Material metaphors: An approach to collaborative knowledge production in transdisciplinary sustainability research

Abstract

The integration of different forms of knowing and bodies of knowledge, as well as collaborative forms of knowledge production, seems particularly significant for the core of scientific work and in inter- and transdisciplinary processes in sustainability research. Nevertheless, collaborative knowledge production in heterogeneous teams brings up specific challenges. This is where existing methods for group negotiation processes, strongly based on language and text, reach their limits. To fill this gap, design-based methods can be used. They expand the mode of language and text to include the visual-haptic dimension, which allows access to other levels of thinking as it appeals to many senses. Therefore, this paper shows the application of design prototyping, as one specific design method, for collaborative knowledge production and integration in inter- and transdisciplinary research processes. The findings cover three different approaches to collaborative knowledge production and shed light on the role of material metaphors as translators of different cognitive modes and bridge to the knowledge of others.