidence: 78%

Testing the quality of transformative science methods: the example of the Human Scale Development approach

Spiering

Barrera

2021

Sustain Sci

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Scholars and funding bodies alike are increasingly calling for transformative research that delivers socially robust and impact-oriented outcomes. This paper argues that the Human Scale Development approach (HSDA) introduced by Max-Neef and colleagues in Latin America during the 1980s can serve as a method for transformative science (TSc). HSDA is both a theory and a participatory methodology and thus contributes toward fulfilling the objectives of TSc, which are scientific, practical and educational. In this paper, we begin by explicating how the fundamental human needs (FHN) approach of the HSDA can support scholars and practitioners alike in addressing complex sustainability challenges. We then refer to the methodological adaptations to the original proposal that we have previously developed to illustrate how Max-Neef's methodological approach might be further extended and to demonstrate how these changes can strengthen HSDA and make it even more useful for generating knowledge needed in sustainability transformations. To inform and support research that builds on the co-production of knowledge, we test HSDA with regard to TSc quality criteria and show how it adds value to the existing canon of TSc methods. To this end, we develop an analytical framework that can be deployed to assess the quality of TSc methods.

show abstract

Section: Reflexivitysupporting

confidence: 78%

Testing the quality of transformative science methods: the example of the Human Scale Development approach

Spiering

Barrera

2021

Sustain Sci

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Social sciences are often conceptualized as a single homogenous group and attempts to incorporate social sciences in TTCIs tend to favor those that support traditional (i.e. non-paradigm-shifting) conservation goals, such as those that focus on changing individual behaviors without addressing the structural barriers to this, or calculating cost-benefit ratios (Ejderyan et al, 2019;Turnhout and Lahsen, 2022). To reiterate, critical social scientists are those who approach socio-ecological issues from critical theoretical perspectives (e.g.…”

Section: Recommendation To Address Struggles With Vital Functional El...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Transdisciplinary transformative change: an analysis of some best practices and barriers, and the potential of critical social science in getting us there

et al. 2023

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Biodiversity experts now widely acknowledge that transformative change is best supported through transdisciplinary collaborations. Yet, such collaborations rarely successfully occur in major biodiversity research institutions and those that do rarely achieve the paradigmatic effects they aim to deliver. To gain some insight into this global phenomenon, we surveyed Swiss-based researchers and non-academic stakeholders addressing global change and biodiversity. In this article, we connect our findings to global patterns in transdisciplinary transformative change initiatives (TTCIs) and heuristically divide collaboration barriers into two categories: lack of resources and lack of vital functional elements. Two of the major themes that emerged from this research were the continued difficulties with (1) establishing a common ‘language’, understanding, and goals, and (2) meaningful pluralization of knowledge in transdisciplinary collaborations aimed at addressing global change and biodiversity loss. The former is widely cited in the literature as contributing to the failure of TTCIs in the form of incoherent problem-framing, while the latter is often identified as contributing to the lack of structural transformative change (e.g., paradigmatic shifts) in completed initiatives. Another major theme reflected in TTCI literature was limited time. Moreover, based on our own extensive inter- and transdisciplinary experience, we agree with other experts that there is a persistent lack of understanding of the potential contributions of critical social science (CSS) to TTCIs. We thus argue that enhancing resource availability for TTCIs, especially tools for improving CSS literacy, could save time and support both problem-framing alignment and delivery of the structural/paradigmatic changes we aspire to.

show abstract

“…In this sense, when reviewing the literature, concepts related to SIL were found: fab labs (STACEY, 2014), citizen laboratories, living laboratories, virtual laboratories, social innovation laboratories, innovation laboratories, as well as urban living laboratories or urban laboratories (YAÑEZ-FIGUEROA; RAMÍREZ-MONTOYA; GARCÍA-PEÑALVO, 2016). For this article, SIL are considered as a sample of communities of practice (KOMATSU et al, 2021) that seek to project actions for the common good (EJDERYAN et al, 2019) by creating spaces for the interaction (DEFILA; DI GIULIO, 2020) of various disciplines (BARTH;LANG;MICHELSEN, 2019) for SCK that can be used in reality (WILLIAMSON, 2015).…”

Section: Social Innovation Laboratories (Sil)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Social innovation laboratories for the social construction of knowledge

García-Peñalvo

Montoya

2021

Texto Livre

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Social innovation laboratories (SIL) are spaces for the construction of knowledge where UNESCO's Sustainable Development Goals can be met. The objective of the research was to identify the most relevant studies about the social construction of knowledge, within the framework of the SIL, related to environmental problems and to analyze them in order to propose solutions for sustainability. The method used to locate the articles published in open access, from 2010 to 2020, in Scopus, Web of Science and Google Academic, was the Systematic Literature Review. The findings show that the working groups are multidisciplinary and originate proposals from different areas of science. The products are built with an open approach. Universities are the spaces that most promote participation in the laboratories to generate sustainability actions applicable in real life and work is done to scale up the prototypes to local, national and international levels.

show abstract

How social sciences and humanities can contribute to transformative science

Abstract: Social sciences and humanities play important roles in sustainability-oriented transformative research. A saguf workshop revealed what these roles can look like.

Cited by 10 publications

References 6 publications

Testing the quality of transformative science methods: the example of the Human Scale Development approach

Testing the quality of transformative science methods: the example of the Human Scale Development approach

Transdisciplinary transformative change: an analysis of some best practices and barriers, and the potential of critical social science in getting us there

Social innovation laboratories for the social construction of knowledge

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About