Reflections on research and researcher in Darwin city: Eco-social entanglements, community and governance

Abstract

How cities and the people who live in them may devise adaptive and transformative responses appropriate to their needs, causal relations and risks from anthropogenic climate change is no easy undertaking. Prioritising a social science approach, I concentrate on questions of human- nature relations and all of society governance for developing distinctive and locally relevant climate change planning and action. Focusing on the city of Darwin in Northern Australia, my qualitative, transdisciplinary doctorate explores the less well understood area of the perspectives and experiences of community volunteer groups working at the intersection of the city’s eco-social entanglements and governance processes. Contrasting three different perspectives to understanding a city, I use the case of ‘the Milkwood trees’ to explore how they intersect in a locally meaningful way. I argue that these volunteers are vital knowledge makers in reconnecting those eco-social entanglements that are rendered invisible in different perspectives. Throughout this essay I reflect on my knowing’s and learning’s on being and doing transdisciplinary research.