Authors: Franziska Ehnert, Hanna Ahlström, Elisabeth Berger, Lisa Bossenbroek, Sierra Deutsch, Livia Fritz, Benjamin Hofmann, Amanda Jiménez Aceituno, Jasmin Jossin, André Mascarenhas, Alexandra Polido, Marco Antonio Teixeira
Who gets to define what a ‘good’ transformation is? In line with just sustainability transformations scholarship (Avelino et al., 2024; Bennett et al., 2019; Cousins, 2021; Massarella et al., 2021; Newell et al., 2021; Sovacool et al., 2023), we argue that issues of power and agency have often been overlooked in transdisciplinary research (TDR) while being constitutive of a ‘good’ transformation. How a problem is defined, by whom, and with what interests and perspectives contributes to shaping the thinking about a problem’s causes and how to tackle them. This has fundamental consequences for the processes and outcomes of transformations. For example, power relations influence which actors, interests and perspectives will be considered, which might reinforce power asymmetries.
TDR methods and tools are meant to help shape collaborations between scientists and societal actors in knowledge co-production. While TDR offers potential to shift and share power, the dynamics of (dis)empowerment in TDR processes are far more complex. One of the central ideas is to create settings in which (marginalized) actors can build and express their power through, for instance, engagement in capacity-building and knowledge co-production. This, however, may lead to unintended effects of disempowerment if not properly designed (e.g. by creating new dependency relationships) (Avelino, 2017; Avelino et al., 2024, 2019). At the same time, intentional disempowerment may be needed where status quo actors, structures or processes block less powerful voices that call for sustainability transformations. Considering the fundamental importance of power and agency in all stages of the TDR process, we see a need to reflect on, and potentially improve, the ability of existing TDR tools to address power asymmetries explicitly (Chambers et al., 2022; Deutsch et al., 2023; Fritz and Meinherz, 2020). The aim behind this is to create more awareness in TDR about existing agency and power dynamics and to provide guidance for reflection when applying facilitation tools in heterogeneous contexts and communities.
We, the authors, discussed particular TDR tools in a tdAcademy webinar (2 October 2024) and a workshop session at the ITD 2024 Conference “Inter- and Transdisciplinarity Beyond Buzzwords” (5 November 2024) to enhance reflexivity and identify how power and agency can be better considered in TDR practice. This should help to improve applications of lessons from critical social sciences (i.e., those that focus on fundamental questions about societal power dynamics) in TDR. In both events, we asked the participants to explore one of four TDR tools that we identified in advance. These are part of online toolkits outlining methods for TDR. The break-out sessions were guided by the following questions:
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To what extent does the tool encourage reflection in transdisciplinary research with respect to power and agency?
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To what extent does the tool help to empower actors with different voices who previously might not have been heard?
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What are you struggling with when linking the tool to a context of transdisciplinary research and how can the tool be enhanced to better engage with agency and power?
We want to share findings and reflections from the webinar and the workshop session, where we discussed four exemplary TDR tools.
Actor constellation
A role-play for identifying the relevance of various involved actors for tackling a specific research question. (td-net Toolbox)
Actor constellation helps to question one’s own assumptions about actors’ roles, shift perspectives and, in this way, strengthen empathy. Our participants suggested that it helps to give a voice to different forms of knowing (e.g. Indigenous knowledge and experiential knowledge) and challenge existing norms and values. Although this tool provides guidance in rethinking the research questions, it does not explicitly address the question of who frames the problem and defines the research questions to begin with. Thus, applying this tool does not necessarily render visible how the project lead’s strong position in framing the research questions might reinforce power asymmetries. Actor constellation could be enhanced by doing multiple iterations to change the actors’ roles and introducing a role-play part where the audience (not the actors themselves) asks reflective questions, while acknowledging the differences between perspectives and positionalities (the former are shaped by the latter).
Emancipatory boundary critique
A set of questions to support non-experts in critically challenging an expert’s suggested solution to a problem and the solution’s social and ecological implications. (td-net Toolbox)
Emancipatory boundary critique allows for questioning statements that are widely seen to represent a kind of authoritative expertise. However, the guiding questions of the tool are formulated in an academic language, which might hinder societal actors from applying it. Emancipatory boundary critique builds on pre-defined solutions, which are developed by technocratic experts, in contrast to the co-creation of research questions and potential solutions. During the discussions, participants found that the tool implicitly distinguishes between experts and non-experts, drawing boundaries that might reproduce a setting of non-experts ‘asking’ and experts ‘responding’. This raises the question whether the relationship between the scientists and the practitioners is extractivist or dialogical. Emancipatory boundary critique could be enhanced by acknowledging a plurality of knowledges, for example local and Indigenous knowledge, and shifting towards the co-creation of problem framings and potential solutions. The guiding questions could be reformulated to make them more accessible to a variety of societal actors.
Multi-stakeholder discussion group
An approach to involve multiple stakeholders in accompanying a (research) project. (td-net Toolbox)
Multi-stakeholder discussion groups allow for including a broad range of stakeholders with different power resources in TDR processes. However, our participants criticised that the problem framing is taken for granted, whereby dominant framings might not be detected. Moreover, the project lead selects the participants, which might result in a selection for convenience. Rationality could be assumed while the selection might actually be driven by hidden assumptions. Another concern is that some parts of society may have too few resources to organize themselves and send representatives to stakeholder group meetings. As the workshop discussions suggest, the tool could be enhanced by first introducing different types of knowledges, which could encourage actors to raise their voices who otherwise would not do so. It also requires a skilled and experienced facilitator to detect underlying power dynamics and actively invite multi-perspective inquiry into the objectives and the design of the research project. An initial exploration phase could be introduced to co-design the multi-stakeholder discussion group with societal actors.
Principled negotiation
Dealing with differences in interests through principled negotiation (i2insights community blog)
Principled negotiation has the potential to uncover different interests, positions and perspectives. However, the participants questioned the feasibility of the steps, e.g. regarding the first one of separating ‘the problem’ from emotions and personal stakes – especially in a context of power asymmetries. Making different interests explicit and facilitating careful listening might not be enough to overcome diverging interests. Principled negotiation might not help in empowering actors with different voices mainly because the ‘how to’ may not be precise enough with respect to the identification of vulnerable stakeholders, the creation of safe spaces, and the crucial step of coming to final, fair decisions after perspectives have been contributed. The consideration of power dynamics could be enhanced by starting off the process in small groups with one representative per stakeholder group, encouraging each stakeholder group to have a voice. Our participants raised the question of how to proceed if stakeholders do not agree. They suggested that principled negotiation could be refined to provide options for multiple solutions. Furthermore, the potential of arts-based methods could be explored to unravel the interests and perspectives of marginalized people, which could help to overcome the limitations of discursive approaches.
These reflections are meant to improve process design and render power and agency dynamics in TDR practice more visible. We see them as initial contributions to a broader discussion in the scholarly community about how TDR tools could deepen the understanding of power and agency dynamics in sustainability transformations.
Acknowledgements: The ideas on enhancing TDR tools are based on contributions provided by participants of our tdAcademy webinar and our workshop session at ITD 2024 Conference. In addition, our approach benefitted from constructive exchange with members of ISOE Frankfurt: Alexandra Lux, Chantal Krumm, Oskar Marg and Lena Theiler. We also thank Donata Dettwiler who supported us in the design of the workshop session at ITD 2024 Conference. We thank the tdAcademy for funding two fellow groups in which we developed the ideas underlying the two workshops and this blogpost.
Figure 1: Workshop session at the ITD 2024 Conference. Credits: Franziska Ehnert
Figure 2: Workshop session at the ITD 2024 Conference. Credits: Franziska Ehnert
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