Transdisciplinary partnerships for sustainability: an evaluation guide

Transdisciplinary research, in which academics and actors from outside the academy co-produce knowledge, is an important approach to address urgent sustainability challenges. Indeed, to meet these real-world challenges, governments, universities, development agencies, and civil society organizations have made substantial investments in transdisciplinary partnerships. Yet to date, our understanding of the performance, as well as impacts, of these partnerships for sustainability is limited. Here, we provide a guide to assess the performance and impacts of transdisciplinary partnerships for sustainability. We offer key steps to navigate and examine the partnership process for continuous improvement, and to understand how transdisciplinary partnership is contributing to sustainable futures.

Auditory Resonance: A Transdisciplinary Concept?

Focusing on the influential work of the German sociologist Hartmut Rosa, as well as on selected positions in sound studies, this essay explores some aspects of auditory resonance, an over-determined concept exemplified by music that no single conceptual framework can exhaustively explain. For this reason, transdisciplinary research is especially productive in exploring the wide range of auditory resonance if it does not adhere to a seemingly all-inclusive theoretical self-definition but starts from an actual, singular experience. This subjective, even personal response to auditory resonance opens up various intersecting, supplementary, and often competing paradigms of critical analysis that interrogate any hegemonic claims to perspectives and insights potentially implied in single-disciplinary methodologies.

Refugia. (Prze)trwanie transgatunkowych wspólnot miejskich /Refugia: The Survival of Urban Transspecies Communities

Refugia: The Survival of Urban Transspecies Communities encourages to us recognize the unexpected relations among species and to speculate about the possibility of their existence and development. It shows the need for care and support for multi-species urban communities by answering questions about the following: Which humans and non-humans may find refuge in the city? Under what conditions and to what extent? Are cities also becoming spaces of refuge for rare, endangered or endangered species and disappearing ecosystems? Can unwanted and underestimated life forms find refuge in the city, and how much compassion and hospitality do we have for them? Is it possible to be safe in the city without a place–home–shelter of one’s own? The book is the result of transdisciplinary research, including knowledge-producing artistic projects, whose research and communication methodology enable us to go beyond specialist circles. The book consists of two parts, the first of which, Refugia: The Transdisciplinary Practice of Curiosity, includes scientific texts focusing on various cases of interspecies relationships created in cities by human and non-human animals, plants, fungi, soil, architecture, etc. The second part of the book includes artistic statements in the form of visual documentation of projects created for the exhibition Refugia: Keep (Out of) These Places. The art presented here makes it possible to construct perspectives different from those generated in the field of humanities or sciences, but remaining in close contact with these fields.

Transdisciplinary research: towards an integrative perspective

Since the emergence of transdisciplinary research, context dependencies, innovative formats and methods, societal effects, and scientific effects are key aspects that have been discussed at length. However, what is still missing is an integrative perspective on these four aspects, and the guidance on how to apply such an integrative perspective in order to realize the full transformative potential of transdisciplinary research. We provide an overview of each aspect and highlight relevant research questions that need to be answered to advance transdisciplinary research.

Suʻifefiloi: A Samoan Methodology for Transdisciplinary Theorising in Cosmopolitan Worlds

As universities make moves toward transdisciplinary research, suʻifefiloi, the Samoan practice of sewing different parts together, offers a culturally grounded research methodology for transdisciplinary theorising by Pacific scholars. Pacific transdisciplinary actors working on theory within the cosmopolitan context requires, as Gordon writes, a willingness to go beyond discipline areas to produce knowledge. Theory work, as this paper argues, requires transdisciplinarity and a willingness to go beyond one’s discipline area to extend knowledge. Working with Tuhiwai Smith’s assertion on the importance of theory, this paper discusses the usefulness of suʻifefiloi in recent turns to transdisciplinarity.