Transdisciplinarity

German usage

In German-speaking countries, Transdisziplinarität refers to the integration of diverse forms of research, and includes specific methods for relating knowledge in problem-solving.^[2] A 2003 conference held at the University of Göttingen showcased the diverse meanings of multi-, inter- and transdisciplinarity and made suggestions for converging them without eliminating present usages.^[3]

When the very nature of a problem is under dispute, transdisciplinarity can help determine the most relevant problems and research questions involved.^[4] A first type of question concerns the cause of the present problems and their future development (system knowledge). Another concerns which values and norms can be used to form goals of the problem-solving process (target knowledge). A third relates to how a problematic situation can be transformed and improved (transformation knowledge). Transdisciplinarity requires adequate addressing of the complexity of problems and the diversity of perceptions of them, that abstract and case-specific knowledge are linked, and that practices promote the common good.^[5]

Transdisciplinarity arises when participating experts interact in an open discussion and dialogue, giving equal weight to each perspective and relating them to each other. This is difficult because of the overwhelming amount of information involved, and because of incommensurability of specialized languages in each field of expertise. To excel under these conditions, researchers need not only in-depth knowledge and know-how of the disciplines involved, but skills in moderation, mediation, association and transfer.

Wider usage

Transdisciplinarity is also used to signify a unity of knowledge beyond disciplines.^[6]

Jean Piaget introduced this usage of the term in 1970, and in 1987, the International Center for Transdisciplinary Research (CIRET) adopted the Charter of Transdisciplinarity^[7] at the 1st World Congress of Transdisciplinarity, Convento da Arrabida, Portugal, November 1994.

In the CIRET approach, transdisciplinarity is radically distinct from interdisciplinarity. Interdisciplinarity, like pluridisciplinarity, concerns the transfer of methods from one discipline to another, allowing research to spill over disciplinary boundaries, but staying within the framework of disciplinary research.

As the prefix "trans" indicates, transdisciplinarity concerns that which is at once between the disciplines, across the different disciplines, and beyond each individual discipline. Its goal is the understanding of the present world, of which one of the imperatives is the overarching unity of knowledge.

Another critical defining characteristic of transdisciplinary research is the inclusion of stakeholders in defining research objectives and strategies in order to better incorporate the diffusion of learning produced by the research. Collaboration between stakeholders is deemed essential – not merely at an academic or disciplinary collaboration level, but through active collaboration with people affected by the research and community-based stakeholders. In such a way, transdisciplinary collaboration becomes uniquely capable of engaging with different ways of knowing the world, generating new knowledge, and helping stakeholders understand and incorporate the results or lessons learned by the research.^[8]

Transdisciplinarity is defined by Basarab Nicolescu through three methodological postulates: the existence of levels of Reality, the logic of the included middle, and complexity.^[9] In the presence of several levels of Reality the space between disciplines and beyond disciplines is full of information. Disciplinary research concerns, at most, one and the same level of Reality ; moreover, in most cases, it only concerns fragments of one level of Reality. On the contrary, transdisciplinarity concerns the dynamics engendered by the action of several levels of Reality at once. The discovery of these dynamics necessarily passes through disciplinary knowledge. While not a new discipline or a new superdiscipline, transdisciplinarity is nourished by disciplinary research; in turn, disciplinary research is clarified by transdisciplinary knowledge in a new, fertile way. In this sense, disciplinary and transdisciplinary research are not antagonistic but complementary. As in the case of disciplinarity, transdisciplinary research is not antagonistic but complementary to multidisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity research.

According to Nicolescu, transdisciplinarity is nevertheless radically distinct from multidisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity because of its goal, the understanding of the present world, which cannot be accomplished in the framework of disciplinary research. The goal of multidisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity always remains within the framework of disciplinary research. If transdisciplinarity is often confused with interdisciplinarity or multidisciplinarity (and by the same token, we note that interdisciplinarity is often confused with multidisciplinarity) this is explained in large part by the fact that all three overflow disciplinary boundaries. Advocates maintain this confusion hides the huge potential of transdisciplinarity.^[10]

Currently, transdisciplinarity is a consolidated academic field that is giving rise to new applied researches, especially in Latin America and the Caribbean. In this sense, the transdisciplinary and biomimetics research of Javier Collado ^[11] on Big History represents an ecology of knowledge between scientific knowledge and the ancestral wisdom of native peoples, such as Indigenous peoples in Ecuador. According to Collado,^[12] the transdisciplinary methodology applied in the field of Big History seeks to understand the interconnections of the human race with the different levels of reality that co-exist in nature and in the cosmos, and this includes mystical and spiritual experiences, very present in the rituals of shamanism with ayahuasca and other sacred plants. In abstract, the teaching of Big History in universities of Brazil, Ecuador, Colombia, and Argentina implies a transdisciplinary vision that integrates and unifies diverse epistemes that are in, between, and beyond the scientific disciplines, that is, including ancestral wisdom, spirituality, art, emotions, mystical experiences and other dimensions forgotten in the history of science, specially by the positivist approach.

Citations

Sources

• Bernard Carmona – Inter and Transdisciplinary international conference – Lisbon 2014 December 11
• Bernard Carmona – ITD14 – Swiss Conference : Inter and Transdisciplinarity 2014
• Bernard Carmona – Practice of the debate of the Tibetan buddhism : A space of artificial intelligence on YouTube
• Bernard Carmona, Ingénium transdisciplinaire – La pratique du débat dans le bouddhisme tibétain, Editions l'Harmattan, 2013
• Bernard Carmona, Le réveil du génie de l'apprenant, Editions l'Harmattan, 2009
• Basarab Nicolescu Manifesto of Transdisciplinarity, State University of New York (SUNY) Press, New York, 2002, translation from French by Karen-Claire Voss.
• Basarab Nicolescu (Ed.) Transdisciplinarity – Theory and Practice, Hampton Press, Cresskill, NJ, USA, 2008.
• Article by Jürgen Mittelstrass entitled On Transdisciplinarity (URL accessed on 6 November 2014)
• Gerhard Medicus (2005). "Mapping Transdisciplinarity in Human Sciences" (PDF). ; see also 2017: Being Human – Bridging the Gap between the Sciences of Body and Mind (chapter 1 and 2). Berlin, VWB, ISBN 978-3-86135-584-7
• Javier Collado-Ruano (2018), Co-evolution in Big History: A Transdisciplinary and Biomimetic Approach to the Sustainable Development Goals. Social Evolution & History, 2018 Javier Collado´s official website.
• Javier Collado-Ruano (2016), Cosmodern Education in the Sustainable Development Goals, A Transdisciplinary and Biomimetic Approach from the Big History. TheATLAS. vol. 6, pp. 98–122.
• Javier Collado-Ruano (2016), Coevolución en la Gran Historia - una introducción transdisciplinar y biomimética a los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible. Tesis doctoral premiada por la Fundación Columbia como la mejor investigación de América Latina y el Caribe en Ciencia y Espiritualidad del año 2016 Co-evolution in Big History - a transdisciplinary and biomimetic introduction to the Sustainable Development Goals.
• Javier Collado-Ruano's TED talk Learning to feel-think-act with Nature
• Bambara, E., "Alle radici della Transdisciplinarità. Edgar Morin e Basarab Nicolescu", PhD Thesis, University of Messina, 2000
• Brand, Frank; Schaller, Franz & Völker, Harald (Hrsg.): Transdisziplinarität. Bestandsaufnahme und Perspektiven. Beiträge zur THESIS-Arbeitstagung im Oktober 2003 in Göttingen. Göttingen: Universitätsverlag, 2004.
• Hirsch Hadorn, Gertrude; Hoffmann-Riem, Holger; Biber-Klemm, Susette; Grossenbacher-Mansuy, Walter; Joye, Dominique; Pohl, Christian; Wiesmann, Urs & Zemp, Elisabeth (Eds.) (2008): Handbook of Transdisciplinary Research, Springer.
• Hamberger, E., Luger, K. (Hrsg.)(2008): Transdisziplinäre Kommunikation. Aktuelle Be-Deutungen im fächerübergreifenden Dialog, Wien: Österr. Kunst- und Kulturverlag, ISBN 978-3-85437-264-6
• Jaeger J., Scheringer M. 1998. Transdisziplinarität. Problemorientierung ohne Methodenzwang. GAIA 7(1): 10-25.
• Ronald Jones, Interdisciplinarian, The Experience Design Group, Konstfack University of Art Design and Craft, Stockholm, Sweden
• Max-Neef, Manfred A. "Foundations of Transdisciplinarity" Ecological Economics 53(2005) 5-16.
• Jürgen Mittelstrass: Transdisciplinarity – New Structures in Science, presented at the conference "Innovative Structures in Basic Research" at Schloss Ringberg, 4 October 2000
• Jürgen Mittelstrass: Transdisziplinarität – wissenschaftliche Zukunft und institutionelle Wirklichkeit. 2003 ISBN 3-87940-786-X
• V.S.Mokiy, Methodology of transdisciplinarity-4 (solution of complicated multi-factor problems of nature and society) Institute of transdisciplinary technologies, Russia, 2013.
• V.S.Mokiy, Transdisciplinary research of the Big Bang potency transformation in regards to Earth and human beings Institute of transdisciplinary technologies, Russia, 2013.
• Nicolai Hartmann: Der Aufbau der realen Welt, Berlin, 1939 (2nd Ed. 1964), de Gruyter
• Basarab Nicolescu, "Manifesto of Transdisciplinarity", State University of New York Press, New York, USA, 2002, translation from the French by Karen-Claire Voss.
• Pohl, Christian & Hirsch Hadorn, Gertrude (2007): Principles for Designing Transdisciplinary Research – proposed by the Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences, München: oekom Verlag.
• Rupert Riedl: The Biology of Knowledge. Chichester, 1984, John Wiley
• Thompson Klein, Julie; Grossenbacher-Mansuy, Walter; Häberli, Rudolf; Bill, Alain; Scholz, Roland W.; Welti, Myrtha (Hrsg.) (2001). Transdisciplinarity: Joint problem solving among science, technology, and society. An effective way for managing complexity. Basel: Birkhäuser
• Niko Tinbergen: On Aims and Methods in Ethology. Zeitschrift für Tierpsychologie, 1963, 20: 410-433
• Steinmetz, George. (2007). Transdisciplinarity as a Nonimperial Encounter. Thesis Eleven, 91 (1), 48-65. http://the.sagepub.com/content/91/1/48.short?rss=1&ssource=mfc/
• Stokols, D. (2006). Toward a science of transdisciplinary action research. American Journal of Community Psychology, 38, 63-77. http://www.springerlink.com/content/46152846475696gu/
• The Science of Team Science – Assessing the value of transdisciplinary research. Supplement issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, August, 2008. http://cancercontrol.cancer.gov/brp/scienceteam/ajpm.html
• Wickson, F., Carew, A.L. & Russell, A.W., 2006, 'Transdisciplinary research: characteristics, quandaries and quality', Futures, vol. 38, no. 9, pp. 1046–1059.