Diversity

Dealing with imperfection in tackling complex problems

By Gabriele Bammer.

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Gabriele Bammer (biography)

Why is an appreciation of imperfection and its inevitability important for those seeking to understand and act on complex societal and environmental problems? Which traps can imperfection lead to and what are the most effective ways of dealing with it?

The inevitability of imperfection

Imperfection is inevitable both in attempting to develop a comprehensive understanding of complex societal and environmental problems and in acting on them. The multiple underpinning reasons include:

● Complex problems are systems problems, and all systems views are partial, so that the whole system cannot be taken into account. Even then, boundaries need to be set to effectively deploy available resources and these artificial boundaries further constrain understanding of the whole system.

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Boundary spanning: A leadership perspective

By Gemma Jiang, Jenny Grabmeier, Diane Boghrat and Susan Simkins.

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1. Gemma Jiang (biography)
2. Jenny Grabmeier (biography)
3. Diane Boghrat (biography)
4. Susan Simkins (biography)

What does boundary spanning in cross-disciplinary science teams entail, and how does it relate to leadership?

At its core, boundary spanning is about bridging differences. These differences usually fall into two categories:

  1. Interdisciplinary differences, which involve varying perspectives across different disciplines, such as vocabulary, methods, epistemologies, and cultures.
  2. Transdisciplinary differences, which involve perspectives from science, society, policy, and practice that transcend institutional and sectoral boundaries.

The expertise required to bridge these differences is often referred to as “integration expertise” (Hoffman et al., 2024) or as one of us (Simkins) refers to it “interdisciplinary translation.” For simplicity, we’ll refer to all these forms of expertise as “boundary spanning,” and those who play these roles as “boundary spanners.”

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Epistemic justice and its relevance to transdisciplinary research

By Sarah Cummings, Charles Dhewa, Gladys Kemboi, Stacey Young and Mike Powell.

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1. Sarah Cummings; 2. Charles Dhewa; 3. Gladys Kemboi; 4. Stacey Young; 5. Mike Powell (biographies)

Can you imagine that you are in a situation where no-one listens to you or believes what you have to say? And the reason they are not listening or believing is because of your race or your gender or where you come from or your accent, or an intersectional combination of all four?

Or imagine that the knowledge of your community is seen as worthless and ignored, even when the community will suffer most when efforts to change it go awry?

This phenomenon is called epistemic injustice. Originally elaborated by social philosopher Miranda Fricker (2007), epistemic (or knowledge-related) injustice comprises unfair treatment in which the voices, experiences and solutions of marginalized individuals, communities and societies are ignored. We consider that it poses an existential threat to individuals and communities.

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Three spaces of change for reorienting North-South research partnerships

By Geetika Khanduja, Peter Taylor, Andrea Ordóñez, Erica Nelson and Tracy Mamoun

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1. Geetika Khanduja; 2. Peter Taylor; 3. Andrea Ordóñez; 4. Erica Nelson; 5. Tracy Mamoun (biographies)

What are some of the challenges that researchers from the Global South face when engaging in development research initiatives, and how can resetting the relationships that underpin North-South collaborations help? What are the pivotal areas where change is needed?

Challenges

The main concerns for many researchers in Global South-based institutions are around the deep-rooted structural challenges that underpin the research for development space, such as:

  • funding dependence on external sources,
  • insufficient national expenditures on research,
  • lack of agency in the design and implementation of research projects,
  • publication pressures built on problematic Global North “output”-driven demands,
  • competing incentives for promoting and achieving policy uptake.

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A process for applying intersectionality

By Zdena Middernacht and Laurène Bounaud

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1. Zdena Middernacht (biography)
2. Laurène Bounaud (biography)

What is intersectionality? What are the structural elements that limit its application? How can intersectionality be applied as a useful lens, especially in strategy development?

A recap of intersectionality

Intersectionality offers a framework to understand how particular identities, (eg., black and female) are tied to particular inequalities (eg., violence against women) in different historical times and locations.

The material conditions which produce economic, social and political inequality in peoples’ lives are structured by the converging and simultaneous ways in which the ever-changing logics by which society is organised, interact (Mirza 2013). These logics include race, class and gender, as well as other social divisions such as sexuality, age, disability, ethnicity, culture, and religion.

As such, different dimensions of social life cannot be separated out into discrete and pure strands.

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Structured dialogical design

By Yiannis Laouris

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Yiannis Laouris (biography)

How can heterogeneous groups reach consensus on complex issues in a reasonably limited amount of time? What kind of process allows for meaningful community involvement that is genuinely participatory and democratic?

Structured Dialogical Design is a process that achieves both these aims. The key aspects of the process and steps are presented.

Triggering questions

Structured Dialogical Design processes are always structured around triggering questions, which frame the discussions and help define the stakeholders of the issues under consideration. The idea is that those primarily concerned with and/or affected by the issues under consideration should become the primary participants.

For Structured Dialogical Design all stakeholders (or their representatives) concerned with the issues at stake must be included, including those seemingly without a voice (which many of us may not be hearing and are not responsive to listening to, such as the voice of nature).

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Why scientific knowledge needs to be decolonised

By Alemu Tesfaye

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Alemu Tesfaye (biography)

Is science inherently objective and immune to the influences of coloniality?

Here, I explore the role coloniality plays in scientific knowledge production, as well as intersubjectivity and scientific consensus. Finally, I suggest some strategies for decolonizing scientific knowledge.

Coloniality in knowledge production

Coloniality refers to the enduring patterns of power, control, and domination established during colonialism that persist in contemporary institutions. In knowledge production, this manifests as epistemic dominance, where Western ways of knowing are privileged over non-Western epistemologies. Despite the common belief among scientists that scientific knowledge is inherently objective and intersubjective, there are several critical issues that need to be addressed:

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Understanding exclusion, sharing benefits and building in reflection in transdisciplinary collaborations

By Annisa Triyanti, Corinne Lamain, Jessica Duncan and Jillian Student

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1. Annisa Triyanti (biography)
2. Corinne Lamain (biography)
3. Jessica Duncan (biography)
4. Jillian Student (biography)

How are ways of knowing excluded in transdisciplinary collaborations? How can transdisciplinary collaborations provide fair compensation for all who dedicate time and effort to the collaboration? How can transdisciplinary processes be made more fair, inclusive and equitable by including reflective processes?

Transdisciplinary collaborations aim to bring together different forms of knowledge, for example academic knowledge with knowledge of practitioners, activists, community groups, etc. Important questions to unpack the politics of transdisciplinary collaborations include:

  • Who decides which societal challenges are addressed?
  • Who has the most access and power to mobilize actions and resources?
  • Who decides who will be involved?
  • Who receives benefits?

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Towards fair transdisciplinary collaborations that honour epistemic justice

By Annisa Triyanti, Barbara van Paassen, Corinne Lamain, Jessica Duncan, Jillian Student, Jonas Collen Ladeia Torrens and Nina de Roo

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1. Annisa Triyanti; 2. Barbara van Paassen; 3. Corinne Lamain; 4. Jessica Duncan; 5. Jillian Student; 6. Jonas Collen Ladeia Torrens; 7. Nina de Roo  (biographies)

What principles need to be upheld to fund and support fair, inclusive, and equitable transdisciplinary collaborations? What competences and attitudes are required for transdisciplinary collaborations to foster epistemic justice? And what do mushrooms have to do with this?!

It is widely acknowledged that to address complex societal problems and harness plural ways of knowing, a wider range of actors, perspectives and types of knowledge are needed than is traditionally the case in other forms of knowledge creation. Transdisciplinary collaborations are different from traditional forms of science in:

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Practising responsible research within an Indigenous paradigm

By Norma Romm

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Norma Romm (biography)

What might it mean to practise responsible research within a postcolonial Indigenous paradigm? What is distinctive in terms of the conception of responsible research practice? How does research informed by this paradigm include responsiveness to the voices/spirit of the more-than-human world?

A postcolonial Indigenous paradigm as defined by scholars from a variety of geographical regions is offered as a way of doing research that expressly draws out and tries to revitalise the relational knowing-and-being processes of Indigenous communities in Africa, the Indigenous peoples of Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and the USA (First Nations). These scholars (Indigenous, as well as non-Indigenous ones who can be regarded as allies) have tried to credentialise this research paradigm by expanding upon the underlying suggestion that processes of knowing are inextricably tied to ways of living (being in relation to others, human and more-than-human).

This implies a specific conception of responsibility to try to nurture (in all fields of our influence, including in research practices) relationships that can be considered reciprocal rather than exploitative (of other humans or of other species and of the land and its communities).

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Weaving knowledge systems: Honouring Indigenous knowledge

By Chels Marshall, Rosalie Chapple and Joanne Wilson

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1. Chels Marshall (biography) (photo credit: Michael Powers)
2. Rosalie Chapple (biography)
3. Joanne Wilson (biography)

What is Indigenous science? How can it be properly recognised? How can we overcome current practices where Indigenous knowledge-holders are generally not regarded as experts, their knowledge is not used as evidence or in decision-making, and non-Indigenous people think Indigenous knowledge needs to be ‘validated’ by Western science?

Lack of recognition of Indigenous data sovereignty raises concerns about the conduct of research – by and for whom? Indigenous cultural knowledge is often used without permission or proper protocols, and is used and appropriated under Western science.

What does successfully honouring Indigenous knowledge look like?

“Our culture is the science.”

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Navigating the complexities of decolonizing knowledge production

By Alemu Tesfaye

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Alemu Tesfaye (biography)

Has the movement to decolonize knowledge production caught your attention in recent academic discussions? Do you recognize how colonialism has deeply influenced traditional knowledge systems, embedding biases and inequalities in our academic practices? Given the noble aspiration behind decolonizing knowledge, have you ever paused to critically examine its feasibility and achievability? Are we embarking on a realistic journey towards change, or are we chasing an idealistic endeavor?

Understanding the Challenge

My research journey into decolonizing knowledge production, particularly within the context of forced displacement, revealed stark contrasts between conventional academic narratives and the rich, nuanced perspectives of historically marginalized communities. This experience highlighted the deep-rooted biases and structural inequalities embedded within traditional knowledge systems.

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