Transdisciplinary Sustainability Research in Practice

Abstract

Over the past decades, we have witnessed calls for greater transdisciplinary engagement between scientific and societal actors to develop more robust answers to complex societal challenges. Although there seems to be agreement that these approaches might nurture innovations of a new kind, we know little regarding the research practices, their potential, and the limitations. To fill this gap, this article investigates a funding scheme in the area of transdisciplinary sustainability research. It offers a detailed analysis of the imaginaries and expectations on which the funding scheme rests and how researchers actually practice transdisciplinarity within the respective projects. Identifying three ideal typical models of science–society relations at work, attention is paid to how, where, and when societal and scientific arenas get (dis-)entangled. This article discusses (1) the tensions between classical academic values and efforts to open research to society, (2) the prevailing power structures that make societal participation challenging, (3) the importance of place and technopolitical cultures, and (4) how temporal project structures impede more radical openings to new ways of knowledge production. We finally emphasize that transdisciplinary knowledge production can only become a serious option for addressing societal challenges if broader changes are made to the knowledge regimes in place.

Co‐producing research in the “Red Zone”: Adaptation to fieldwork constraints with a transdisciplinary approach

“…Facing the challenges of miscommunication and vastly different conceptualisations of the field site across the team (e.g., based only on a remotely sensed experience of the floodplain, or only experiential knowledge of it) led us iteratively and jointly to develop field protocols for objectives pertaining to various disciplines, through open and explicit conversations that supported the development of interactional expertise and trust among team members (Collins et al, 2007;Lawrence & Depres, 2004;McGreavy et al, 2015). The co-design of fieldwork with local non-academic partners, especially those who grew up and/or live in the floodplain, shaped the research to include more locally meaningful and reflexive research questions and approaches, leading us on an increasingly transdisciplinary research pathway (Balsiger, 2004;Felt et al, 2016;Krueger et al, 2016;Lawrence & Depres, 2004;Wickson et al, 2006).…”

“…This included investigating the spread and impact of fishing innovations and flood-mitigation techniques (e.g., Laborde et al, 2018). Some of our local non-academic colleagues also acted as knowledge brokers through their extensive networks in the community, government and NGOs during the project (Felt et al, 2016), ensuring broader dissemination of research results. The MORSL project had no direct pathway beyond these colleagues for research consideration in local policy-makinga reflection of this particular NSF scheme that is focused on theoretical, modelling and educational outputs.…”

“…The third characteristic was an increasing reflexivity, as our fieldwork risk assessments highlighted vulnerabilities and dependencies within and in relation to our research team (Balsiger, 2004;Krueger et al, 2016;Lawrence & Depres, 2004;Wickson et al, 2006). This overall shift of the project approach does not imply that all collaborating researchers worked in an equally transdisciplinary manner; across the team, there were varying degrees of engagement with the components of transdisciplinary research described above (see also Felt et al, 2016).…”

Participation as Relational Space: A Critical Approach to Analysing Participation in Sustainability Research

“…. ] what is regarded as an adequate duration and temporal structure of participatory events obviously impacts the possible ways in which matters of concern take form" [106] (p. 183). Likewise, the opportunity costs for participating non-scientific actors might be high and are often underestimated by the scientific counterparts [104,107,108].…”

“…By determining who can effectively negotiate the design and use of space, access possibilities affect the extent to which figurations of a participation space break loose of societal structures and dominant discourses. Affects possibilities and capacities of actors to actively shape the participation space; affects the degree of engagement of actors and results in different degrees of (a)symmetry of space; affects whether actors position themselves/are positioned at the core or periphery of the participation space; [37,45,87,89,92,93,[101][102][103][104][105][106][107][108][109][110][111][112][113][114][115] Resources…”