By David Ludwig and Charbel N. El-Hani.
2. Charbel N. El-Hani (biography)
How can we overcome the epistemic paternalism that has long shaped relations between science and society? How can a transformative vision of transdisciplinarity emerge from the interplay between epistemic diversity and epistemic decolonization?
Demands for transdisciplinary research reflect an intricate politics of knowledge that can be described through a triad of paternalism, diversity, and decolonization. Epistemic paternalism has become widely criticized in many debates about development and modernization. For example, international development projects are often deeply paternalistic by assuming that science and technology of the “developed world” should be simply exported into the “underdeveloped world,” where they are imagined as generating economic growth and societal progress.
The critique of epistemic paternalism is reflected in a broader institutional shift toward transdisciplinarity and related approaches that aim for more inclusive knowledge production, including citizen science, community-driven development, open science, participatory methods, and multistakeholder approaches. Here we focus on transdisciplinarity and its transformative ambitions, which are expressed by intertwined epistemic and political promises.
The epistemic promise of transdisciplinarity is to generate more robust research by bringing together the expertise of academic and non-academic actors, especially the perspectives of local communities and other actors who commonly remain excluded from academia and who can bring local realities to the fore.
The political promise is one of inclusive and just interventions. The co-creation of interventions through transdisciplinary research can challenge dominant research agendas that primarily serve dominant actors and allow for the co-production of alternative agendas oriented toward the actual concerns and needs of local communities. Interventions that are grounded in diverse expertise are more likely to succeed and also more likely to produce just outcomes that reflect the concerns and needs of diverse actors.
Realizing these promises of transdisciplinarity requires attention to the intricate interplay between “epistemic diversity” and “epistemic decolonization.”
Transdisciplinary research usually starts with an emphasis on epistemic diversity, pointing out relevant expertise of actors outside of academia such as community elders, farmers, fishers, medical practitioners, social activists, or teachers. Integrating diverse knowledge into academic frameworks, however, does not guarantee sustainable, let alone just, outcomes.
On the contrary, growing debates about epistemic extractivism reflect that the integration of diverse knowledge into academic frameworks commonly reproduces and solidifies inequalities – for example, when Indigenous knowledge becomes extracted to produce new pharmaceutical commodities or simply to write articles that advance academic careers rather than changing material realities of communities.
Epistemic decolonization challenges simple integrationist narratives by highlighting politically unequal and oppressive relations in contexts of epistemic diversity. Rather than aiming to integrate diverse knowledge into dominant frameworks, epistemic decolonization challenges dominant frameworks as part of the infrastructure of colonial domination.
Transdisciplinarity becomes transformative only when challenging the status quo rather than adding a thin coating of diversity to it. Transformation, however, also requires more than critique of the status quo. If modern science is presented exclusively as a tool of colonial domination, there remains little point in still aiming for transdisciplinary co-production.
Transformative transdisciplinarity therefore develops in the interplay between epistemic diversity and epistemic decolonization – aware of the necessity of collaborative knowledge production while proactively challenging its deeply entrenched inequalities.
Transformative transdisciplinarity addresses the complex dynamics between diversity and decolonization: Without critical scrutiny, transdisciplinary practice risks reducing to tame diversity exercises that not only fail to make positive contributions for disenfranchised actors but actually produce legitimacy for dominant frameworks and actors. However, there is also an inverted risk of decolonial theory without transdisciplinarity becoming an abstract intellectual radicalism that does not provide any positive visions of collaboration.
As summarized in the figure below, we situate transformative transdisciplinarity in attempts to move beyond an epistemic paternalism that relies exclusively on academic knowledge. This transdisciplinary move leads to a productive tension between discourses on epistemic diversity and epistemic decolonization. While the latter becomes limited if focused only on the critique of integrationism, the former leads back to questions of diversity in order to incorporate the possibility of dialogue between knowledge systems.
Epistemic decolonization is needed to clearly analyze tensions in collaborative knowledge production and oppressive functions of dominant frameworks. Epistemic diversity is needed to maintain the possibility of fruitful dialogues across knowledge systems in developing alternative frameworks. It is through this interplay of diversity and decolonization that transformative perspectives of doing science differently emerge.
As discussed in a previous i2Insights contribution, Navigating intercultural relations in transdisciplinary practice: The partial overlaps framework, we framed this interplay as a partial overlaps methodology. On the one hand, the epistemologies, ontologies, and values of diverse actors involve similarities that can provide common ground to develop collaborations and mutual understanding. On the other hand, such overlaps always remain partial and therefore require serious engagement with differences and unresolved tensions.
The recognition of partialities is central for avoiding integration that slips into assimilation by aiming to eradicate difference. Although transdisciplinarity needs to recognize differences among actors, an exclusive focus on difference can undermine, in turn, the very possibility of mutual understanding and learning. The partial overlaps framework therefore emphasizes the need to take similarities and differences equally seriously — enabling collaborations while critically reflecting about tensions and inequalities in collaborative processes.
What do you think? Do you have additional or different ideas about transformative transdisciplinarity? Are there other benefits and critiques of epistemic diversity and epistemic decolonisation that you would add?
To find out more:
Ludwig, D. and El-Hani, C. N. (2025). Transformative Transdisciplinarity: An Introduction to Community-Based Philosophy. Oxford University Press: New York, United States of America. (Online – open access): https://global.oup.com/academic/product/transformative-transdisciplinarity-9780197815243. Direct to open access options are: (1) Digital (web) book: https://doi.org/10.1093/9780197815281.001.0001; (2) https://fdslive.oup.com/www.oup.com/academic/pdf/openaccess/9780197815243.pdf (PDF 13.5MB).
Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) Statement: Generative artificial intelligence was not used in the development of this i2Insights contribution. (For i2Insights policy on generative artificial intelligence please see https://i2insights.org/contributing-to-i2insights/guidelines-for-authors/#artificial-intelligence.)
Biography: David Ludwig PhD is an associate professor in the Knowledge, Technology, and Innovation Group at Wageningen University and Research in the Netherlands. He works at the intersection of philosophy and social studies of science with a focus on global negotiations of academic and non-academic knowledge.
Biography: Charbel N. El-Hani PhD is full professor in the Institute of Biology, Federal University of Bahia, Brazil. He is coordinator of the History, Philosophy, and Biology Teaching Lab and the National Institute of Science and Technology in Interdisciplinary and Transdisciplinary Studies in Ecology and Evolution. He works in the areas of science education research, philosophy of biology, ecology, and ethnobiology.