Transdisciplinary Action Research Research Articles

Towards a regenerative shift in tourism: applying a regenerative conceptual framework toward swimmable urban rivers

Regenerative tourism is a transformational approach to healing relationships between tourism, places and communities. Several urban rivers are being made swimmable (again) to mitigate against negative climate effects, promote urban health and liveability and contribute to the city’s tourism potential. This paper examines the application of a regenerative tourism conceptual framework (RTCF) to the Swimmable Birrarung/Yarra River (SB2030) initiative in Narrm, Melbourne, Australia and the dynamics among the key initiative stakeholders. Swimming is applied to catalyse regenerative transformations of the city’s main waterway. Tourism’s contributions to regenerating the river and its community are examined. The RTCF is tested for the development and implementation of a transdisciplinary action research project involving the river, civil society, academic, Indigenous, business, and government actors. Analysis of the SB2030 initiative shows that extractive approaches dominate tourism’s approach to the river but also that tourism can play a critical role in supporting the regenerative development of the river and its community. Rather than a type of tourism, it positions tourism’s core purpose as a contributor to the regeneration of social-ecological systems. Evidently, other sectors must create conditions suitable for tourism to support the multi-systems urban river regeneration impetus. This paper contributes to the discursive developments of regenerative tourism applications and informs urban regenerative development transformations.

Exploring cultural landscape narratives to understand challenges for collaboration and their implications for governance

ABSTRACT Ongoing land use change, including both land abandonment and agricultural intensification and expansion, not only present a threat for biodiversity and ecosystem health but also for the persistence of cultural landscapes. However, farmland abandonment and the resulting loss of traditional cultural landscapes is an under-researched topic in the literature. Our work in a transdisciplinary action research project in the Spreewald Biosphere Reserve suggested that challenges to preserve the cultural landscape are rooted in diverging landscape understandings and future aspirations. Dealing with and integrating different perceptions and viewpoints is a key challenge in landscape governance. Narratives as storylines about a topic or an issue have a structural and temporal dimension and can help understand land-use conflicts and different viewpoints. We adopted a social constructivist perspective on landscape to engage with meanings and perceptions (including values) that constitute landscape to diverse stakeholders. To understand these differences in meaning, we drew on Q-methodology and conducted 38 interviews with key stakeholders. We elicited three co-existing and partly overlapping landscape narratives. These differ with regard to meanings of the term cultural landscape, including how stakeholders characterise the landscape, how they appreciate it, and what they perceive as threats. We show how such differences in meanings and values attributed to the landscape translate to different problem framings and future aspirations and thus present a barrier for collaborative management and governance. We highlight how participatory vision development could help address narrative tensions and argue that a more integrative perspective would better include cultural aspects.

Transdisciplinary humanities for social transformation

Abstract The new degree in the Global Digital Humanities has been launched by the Faculty of Humanities and Education at Mondragon University on its new urban campus of Bilbao AS Fabrik. In a time of increasing urbanisation, universities must reflect on their relationship to surrounding cities and regions and develop ways to incorporate the urban and regional setting in their educational offerings. This BA shows the value of a transdisciplinary Action Research approach in facing complex social challenges and contributing to innovative social transformations in the city and region. The new campus also marks the beginning of an internal university process to develop mutual knowledge and greater permeability between different degree programmes in pursuit of a new organisational culture and practice that moves beyond narrow disciplinary models.

Working with the police service and homeless services in North West England to reduce alcohol harms: A feasibility study of a tailored Blue Light approach

IntroductionDeaths caused by alcohol are increasing in England and 80 % of people with alcohol use disorders (AUDs) are not in treatment. The Blue Light approach (Alcohol Change UK) is an initiative to support people with AUDs who are not in treatment. This study aimed to tailor the Blue Light approach (combined with alcohol identification and alcohol brief interventions [ABI] training) for police officers and homeless service staff in North West England, and to qualitatively evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of the training. MethodsThe Blue Light approach was tailored using co-production activities, based on Transdisciplinary Action Research. Full-day and half-day training sessions were delivered to the police (full-day N = 14, half-day N = 54) and homeless service staff (full-day N = 11, half-day N = 32), in local police stations and online (four half-day sessions). Semi-structured interviews (N = 23) were conducted to evaluate implementation and integration, analysing the qualitative data in line with Normalisation Process Theory. ResultsFour themes were identified, each with two to three sub-themes, reflecting: (i) the importance of training for working practice, (ii) implementation of the interventions, (iii) changes to relationships within and between organizations, and (iv) recommendations for further changes to the training. Differences in findings across the organizations (police versus homeless services) and by training type attended (full-day versus half-day, in-person versus online) are presented. ConclusionsThere is evidence to suggest that the training has provided worthwhile knowledge and intervention techniques that can become embedded into working practices. Nevertheless, structural barriers were apparent, primarily within the police service, with clear disparities between recognising the value of the training and what is achievable in practice, given the competing demands.

Conditions for just offshore wind energy: Addressing the societal challenges of the North Sea wind industry

Global investment in offshore wind energy is anticipated to surge in the coming decades. While improved technology, reduced costs, and generous policy support are frequently acknowledged as driving factors, many assert that there are fewer societal challenges with offshore renewable installations than with onshore ones. Drawing from a co-creation process with key Norwegian stakeholders and an interdisciplinary team of social science and humanities scholars, this article delves deeper than the prevalent techno-economic discourse. It seeks to: a) identify the societal challenges of fostering a just and legitimate offshore wind industry; b) explore solutions to these challenges; and c) understand the potential role of transdisciplinary action research in driving change. Through this collaboration, industry actors co-formulated an agenda for offshore wind, highlighting varied issues and concerns. This was operationalized into four primary societal challenges: 1) Navigating the public debate; 2) Improving public participation; 3) Minimizing land and sea use and co-existence conflicts, and 4) Understanding pace, political dynamics, and geopolitics. This paper offers an exhaustive discussion on possible strategies to tackle these issues, presenting a critical companion research agenda to the predominantly technology-focused studies on offshore wind within the sustainability transitions literature.

Doing Transdisciplinary Action Research: A Critical Assessment of an Italian Lab-Like Sustainable Food Initiative

Doing Transdisciplinary Action Research: A Critical Assessment of an Italian Lab-Like Sustainable Food Initiative

Learning, playing, and experimenting with critical food futures

Imagining sustainable food futures is key to effectively transforming food systems. Yet even transdisciplinary approaches struggle to open up complex and highly segregated food policy governance for co-production and can fail to critically interrogate assumptions, worldviews, and values. In this Perspective we argue that transdisciplinary processes concerned with sustainable food system transformation need to meaningufully engage with critical food futures, and can do so through the use of soft scenario methods to learn about, play with, and experiment in futures. Specifically, soft scenarios contribute in four ways: 1) questioning widely held assumptions about the future; 2) being inclusive to multiple perspectives and worldviews; 3) fostering receptiveness to unimaginable futures; 4) developing futures literacy. Based on insights from a 5-year transdisciplinary action research project on sustainable food transformation across Asia, we demonstrate how these processes play out in narratives, serious games and interactive art featuring soft scenarios. We conclude by discussing the potential for collaboration between transdisciplinary and futures researchers, especially for transforming food systems.

Strategies to Promote Sustainable Development: The Gendered Importance of Addressing Diminishing African Locust Bean (Parkia biglobosa) Resources in Northern Ghana’s Agro-Ecological Landscape

As the topic of gender and forests gains international attention through programs related to addressing the Sustainable Development Goals, we focus on a case study of the African Locust Bean (Parkia biglobosa) in the savannah landscape of northern Ghana. Although this tree holds high cultural significance for Dagomba women, it is unfortunately becoming scarcer in our study area near Tamale. We investigate the reasons for this decline in relation to the agricultural, ecological, and cultural landscape and discuss the gendered impacts of these changes. Research in these communities was conducted between 2018 and 2021 as part of a transdisciplinary action research approach to process underutilized species with women’s groups. The research started with a survey that included 27 women’s groups in 13 communities with 524 women participants. Out of a selected number of groups, our research team has worked more intensively with three women’s groups near Nyankpala, which selected for their processing focus the African Locust Bean, locally known as dawadawa. More than 45 group sessions were organized with seven groups in a collaborative learning process in 2019. Additionally, the three groups in Kpachi who chose to process the African Locust Bean sustained facilitation of group activities until the end of 2021. Specifically, on the topic of the decline of this tree, 19 semistructured interviews were conducted in August 2020 with 8 female farmers, 7 male farmers and 4 chiefs in the local governance system. Our results show the cultural significance of the African Locust Bean for women in the Dagomba culture as well as practical uses of all parts of the tree. Specifically, the seeds are used for making a fermented condiment and tea. Although seeds of the African Locust Bean are considered a women’s crop, their access to this tree is mediated by the local chiefs and often male land-users. Most farmers interviewed reported a reduction in trees in their fields. The reasons for the decrease can be summarized in six different categories, (1) aging tree populations, (2) challenge caring for saplings until maturity, (3) agricultural changes with increased mechanization and pesticide use, (4) over-use as a firewood resource, (5) usufruct rights between traditional chiefs, male land-owners, and women who should be granted access to the trees according to Dagomba cultural values, and (6) reduced water availability inhibits seed yield. In conclusion, there is an urgent need for action to protect and restore the African Locust Bean within northern Ghana’s savannah landscape to ensure continued access and benefits of the tree to women in the region.

Building urban resilience through sustainability-oriented small- and medium-sized enterprises

The unfolding COVID-19 pandemic, and the unprecedented social and economic costs it has inflicted, provide an important opportunity to scrutinize the interplay between the resilience of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and the resilience of the communities they are embedded in. In this article, we articulate the specific ways that SMEs play a crucial, and underappreciated role in building resilience to human and natural hazards, and provide new opportunities to accelerate the adoption of sustainability practices through the configuration of ‘enabling ecosystems’ geared towards promoting sustainability in the private sector. We argue that capacity-building and experimentation are not only required within companies, but also throughout this emerging supportive ecosystem of policies, resources (i.e. finance, materials, skills), governance actors, and intermediaries to adequately focus investment, technical capabilities and innovation. Ultimately, we call for a new transdisciplinary action research agenda that centers on SMEs as pivotal actors and amplifiers of community resilience; while recognizing that these firms are themselves in need of support to secure their own capacity to respond to, and transform in light of, crises. This research program calls for recognizing and applying the lessons that the pandemic presents to the urgent need for accelerated climate action. This will be enabled by developing more targeted approaches to collaborative capacity-building activities in SMEs that feed into experimentation and allow for the accelerated adoption of deliberate and strategic resilient business practices and models.

The Leuven Gymkhana: Transdisciplinary Action Research Questioning Socially Innovative Multi-Actor Collaborations in COVID Times

Literatures on social innovation, collective agency and multi-actor collaboration stress the importance of action research and joint problematization to research ongoing processes of collaboration and transformation to advance both theory and practice in these fields. In this paper we analyze our experience building a transdisciplinary action research (TAR) trajectory between 2020 and 2021 to investigate socially innovative multi-actor collaborations (IMACs) and urban governance innovation trajectories in the city of Leuven (Belgium). We specifically focus on (1) how we involved a wide array of researchers, stakeholders and practitioners in the TAR trajectory; (2) how we enacted joint problematization and action, ensuring that all facilitative leadership roles were taken care of; (3) the challenges that the specific COVID context posed on TAR and the innovative tools and approaches we took to adapt under such circumstances; and (4) how our TAR contributed to the ongoing IMACs in Leuven. Discussing our experience in relation to issues raised in action research literature, we summarize key dimensions, roles and tasks necessary in TAR to enable facilitative leadership and multi-actor collaboration and successfully drive joint problematization and transformative change. We conclude that our TAR trajectory in Leuven became a case study of IMAC in itself, and so learnings from our TAR directly dialogue with and inform our empirical analysis of the performance of IMACs too. Through this realization and the analysis of our experience, we get to broader question the role of action research and researchers in urban governance innovation.

Innovative Multi-Actor Collaborations as Collective Actors and Institutionalized Spaces. The Case of Food Governance Transformation in Leuven (Belgium)

The sustainable transformation of food systems is a particularly prolific field in which innovative multi-actor collaborations (IMACs) are being tested. Despite the growing literature on food governance and transformation of food systems, and on the principles of alternative food networks and local food strategies, little is known about how these are implemented and how multi-actor networks are coordinated and governed. Taking food as a lens, our objectives are to identify (1) how IMACs are established, (2) how collaboration is enacted within them, and (3) how governance innovations in these fields affect and are affected by broader urban governance innovation. Methodologically, we take a transdisciplinary action research approach, combining different groups of researchers with stakeholders involved in two on-going and interacting IMAC trajectories in Leuven (Belgium), i.e., the non-profit governmental organization Leuven2030 aiming to achieve climate-neutrality and the parallel collective development and implementation of the local food strategy “Food Connects.” After reconstructing the trajectory of these IMACs from a governance perspective and discussing their current limitations, we realize that these IMACs perform both as collective actors and as institutionalized spaces for experimentation and transformative change. Our findings demonstrate that IMACs can be an empowering tool for local actors to challenge supra-local and systemic power imbalance and injustice; that networking and supra-local connections of urban actors can increase the legitimacy and outreach of transition processes, mobilization of resources and peer-learning; and that the consolidation of IMACs builds on previous sedimentations of experimentation and benefits from the impulse of political will in specific windows of opportunity. We conclude that the institutionalization of common objectives set within IMACs requires a parallel institutionalization of governance structures that enabled reaching them, which entails defining specific roles and responsibilities among actors and ensuring stable spaces for conflict, deliberation, and negotiation.

Applied translation studies and transdisciplinary action research: Understanding, learning and transforming translation in professional contexts

Proceeding from accepted shared definitions of applied linguistics that stress its practical, real-world orientation and instrumentality, this article seeks to move the focus from the interdisciplinarity that has been identified as the nexus of translation studies in the past to how its applied branches should systematically engage with an emerging transdisciplinary research paradigm. It argues that the shift can and will be a key factor, challenge and opportunity in the onward development of applied translation studies as it seeks to adequately address the situated realities of professional translation. The article reveals how transdisciplinarity, operationalised as action research, offers a viable framework for investigating, understanding and learning about what translators really do in working contexts and settings, with a view to identifying issues, improving practices, processes and performance, and ultimately transforming the profession for the good of those it employs and serves. In doing so, it considers approaches from cognitive translatology, based largely on a 4EA cognitive paradigm, and translatorial linguistic ethnography, where researchers are gradually but progressively going out into the field to explore and describe the complex socio-cognitive, socio-technical activity of translation in situ. After presenting a use case from a large-scale research project on translation ergonomics at the authors home institution, the article puts forward a model for transdisciplinary action research in professional settings to guide the necessary transition from interdisciplinarity to transdisciplinarity. Such a model would allow professional processes and practices to be investigated, and the findings productively and transformatively applied, in the situated socio-cognitive and socio-technical contexts of translators workplaces - within, for, with and by the organisations that employ them.

Taking power seriously: Towards a power-sensitive approach for transdisciplinary action research

In this paper, we focus on transdisciplinary action research to explore the key challenge of post-normal science – how to deal with power. First, the paper reviews the literature on stakeholder inclusion and identifies a methodological dilemma trapping transdisciplinary action research between the promise of effectiveness and inclusiveness and the danger of power asymmetries affecting the research process and outcomes. We then develop a framework distinguishing three different power-related tensions permeating transdisciplinary research promises: the systemic level of institutions, the heterogeneous stakeholder group, and the role and position of the researcher. We provide concrete literature-based tools for dealing with each of these tensions and mould a power-sensitive approach for transdisciplinary action research.

Urban Commoning Under Adverse Conditions: Lessons From a Failed Transdisciplinary Project

While the commons and commoning are generally associated with community-based ecosystems at the localised scale of the neighbourhood, ambitious reinterpretations explore possibilities for scaling up commoning as a collaborative and sustainable form of urban governance engaging multiple stakeholders through the quintuple helix. Inspired by the City as Commons approach first imagined and formulated in Bologna, Italy, this paper presents original findings from a transdisciplinary action research project for studying and cultivating commoning-as-governance in a politically disaffected and economically marginalised inner-city neighbourhood in Liverpool, England. It examines the social relations (re)constituting an urban ecosystem for commoning and asks how such initiatives for designing collaborative programmes for transforming urban environments through public-common partnerships might work in contexts in which the material and affective resources for commoning have been exhausted by post-democratic privatisation and neoliberal austerity. Drawing on theories of radical democracy and post-politics, the City as Commons approach is critically evaluated and argued to be insufficient to the challenging task of engendering commoning in the disintegrating urban neighbourhoods that would arguably benefit most from such activities. The paper tells the story of how this transdisciplinary project ultimately failed in its aims and, through engagement with recent interventions on the politics of failure in the neoliberal university, reflects on the implications for future action research on commoning.

Enacting a just and sustainable blue economy through transdisciplinary action research

AbstractTo enact a just and sustainable blue economy, one must consider all the actors involved in its shaping. This paper argues that a quintuple helix approach to stakeholder engagement – involving government, academia, the business community, and civil society – and an inclusive transdisciplinary action research (TAR) methodology are promising avenues with which to do so. Embracing critical pragmatism as a foundational framework, key ideas from three strands of research are consolidated: (1) the recent work on the geographical dimension of socio‐technical sustainability transitions; (2) the literature on just sustainabilities and just transition; and (3) action research and transdisciplinary approaches to problem solving. This allows for the reimagination of a common future for the blue economy that is developed through a different kind of democratic process driven and informed by co‐learning, and shared experiences. By adopting a transdisciplinary action research approach, actors from different disciplines and spheres of experience can gain a better mutual understanding and find commonality through the open door of collaboration. The theoretical argument presented in this paper is illustrated by a vignette of an ongoing TAR project at Southern Connecticut State University, which outlines the challenges and opportunities inherent to implementing a TAR approach.

Developing a whole-school mental health and wellbeing intervention through pragmatic formative process evaluation: a case-study of innovative local practice within The School Health Research network

BackgroundThe evidence-base for whole school approaches aimed at improving student mental health and wellbeing remains limited. This may be due to a focus on developing and evaluating de-novo, research-led interventions, while neglecting the potential of local, contextually-relevant innovation that has demonstrated acceptability and feasibility. This study reports a novel approach to modelling and refining the programme theory of a whole-school restorative approach, alongside plans to scale up through a national educational infrastructure in order to support robust scientific evaluation.MethodsA pragmatic formative process evaluation was conducted of a routinized whole-school restorative approach aimed at improving student mental health and wellbeing in Wales.ResultsThe study reports the six phases of the pragmatic formative process evaluation. These are: 1) identification of innovative local practice; 2) scoping review of evidence-base to identify potential programme theory; outcomes; and contextual characteristics that influence implementation; 3) establishment of a Transdisciplinary Action Research (TDAR) group; 4) co-production and confirmation of an initial programme theory with stakeholders; 5) planning to optimise intervention delivery in local contexts; and 6) planning for feasibility and outcome evaluation. The phases of this model may be iterative and not necessarily sequential.ConclusionsFormative, pragmatic process evaluations can support researchers, policy-makers and practitioners in developing robust scientific evidence-bases for acceptable and feasible local innovations that do not already have a clear evidence base. The case of a whole-school restorative approach provides a case example of how such an evaluation may be undertaken.

Transitioning from Interdisciplinarity to Transdisciplinarity in Applied Translation Studies: Towards Transdisciplinary Action Research in Translators’ Workplaces

Abstract Since the beginnings of translation studies, applied translation research has set out to address the practices, processes and products of translation in both work and education. The contexts in which these are realized are embedded in broader sociotechnical systems as well as in the specific settings where translation is performed. Although the situated nature of professional translation is uncontroversial and suggests that it should be investigated in situ, workplace-based, organization-oriented research in applied translation studies is a relatively recent and still under-developed phenomenon. The nascent interest in it is partly due to advances in research tools and practices, but mostly to an emerging but still largely implicit transdisciplinary research framework. This article argues that the actual and potential impact of transdisciplinarity should frame translation research more explicitly. It considers how the growing diversification of professional translation and its convergence with other communication professions calls for applied translation studies to adjust to new realities. It explores current developments in professional translation practice, presents a use case of workplace-based research, and concludes with a model of transdisciplinary action research that can serve as a structured framework for investigating and learning from rapidly evolving professional processes and practices in translators’ sociotechnical workplaces.

Sustainability and Collaboration: Crossdisciplinary and Cross-Sector Horizons

The title of this article signals increasing collaboration across boundaries aimed at understanding and solving complex scientific and societal problems. The article is a reflective analysis of five intersecting keywords in discussions of sustainability and boundary crossing. This genre of discourse studies interprets language use, drawing in this case on a representative sample of authoritative definitions, case studies, and state-of-the-art accounts. The Introduction situates the discussion around the increasing number and size of teams as well as research across both academic disciplines and other sectors, followed by the five keywords that structure the overall argument. Section 2 examines the first of the five keywords, defining interdisciplinarity by marking its alignment with integration, confluence, interdependence, interaction, and balance. Section 3 considers the second keyword—transdisciplinarity—by tracing evolution of a problem-focused connotation, links to sustainability, inclusion of stakeholders, the imperative of critique, and transdisciplinary action research. Section 4 brings together insights on inter- and trans-disciplinarity in a composite “crossdisciplinary” alignment with collaboration, factoring in the nature of teamwork, public engagement, and translation. Section 5 then turns to learning, noting the difference between education and training then emphasizing transformative capacity, double- and triple-loop learning, reflexivity, and a transdisciplinary orientation. Section 6 takes up the final keyword—knowledge—by calling attention to inclusion, indigenous and local perspectives, nomothetic versus idiographic perspectives, the question of fit, and the nature of crossdisciplinary knowledge. The article concludes by identifying future research needs.

Toward community food security through transdisciplinary action research

To solve the world’s most complex problems, research is increasingly moving toward more transdisciplinary endeavors. While a lot of important work has explored the characteristics, challenges, opportunities, and operationalization of transdisciplinary research, much less is known about the circumstances that either facilitate or hinder the research process, particularly from the perspectives of graduate students who often participate in them. In this paper, we aim to address this gap by contributing our own experiences as a team of four graduate students and one community partner that collaborated on a food security project. To support our collaboration, we develop and apply an analytical framework that integrates transdisciplinarity and action research. Through principles of reflexivity, participation and partnership, methods and process, and integration, we find that the framework facilitated the development of shared purposes, mutual responsibility, and meaningful relationships, resulting in the co-creation of a guidebook for farmer-led research. Our main concern with the framework is not achieving the full integration of our disciplines and practices. Transdisciplinarity together with action research holds significant promise in a food security context, but only in the “right” circumstances, where considerable time is spent building relationships, opening communicative space, and reflecting on the work with collaborators.

The language of numbers : transdisciplinary action research and financial communication

Abstract Wider parts of society-at-large are not fluent in the language of numbers, and financial literacy in particular is low in many countries (OECD, 2014). This paper shows how research on financial communication with and for practitioners (Cameron, Frazer, Rampton, & Richardson, 1992, p. 22) can foster intra-lingual translation in the financial sector, which increases financial texts’ communicative potential and finally enables laypersons to better understand the language of numbers. Such an increased understanding allows individuals to set up investment plans for their current and future wealth and, for example, make informed decisions about their pension plans. By doing so, financial crises on the individual, organizational, and societal level can be avoided, which benefits social welfare and society-at-large. Transdisciplinary Action Research (TDA) offers a framework and procedures to approach such goals through close collaboration of scholars and practitioners throughout research projects. Following TDA core concepts, a cyclic process of research and development has been established in the last two decades (e.g. Perrin, this volume; Whitehouse, 2014). Whereas applied linguists involved aimed at better understanding practices of writing and intra-lingual translation at the interface of technical and everyday language, stakeholders from the financial industry wanted to improve their communication. The representatives of society-at-large, finally, were interested in contributing to sustainably increasing financial literacy. In the first part of the present paper, I sketch the suitability of transdisciplinarity in general and TDA in particular in financial communication (Section 1). Then I define the key concepts of intra-lingual translation, communicative potential, and financial literacy (Section 2). Next, I outline the data corpus and explain how TDA was applied in a series of research projects (Section 3). The presented results on a macro-level shed light on the financial analysts’ situation and practices in their multilingual workplace: the findings on the micro-level suggest that financial analysts’ texts pose a risk of partial communicative failure (Section 4). The article concludes by indicating empirically based measures to develop financial literacy, intra-lingual translation across stakeholders and texts’ communicative potential in finance (Section 5).