Transdiscisplinary science?

Transdisciplinary (TD) science is “a reflexive, integrative, method-driven scientific principle aiming at the solution or transition of societal problems and concurrently of related scientific problems by differentiating and integrating knowledge from various scientific and societal bodies of knowledge.” (Lang et al., 2012). TD research is relevant when uncertainties abound, when the nature of problems is, or may be, disputed, and when the stakes are high for those concerned (Pohl and Hirsch Hadorn, 2008). My understanding of local terminal risks calls for a TD approach on two grounds.

First, the combined descriptive and normative content of existential risk must be accounted for. My enquiry within PREFER needs to simultaneously embrace descriptive and normative goals. TD research is about empowerment through research (Whiteside et al., 2011). TD research carries a very precise normative outlook: change is desired, should be guided by those affected, and involves the redistribution of knowledge and power (Alonso- Yanez et al., 2019). Local terminal risk situations are situations where empowerment is essential. PREFER will accompany human communities facing their most fundamental challenges. This is the essence of TD research. I understand this as the essence of existential risk studies as well.

Second, TD science is also about producing new knowledge. TD researchers and partner communities conduct careful negotiations on what deserves attention and why. TD science generates and focuses on stakeholder-centered, value-laden, causal statements (i.e., narratives). The variety of values at stake and their social manifestations are taken into consideration. This approach to science may turn into a social battleground if members of society have conflicting interests (e.g., Siebenhüner, 2018): in TD science, judgement emerges, states of affairs are ordered and compared, sense emerges from the moral uncertainties involved, axiologies are revealed. Documenting and analyzing these phenomena is my objective in the implementation of PREFER.

The TD vocabulary of PREFER.

Intervention, TD intervention: When conducting fieldwork, the PREFER research team will (a) collect data and (b) work with communities for their benefit on issues that we identify jointly with them. We call this dual activity an “intervention,” or a “TD intervention”
Partner communities: When conducting fieldwork, we will work with and for local communities. The research team will engage actively with community members to establish a partnership based on shared interests. We call the collectivities that accept to work with us “partner communities”.
Impacted parties vs concerned parties: Stakeholders whose daily, practical, material life is directly affected by the risk issue are called “impacted parties”. Concerned parties are individuals that, due to personal or professional empathy for the plight of those impacted, consider that they have a stake in a risk issue.

Examples of narrative-based TD interventions

Communities facing the threat of major change mobilize their resources to help them cope with the resultant hardships. We observed that one resource is often neglected, that of local narratives as a source of empowerment. Our TD intervention consists of mobilizing this underused resource. Here are someconcrete examples of how this has worked in practice.

Caraquet Bay integrated watershed management plan:
This was my first TD intervention. Through interviews and focus groups, we, Omer Chouinard and myself assisted by Rachel Friolet, collected local stories pertaining to Caraquet Bay (New-Brunswick, Canada). We reframed these stories as accounts of ecosystem health and human actions. Thus reframed, these stories were used to co-produce an integrated management plan leading to a stabilized reopening of oyster leases that had been closed because of pollution (Vanderlinden and Chouinard, 2006; Vanderlinden and Friolet 2011).

Coastal adaptation planning in the Gulf of Morbihan (Brittany, France):
This is an intervention that the CEARC team and I recently conducted. Local narratives of an imagined future in the context of elevated sea levels were collected through local creative writing workshops that we organized. These were then used for adaptation planning in workshops facilitated by the project team. Local artists used the narratives (produced and collected in the course of the workshops) to create a high-impact public exhibition on climate change and adaptation scenarios (Da Cunha et al., 2020).

Capacity building in the face of climate change in Kerourien (Brittany, France):
We conducted in-depth archival research on the history of this disadvantaged neighborhood. We used the archives we collected to co-produce participatory narrative art forms. From these depictions of local life experiences, we identified weather and climate as salient issues, even above much more immediate issues such as street violence, unemployment, and poverty. The resulting narrative was used by community members as a source of pride and as a reason to engage in collective action (Baztan, Vanderlinden et al., 2020)

In all of the examples cited above, the exact nature of the interventions was not planned ex ante. They emerged naturally from the intensive coproduction work conducted with community members in the course of the TD interventions.