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A message from one of the authors: Dr Jess Cockburn
"It gives me great joy to share this newly published paper with you:
Towards a caring transdisciplinary research practice: navigating science, society and self (Selberg et al., 2021).
This paper is the culmination of one of the most wonderful collaborations I've been involved in with My, Petra and David.
We are a group of four early-career researchers who met through various international conferences and local workshops. We started off sharing our experiences as PhDs doing transdisciplinary research via a blog series, and then pulled this all together into our new publication. We worked with a talented local illustrator, Liezl Kruger, to bring the ideas to life. Thanks to Eureta Rosenberg who advised us on the theory of change process. Thanks also to our PhD supervisors who encouraged this process!
I am proud of this paper because it speaks to some of the deep tensions that sit within the ideals of transdisciplinarity: we are expected to engage society in our research, to maintain high standards of rigorous science, and in the process one can often lose sight of oneself in the research - both in terms of reflexivity and positionality, and in terms of well-being and self-care. We don't claim to have the answers, but offer a theory of change that can help us all to navigate the current challenges and constraints towards a more flourishing TD practice. Please share this paper far and wide so that it can encourage others grappling with these tensions, and can help us to build a sense of solidarity and possibility in our practice as transdisciplinary researchers.
Transdisciplinary Research: link to the paper.