1st Edition

Transdisciplinary Research and Sustainability Collaboration, Innovation and Transformation

Edited By Martina Padmanabhan Copyright 2018
334 Pages
by Routledge

334 Pages 26 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

334 Pages 26 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

Transdisciplinarity is a new way of scientifically meeting the challenges of sustainability. Indeed, interdisciplinary collaboration and co-operation with non-academic ‘practice partners’ is at the core of this; creating contextualised, socially relevant knowledge about complex real-world problems. Transdisciplinary Research and Sustainability breaks new ground by presenting... Read more

Preface: Bernhard Gläser & Heike Egner, series editors





Foreword by the editor: Martina Padmanabhan





Introduction: Transdisciplinarity for sustainability



Martina Padmanabhan





Section 1: Understanding sustainability science as challenge and necessity





A transdisciplinary approach to the process of socio-technical transformation: the case of German ‘Energiewende’



Armin Grunwald





Real-world laboratories as an institutionalisation of the new social contract between science and society



Mandy Singer-Brodowski & Matthias Wanner & Uwe Schneidewind





Transdisciplinarity in social-ecological research: Constraints, challenges and opportunities. Reflections on personal experience



Sabine Hofmeister





Section 2: Cooperating with partners of practice





From the plurality of transdisciplinarity to concrete transdisciplinary methods. The case of PoNa and its dialogue with practitioners on a picture discourse analysis.



Daniela Gottschlich & Jedrzej Sulmowski





Social learning videos: A method for successful collaboration between science and practice



Patricia Fry





Developing landscape scenarios and identifying local management options:



Outcomes and evaluation of a participatory approach in the Swabian Alb, Germany





Claudia Bieling, Holger Gerdes, Bettina Ohnesorge, Tobias Plieninger, Harald Schaich, Christian Schleyer, Kathrin Trommler & Franziska Wolff





Section 3: Pursuing methodological innovations for transdisciplinarity





This is the case (study) - so what? Reflections on a constitutive tension in sustainability science



Rafael Ziegler


Biography

Martina Padmanabhan is W3 Chair of Comparative Development and Cultural Studies - Southeast Asia, University of Passau, Germany

Sustainability can neither be understood nor realized without transdisciplinarity. In this collection of outstanding contribution by a stellar cast of international scholars and practitioners, Dr. Padmanabhan brilliantly demonstrates how sustainability science researchers and practitioners can speak to and learn from each other. This model of integrative work will prove to be of lasting and immense value.

Arun Agrawal is a Professor at the School of Natural Resources & Environment at the University of Michigan, USA

Co-design, co-production and co-dissemination are often applied in transdisciplinary research, but still lacks methodological clarity in practise. The volume offers outstanding research from German speaking countries that can further elucidate the implementation of these concepts. It clearly demonstrates that power, gender and culture must be considered carefully to establish transdisciplinarity as emancipatory force."

Christoph Görg, Professor of Social Ecology, Alpen-Adria Universtät Wien, Austria