Presentation Abstract

In this paper, I analyse the synergies and clashes between a political ecology approach and the process of implementing a European University Alliance across eight universities. The University Alliance EURECA-PRO (European University for Responsible Consumption and Production) is oriented towards Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 12, sustainable consumption and production, as well as SDG 4, quality education. In relation to these ambitions, political ecology brings in a critical perspective on sustainability and the pathways towards reaching the SDGs.

When it comes to the wording used in the project as well as in political ecology, there are many similarities and potential synergies. I take transdisciplinarity and power relations as examples. These concepts take on quite different meanings in political ecology and EURECA-PRO, but still, there are potential synergies to be found. The underlying paradigms, particularly ecological modernization versus degrowth as well as pragmatism versus critical analysis, clash quite clearly. Despite these clashes, it is the pragmatism (in the sense of an outcome-oriented stance) with which the EURECA-PRO project is approached that leaves room for a critical political ecology perspective. The project provides “niches” where one can contribute with reflections and critiques.

Author biography

Sarah Kollnig holds a PhD in Human Ecology from Lund University, Sweden. Her scholarly focus is on sustainability and social inequalities, which she currently applies in the European University for Responsible Consumption and Production – EURECA-PRO at Montanuniversität Leoben. Within this project, she is responsible for innovation and digitalization.

Presentation Abstract

In the last two decades, transdisciplinarity has increasingly become a mantra to address socio-environmental conflicts and develop participatory frameworks for biodiversity conservation. However, there is a gap in understanding the role of transdisciplinary frameworks as both a learning process and a critical tool for early career researchers interested in the co-production of environmental knowledge. In this paper, we share our experiences as a multicultural group of graduate students from various disciplines and institutions, who are working together on topics of environmental governance and ecosystem services in Latin America. Since we are a geographically dispersed team of colleagues, each one has provided unique perspectives to a project that has been documenting three case studies in Colombia, Uruguay, and Chile. While the transdisciplinary framework of the research project seeks to incorporate various types of knowledge and a plurality of voices around environmental governance; we, as graduate students, have found several situations that have led us to reflect on methodological, ethical and power-related aspects of transdisciplinary research. This paper critically addresses the limits and opportunities of transdisciplinary research and training, such as research design, reflexivity, validation, as well as power asymmetries in the co-production of knowledge.

Author Biography

Hector Turra is a Ph.D. student interested in transdisciplinary approaches to knowledge production in social and educational settings to contribute to social justice projects. Specifically, I am interested in politicization as a learning process, equity and diversity in educational and social contexts, and Indigenous politics in the global south. My doctoral studies focus on the politicization of Indigenous people in the current Chilean political context and the learning processes therein.

Presentation Abstract

Conducting research on water in a transdisciplinary mode unavoidably implies engaging with an existing field of social relations and respective contestations involved, predominantly between users of water for agricultural purposes, for drinking water supply, and representatives of conservation interests. Political ecology focusses on uncovering embedded power relations and contestations that shape hydrosocial relations, often in an unsustainable way. Bringing these perspectives into engagement appears promising for developing alternative imaginaries of future water management. In our ongoing research on groundwater governance in Europe we combine transdisciplinary approaches and political ecology analysis with the objective of contributing to sustainable, environmentally just groundwater management at EU level, as well as in selected case studies. Researchers and practitioners from diverse fields of expertise engage in conceptual discussions, linking critical analyses and application-oriented assessments and expertise. In practice, however, this raises conceptual and methodological questions such as: What happens when the research subject is concurrently research partner? How to analyse power structures while at the same time jointly defining a common research object and seeking for knowledge integration? Whose knowledge do we integrate? We reflect on these questions based on our ongoing research on groundwater in telecoupled systems where researchers from aquatic ecology, social hydrology, political ecology and cultural anthropology, farmers, water managers and further stakeholders engage in developing visions towards sustainable groundwater management.

Author Biography

Fanny Frick-Trzebitzky is a research fellow at ISOE in the research unit Water Resources and Land Use, which she joined in January 2018 and lecturer at Trier University. She is co-lead of the junior research group regulate since 2020. Regulate is a junior research group exploring current challenges in management of groundwater in Europe, against the background of long-distance environmental and societal feedbacks (telecouplings).  In her PhD thesis and as a research assistant at the Institute of Geography at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, she investigated institutions and social inequalities in access to water and adaptation to flooding using the example of Accra (Ghana). Prior to this, she worked at the Ecologic Institute in Berlin.