Creating Inspiring Workshops and Courses in Transdisciplinarity: A Guide - Manual / Resource - Page 96
institutional, and regulatory frameworks that can affect
desired outcomes?
Understanding context
TDR and Transformations to Sustainability practitioners
generally recognize the significance of context for co-production.
Contexts emerge from an engagement with research for praxis
– an imperative to bring about significant, just, and equitable
transformation that is sustainable. Hence, the contexts that are
considered include not just social, economic, or ecological ones,
but also political, technological, and, most critically, the visions
and aspirations of the communities that are part of a hybrid
alliance. Key to this process of understanding context is the
notion that it is not simply about place or the “local,” but defining
context in terms of issues, problems, and pathways that are of
relevance.
Case studies of TDR reveal that a successful understanding
of context emerges where the actors involved address these
questions:
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•
How did a problem emerge, and how is it framed by
different societal actors?
•
What are the current and future challenges to bringing
about substantive and meaningful change?
•
What is the idea of praxis in the project, and how centrally
are issues of equity, justice, and inclusion addressed,
especially with reference to class, race, ethnicity, or
gender?
•
What are the existing possibilities for alternative
imaginaries, and how might these be expanded?
•
Which factors enable or constrain necessary action
strategies?
•
What are the local, regional and global policy, legal,
Effective use of these questions in TDR practice requires
a contextualized use of inter- and transdisciplinarity. Both
problems and solutions, as well as challenges, are contextualized.
Contexts can be internal and external, and the “how” questions
can be best incorporated if we recognize that systems operate at
multiple scales; and that science, policy, and, societal frameworks
and institutions influence context in diverse ways. Finally, we
need to understand that decision-making contexts are complex
and unique, and that context applies to interactions between
multiple complementary and conflicting goals, and processes of
change. Incorporating tools such as stakeholder analysis, Theory
of Change, “5 why’s” and similar exploratory, collaborative
processes can help transdisciplinary practitioners collectively
reveal and analyse the many dimensions of context that can be
relevant for shaping a project and its potential impact.
Further reading:
•
Odume, O. 2021. Pathways, Contextual Crossscale
Dynamics Science-Policy-Society Interactions
Transdisciplinary Research African Cities. Environmental
Science & Policy 125: 116–25.
•
Schneider, Flurina, Aymara Llanque-Zonta, Onintsoa
Ravaka Andriamihaja, R. Ntsiva N. Andriatsitohaina, Aung
Myin Tun, Kiteme Boniface, Johanna Jacobi, et al. 2022.
How Context Affects Transdisciplinary Research: Insights
from Asia, Africa and Latin America. Sustainability Science
17 (6): 2331–45.
Practices Understanding context
