Tackling Wicked Problems

by Brown, Valerie A.; Harris, John A.; Russsell, Jacqueline Y.

• ISBN13: 9781844079254
• ISBN10: 1844079252
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-08-31
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

From climate change to GM foods, we are increasingly confronted with complex, interconnected social and environmental problems that span disciplines, knowledge bases and value systems. This book offers a transdisciplinary, open approach for those working towards resolving these 'wicked' problems and highlights the crucial role of this 'transdisciplinary imagination' in addressing the shift to sustainable futures. Tackling Wicked Problems provides readers with a framework that will guide the design and conduct of their own open-ended enquiries. In this approach, academic disciplines are combined with personal, local and strategic understanding and researchers are required to recognise multiple knowledge cultures, accept the inevitability of uncertainty, and clarify their own and others' ethical positions. The authors then comment on fifteen case studies which provide real life examples of how researchers have engaged with the opportunities and challenges of conducting transdisciplinary inquiries. The book gives those who are grappling with complex problems innovative methods of inquiry that will allow them to work collaboratively towards long-term solutions.

Author Biography

Valerie A. Brown is Director of the Local Sustainability Project, Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University; and Emeritus Professor of Environmental Health, University of Western Sydney. John A. Harris is a university academic, outdoors educator, and former Head of School of Environmental Science, University of Canberra. Jacqueline Y. Russell is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Research School of Social Sciences of the Austrialian National University.

Table of Contents

List of Figures, Tables and Boxes	p. viii
List of Contributors	p. x
Acknowledgements	p. xviii
Foreword	p. xix
The Ideas
Towards a Just and Sustainable Future	p. 3
Beyond Disciplinary Confinement to Imaginative Transdisciplinarity	p. 16
A Philosophical Framework for an Open and Critical Transdisciplinary Inquiry	p. 31
Collective Inquiry and its Wicked Problems	p. 61
Ignorance and Uncertainty	p. 84
The Practice
Overview	p. 101
Conducting an Imaginative Transdisciplinary Inquiry	p. 103
Specialized Inquiry	p. 115
Overview	p. 115
'Now I'm Not an Expert in Anything': Challenges in Undertaking Transdisciplinary Inquiries across the Social and Biophysical Sciences	p. 117
Global Inequalities in Research: A Transdisciplinary Exploration of Causes and Consequences	p. 130
Applying Specialized Knowledge	p. 139
Community-Based Inquiry	p. 148
Overview	p. 148
Inclusive Governance for Sustainability	p. 150
Fences and Windows: Using Visual Methods to Explore Conflicts in Land and Seascape Management	p. 161
Calculating Community Risk: A Transdisciplinary Inquiry into Contemporary Understandings of Risk	p. 171
Organizational Inquiry	p. 180
Overview	p. 180
Embedded Scales: Interdisciplinary and Institutional Issues	p. 182
Adaptiveness and Openness in Ecosystem Management: An Exemplary Sensitivity	p. 193
Truth, Knowledge and Data: A Study of Truth-Building in Organizational Change	p. 204
Individual-Focused Inquiry	p. 214
Overview	p. 214
Making their Way: Releasing the Potential of Environmental Studies Graduates	p. 217
White Skin Black Masks: A Personal Narrative on Benevolent Racism	p. 225
Exploring the Doctoral Interface	p. 233
Holistic Inquiry	p. 240
Overview	p. 240
Designerly Ways of Knowing: What does Design have to Offer?	p. 242
Rethinking Change	p. 251
All Knowledge is Indigenous	p. 260
The Future
Overview	p. 271
Human Ecology and Open Transdisciplinary Inquiry	p. 273
Can there be a Community of Practice?	p. 285
Glossary	p. 298
Index	p. 303
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