Using a transdisciplinary approach for environmental crisis research in History

Abstract

Although it is true that each local area or region possesses its own historiography – and for that matter its own environmental historiography – there should not be much difference in the research methodology, sources and pitfalls or drawbacks of doing environmental history research in labelled environmental crisis areas. This article presents a concise historiography on dealing with environmental crisis in literature is provided. This is followed by a proposed transdisciplinary (TD)-methodological structure that can serve as a guideline to specifically to environmental historians, and perhaps other discipl ines in the humanities , that studying local or regional environmental crises. A local environment in South Africa, namely the Far West Rand, serves as an example for conducting TD research that features an environmental cris is.The paper concludes by also, amongst others, suggesting that environmental historians and other environmental experts in a variety of fields and disciplines in South Africa and Africa should form an Environmental Studies Association to support one another, particularly in their efforts to work together in interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary ways with researchers from a broad range of academic fields. This paper therefore serves merely as a debate to open up discussions for refining the perspectives and existing methodologies of research in environmental history.

Counterurbanisation and the emergence of a postproductivist economy in South Africa’s arid Karoo region, 1994-2010

“…The poor usually bear a disproportionately heavy burden of the negative externalities caused by environmental mismanagement. 61 It follows from this that the preservation of the environment can confer important benefits on the poor. Shackleton et al demonstrate the often underestimated importance of ecosystem factors such as soil fertility, water resources, eco-tourism, biodiversity, and a range of "cultural services" for the spiritual and material wellbeing of the poor.…”

Environmental History within a Revitalized Integrative Research Methodology for Today and Tomorrow

“…Environmental research projects can be regarded as having progressed to the transdisciplinary 'phase' if they involve researchers from related and unrelated disciplines, non-academic participants (for example user groups, land managers, governmental and non-governmental organizations, and the general public), or professional researchers operating as consultants outside academic institutions. In transdisciplinary research on the human environment or an environmental theme, such as industrial water pollution in area X or Y, academic research is supposed to be 'married' to first-hand experience and knowledge of the focus area under study (compare Van Eeden 2010a;Van Eeden 2010b). Two key justifications for undertaking this kind of participatory research are as follows (Gibbons and Limoges 1994, 153-7;Moran 2002;Klein et al 2001, 35-44):…”

“…In environmental history research, the TD approach also became readily applicable to this field of research because of inevitable connections with communities, their experiences and the wealth of oral history. The many voices, debates and differences in statistical data, together with intellectuals' thinking and debating on environmental ethics, justice, human and legal rights, environmental crime and hydrosolidarity (Jacobs 2003;Van Eeden 2008a), allow environmental history research to be practised from a broader TD angle (as suggested in Figure 1). At least in South Africa, Carruthers noted that: 'there is .…”