Rebecca Freeth
After 20 years as a practitioner in South Africa - working in the fields of higher education, mental health, and gender-based violence before becoming a dialogue facilitator - I've surprised myself by moving to Germany as a full-time student. I'm conducting my PhD in a wonderful project called "Leverage Points for Sustainable Transformation" - see www.leveragepoints.org. I am conducting formative accompanying research alongside an international and interdisciplinary team. Check out this blog post for a brief overview of my role: https://leveragepoints.org/2016/04/08/being-near-and-far-the-role-of-a-formative-accompanying-researcher-in-the-leverage-points-team/
Supervisors: Prof. Ulli Vilsmaier and Prof. Daniel Lang
Supervisors: Prof. Ulli Vilsmaier and Prof. Daniel Lang
less
Uploads
Papers
There is growing (but not universal) acceptance of the need for a greater diversity of approaches to tackling wicked problems (Australian Public Service Commission, 2007; Head and Alford, 2008; Rittel and Webber, 1973). There is also a need to examine the characteristics of and relationships between, individual thinking and agency (“I”) and collective and collaborative approaches (“we”). We are interested in how this relationship can be used to constructively tackle wicked problems, and contribute to a just and sustainable future.
In this chapter, we explore the tensions around the “I” and “we” paradox, and how they emerged within our collaborative research project. Through a series of significant project events, we describe the ways in which these tensions emerged, how we responded to them, and the consequences and outcomes of these responses. In particular, we examine how this tension shapes and is shaped by (1) the ‘wickidity’ of the problem, (2) the level of self-organisation and adaptation in our individual scholarship and (3) the degree of heterogeneity of the epistemic living spaces of the various constellations and combinations of the “we” of team work.
research teams encounter numerous challenges for which they may find themselves under-prepared. In this article, we challenge
the often-held assumption that researchers already know how to collaborate when entering interdisciplinary research
teams and argue that, if we want to enhance interdisciplinary sustainability research, we need to take collaboration and its
challenges seriously. First, we suggest thinking about interdisciplinary research collaborations as spaces that comprise epistemic,
social, symbolic, spatial, and temporal dimensions and that produce different degrees of comfort and discomfort for
researchers. Thinking about collaborations in this way supports a more systematic understanding of collaborative challenges.
Second, we make a proposal for learning to collaborate while collaborating, so as to tackle challenges of interdisciplinary
research. Drawing on a literature review and on experiences in the project Leverage Points for Sustainability Transformation,
we argue for advancing collaborative interdisciplinary research for sustainability by creating and engaging in collaborations
in ways that prioritize learning to collaborate. We outline a strategy for learning to collaborate while collaborating, which
implies: (1) creating conditions for learning to take place, which includes paying attention to discomfort as a trigger for learning
and (2) engaging in collaborations in ways that strengthen researchers’ collaborative capacities by cultivating particular
orientations, knowledge and skills. The fundamental inquiry is whether and how learning to collaborate has a role in more
fully realizing the inspiring potentials and ambitious goals of interdisciplinary research for sustainability.
Books
Other chapters in this section explore the contributions of a new ecological consciousness and the role of leadership, innovation, education, campaigning and collective action. In this chapter, we consider the contribution of dialogue and the role of facilitating dialogue. Dialogue has the potential to make our implicit (and often deeply patterned) assumptions about ourselves, each other and the material world we share visible and available for renewal, revision or even rupture. Drawing on a combination of theoretical perspectives and lived experiences, we take for granted that dialogue is replete with dynamics of complexity and asymmetrical power, and that facilitation can help work productively with such dynamics. Behind the words on these pages is a desire for more dialogue about the things that matter when contemplating our current realities and shared futures.
There is growing (but not universal) acceptance of the need for a greater diversity of approaches to tackling wicked problems (Australian Public Service Commission, 2007; Head and Alford, 2008; Rittel and Webber, 1973). There is also a need to examine the characteristics of and relationships between, individual thinking and agency (“I”) and collective and collaborative approaches (“we”). We are interested in how this relationship can be used to constructively tackle wicked problems, and contribute to a just and sustainable future.
In this chapter, we explore the tensions around the “I” and “we” paradox, and how they emerged within our collaborative research project. Through a series of significant project events, we describe the ways in which these tensions emerged, how we responded to them, and the consequences and outcomes of these responses. In particular, we examine how this tension shapes and is shaped by (1) the ‘wickidity’ of the problem, (2) the level of self-organisation and adaptation in our individual scholarship and (3) the degree of heterogeneity of the epistemic living spaces of the various constellations and combinations of the “we” of team work.
research teams encounter numerous challenges for which they may find themselves under-prepared. In this article, we challenge
the often-held assumption that researchers already know how to collaborate when entering interdisciplinary research
teams and argue that, if we want to enhance interdisciplinary sustainability research, we need to take collaboration and its
challenges seriously. First, we suggest thinking about interdisciplinary research collaborations as spaces that comprise epistemic,
social, symbolic, spatial, and temporal dimensions and that produce different degrees of comfort and discomfort for
researchers. Thinking about collaborations in this way supports a more systematic understanding of collaborative challenges.
Second, we make a proposal for learning to collaborate while collaborating, so as to tackle challenges of interdisciplinary
research. Drawing on a literature review and on experiences in the project Leverage Points for Sustainability Transformation,
we argue for advancing collaborative interdisciplinary research for sustainability by creating and engaging in collaborations
in ways that prioritize learning to collaborate. We outline a strategy for learning to collaborate while collaborating, which
implies: (1) creating conditions for learning to take place, which includes paying attention to discomfort as a trigger for learning
and (2) engaging in collaborations in ways that strengthen researchers’ collaborative capacities by cultivating particular
orientations, knowledge and skills. The fundamental inquiry is whether and how learning to collaborate has a role in more
fully realizing the inspiring potentials and ambitious goals of interdisciplinary research for sustainability.
Other chapters in this section explore the contributions of a new ecological consciousness and the role of leadership, innovation, education, campaigning and collective action. In this chapter, we consider the contribution of dialogue and the role of facilitating dialogue. Dialogue has the potential to make our implicit (and often deeply patterned) assumptions about ourselves, each other and the material world we share visible and available for renewal, revision or even rupture. Drawing on a combination of theoretical perspectives and lived experiences, we take for granted that dialogue is replete with dynamics of complexity and asymmetrical power, and that facilitation can help work productively with such dynamics. Behind the words on these pages is a desire for more dialogue about the things that matter when contemplating our current realities and shared futures.