The trans-disciplinary Approach
In this course you will encounter many terms and concepts. You are likely wonder at times why there are so many terms describing similar things and that the same term is used to describe quite different things. This is due to the trans-disciplinary nature of sustainability science. Within disciplines, terminology and use of language emerges that facilitates communication and problem formulation between participants. Often similar problems are analysed in several disciplines but different languages have developed. Sometimes, the same term can mean different things in different disciplines.
While transdisciplinarity seems like a sensible and natural approach, it is often very expensive and complicated. The development of languages, methods and problem formulation within and between disciplines differ, and one needs to be aware of the bases and assumptions of these in order to address differences in interpretations of problem formulation, research design and interpretation of results.
These questions even have its own discipline - the philosophy of science - and while it is beyond our scope to go into this here, it is important to have thought about this to be self-critical of one’s own “baggage” but also to be able to identify sources of differences in understanding you will come across in this field and with your classmates. The philosophy of science is also largely restricted to the academic approach to sciences, but there are other types of knowledge that we will also touch upon in later parts of the course, such as local or traditional knowledge.
In this course, you will be interacting with course material and classmates that come from different fields to your own. It will help you better understand the information exchanged if you take some time to think about: What is the discipline(s) that is(are) behind the information/researchers? How similar or different is that from your own? How might your own background be influencing your understanding of the material in question?
The videos below provide some definitions of what transdisciplinarity means and when it is needed and why sustainability science in the Anthropocene often needs to have this approach as well as examples of this.
What is transdisciplinarity
Joern Fischer
Science in the Anthropocene
Johan Rockström
Contributors
Miriam Huitric (text)
Try to go through the following thought exercise:
- List 2 things relating to sustainability that you strongly believe to be true. For each of these try to explain to yourself why you believe this to be true
- Imagine other people with other backgrounds, does everyone agree with this? Think about: If not, why would they think so?
You probably found the second question much more time consuming than the first. This is in a way the basis of your work with sustainability science and this course. You will need to understand and explain the “why” behind material presented by others as well as yourself. When your answer to the question “does everyone agree with this?” is “NO”, then you are getting at different worldviews or interpretations of the same information.
Leave a Comment