By Robert Pijpers and Sabine Luning
2. Sabine Luning (biography)
What do we mean by co-labouring? What practices does it involve? How can it enhance interactions among researchers and key stakeholders in transdisciplinary research?
Defining co-labouring
Choosing the notion of ‘co-labouring’ in our transdisciplinary project stems from an awareness that creating alternative perspectives, eg., on sustainable futures for mining, is a complex endeavor. Ideas of researchers wanting to give voice to unheard groups at the margin are too often based on simple models of translation. These assumptions underestimate what gets lost in translation, or the gaps in understandings between different groups of stakeholders.
Inspired by the work of Marisol de la Cadena (2015), we consider co-labouring to be the hard work needed when partners engage in conversations, defined as processes of (re)interpretations.