Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
11005276 | Environmental Science & Policy | 2018 | 7 Pages |
Abstract
Transdisciplinary research has been promoted as a means of bringing together certified experts and stakeholders to produce knowledge that is policy-relevant, salient, credible, and legitimate to inform decision-making about complex problems. In this article I discuss the limitations of using the 'network' metaphor in transdisciplinary research practice and propose the use of a different metaphor to make transdisciplinary research encounters more attuned to difference. This research is informed by Tim Ingold's use of 'meshwork' as a metaphor for how life is lived along lines of becoming: emergent, indeterminate, contingent, historical, narrative. In this paper, my objective is to explain and illustrate by way of an example of a transdisciplinary climate change adaptation project the need for a new metaphor to convey the open-endedness of transdisciplinary research where subject positions are not conceived in advance of a research encounter, such as in the 'network' metaphor, but erupt in the interstices of research methods, objectives and desired outcomes. The meshwork metaphor implies that transdisciplinarity should be reframed as a practice of attunement to difference, becoming skilled in paying attention, witnessing, and responding to differences.
Keywords
Related Topics
Physical Sciences and Engineering
Energy
Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment
Authors
Nicole Klenk,