Guiding principles for transdisciplinary sustainability research and practice

REED, MAUREEN G.; ROBSON, JAMES P.; CAMPOS RIVERA, MARIANA; CHAPELA, FRANCISCO; DAVIDSON?HUNT, IAIN; FRIEDRICHSEN, PETER; HAINE, ELEANOR; JOHNSTON, ANTHONY BLAIR DREAVER; LICHTENSTEIN, GABRIELA; LYNES, LAURA S.; OLOKO, MAJING; SÁNCHEZ LUJA, MICHELLE; SHACKLETON, SHEONA; SORIANO, MARLENE; SOSA PERÉZ, FERMÍN; VASSEUR, LIETTE

People and Nature

The British Ecological Society/Wiley Online

Lugar: Londres; Año: 2023 vol. 0 p. 1 - 15

2575-8314

1. Transdisciplinary sustainability scientists are called to conduct research withcommunity actors to understand and improve relations between people and na-ture. Yet, research hierarchies and power relations continue to favour westernacademic researchers who remain the gatekeepers of knowledge production andvalidation.2. To counter this imbalance, in 2018 we structured a multi-day workshop to co-design a set of principles to guide our own transdisciplinary, international and in-tercultural community of practice for biocultural diversity and sustainability. Thiscommunity includes community collaborators, partner organizations, and earlycareer and established researchers from Argentina, Bolivia, Canada, Germany,Mexico and South Africa. In 2021, we undertook online critical reflection work-shops to share our research experiences and deepen our intercultural under-standing of the application of the principles.3. Through these exercises, we adopted seven principles for working together thatinclude: honour self-determination and nationhood; commit to reciprocal relation-ships; co-create the research agenda; approach research in a good way: embedrelational accountability; generate meaningful benefits for communities; build inequity, diversity and inclusion; and emphasize critical reflection and shared learn-ing. We explain these principles and briefly highlight their application to our re-search practices.4. By sharing these principles and associated practices, we seek to facilitate de-bate and spur transformations in how we conduct international and interculturalsustainability research. Our efforts also illustrate a strategy for on-going knowl-edge co-production as we cultivate safe and ethical spaces for learning together.Lessons learned may be particularly useful to those who engage in intercultural,collaborative research to advance sustainability transformations.