Trans- and Interdisciplinarity: A b/ordering Process

Abstract

The Governance and Sustainability Lab takes up the challenge of exploring policies and governance mechanisms to cope with socio-ecological change and to steer development towards sustainability. As an interdisciplinary team, we employ multifaceted perspectives on sustainability, resource management and governance and steering processes in local borderscapes as well as in cities of the global North and South. The epistemological context for our research is the intertwinement and inseparability of nature and society, as we study for instance hydro-social arrangements or energyscapes. The normative context of our research stems from the idea that governance is not primarily a question of institutional effectiveness but also of power. With our research we seek to 1) bridge the ontological and epistemological gaps between society and nature and different disciplines, 2) develop concepts for fostering transdisciplinary research and 3) share knowledge and engage with society-relevant problems and involve actors outside academia.

Questions and topics

Interdisciplinary research as Boundary Work:

The Governance and Sustainability Lab’s team members have an international background and come from various disciplinary fields, including social and natural sciences. Exchanging thoughts, methods and research ideas, the lab crosses many disciplinary boundaries and develops new concepts and approaches to human-environment interaction. Using ‘boundary work’ as a tool helps to integrate diverse and complex knowledge and to create a boundary setting where concepts and ideas become fruitful. 

Water as Boundary Object:

Water is one example of a boundary object the lab members use to think with and to center their research around. While the WaterPower project focusses on the meanings, infrastructures and politics of water in urban Accra (Ghana), other lab members research e.g. the Water-Energy-Food Nexus and its discursive configurations, the connections of water- and energyscapes or the meanings of water and boundaries in the Anthropocene.

Metabolism of Water and Waterscape as Boundary Concepts:

The lab uses concepts like the ‘metabolism of water‘ or ‘waterscape‘ to structure their research and analyze their empirical findings. These boundary concepts allow the team to communicate about complex socio-ecological relations while maintaining different perspectives on the same object and the connected multidimensional problems.

Key Moments

Transdisciplinarity: to learn and to unlearn – together within the team and in exchange with the public. The team works to share knowledge beyond academic boundaries and to prevent the establishment of new borders of knowledge. Some of our transdisciplinary activities are:

  • Accra: Moments of Urban Flows; Photo exhibition, 2015
  • The Water Issues of Accra; Video project with Hochschule BTK, 2015
  • City Campus meets Illuminale, Trier, 2016
  • WaterPower Working Paper Series since 2016
  • Community Mapping, Accra, 2017
  • KlimaWANDEL im Moselweinbau; LFP, Trier, 2017
  • Stakeholder Workshop, Accra, 2018
  • Mosel-Wein Hack; Hackathon, Trier, 2018

Website www.waterpower.science

Contact
Antje Bruns (University of Trier)