Ever wonder why, after all the knowledge and the effort put towards fisheries and ocean sustainability, we are still not there? Worse, we seem to be facing more problems than before. At the recently held transdisciplinary (TD) dialogue at AMURE, Brest, TBTI members and colleagues discussed these and other related issues, through the TD lens.
Written by: Alicia said, post-doc at AMURE
On June 19 TBTI organized a transdisciplinary (TD) dialogue as part of the Research Cafe [Café Scientifique Underground - CSU] held weekly within AMURE, the Centre for Law and Economics of the Sea, Brest. Composed of an interdisciplinary group of researchers from economics, political sciences, law, biology and ecology, the TD dialogue was hosted by TBTI member Katia Frangoudes (AMURE, France) and facilitated by TBTI Director Ratana Chuenpagdee and Alicia Said, currently a post-doc in AMURE.
A number of TBTI members, including Prateep Nayak (University of Waterloo, Canada), Milena Arias-Schreiber (University of Gothenburg, Sweden), and Yinji Li (Tokai University, Japan) were also present. At the beginning, Ratana provided a quick introduction to the TD perspective, which was developed by TBTI to inform the research processes implemented in ocean and fisheries sustainability, with a particular focus on small-scale fisheries governance. She then facilitated the dialogue by inviting TBTI members to comment on their work and explain how the TD approach has helped them in their research for ‘going across, between and beyond’ disciplines as a path towards understanding real-life problems pertaining to sustainability issues. They went on explaining how, historically, collaboration between disciplines has been limited due to the institutional structures and disciplinary boundaries. These obstacles have prevented sufficient cross-fertilization of research methodologies, which have subsequently failed to provide pertinent research questions for resolving complex problems of sustainability.
This observation triggered an important dialogue between the participants in the room, especially the doctoral and early-career researchers, who were intrigued by the relevance that TD can have in setting their research and academic career. The last part of the café consisted of participants sharing both the issues they face in their research and their experiences when working in interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary projects.
Want to learn more about the TBTI transdisciplinary approach and our TD training program?
Then be sure to check our recent recent book on ‘Transdisciplinarity for small-scale fisheries governance: Analysis and practice’, edited by Dr. Ratana Chuenpagdee and Dr. Svein Jentoft and published in 2019 by Springer as part of MARE Publications Series. The volume was developed through the TBTI ‘Transdisciplinary Fisheries’ cluster and includes contributions from 70 authors across from multiple backgrounds, disciplines, and geographic regions. For more information, CLICK HERE.
Based on our TD approach, TBTI has developed ‘Transdisciplinarityin Fisheries & Ocean Sustainability’, a unique training program. The program, composed on 3-5 day workshops, include a series of lectures on theories and main concepts, such as transdisciplinarity, wicked problems, stakeholders, governance, governability, and sustainability, accompanied by practical exercises. For an recent example of what our TD workshops entail, CLICK HERE.
