| 51. |
- Bjurström, Andreas, 1974
(författare)
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Interdisciplinarity and knowledge organisation - Prospects for Human Ecology in academia?
- 2008
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Ingår i: XVI International Conference of the Society for Human Ecology - Integrative thinking for complex futures: Creating resilience in human-nature systems. ; 2008
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Human Ecology is after half a century still an embryonic academic subject, characterised by a vague and contested knowledge core and lack of successful research programs. There are many reasons for this problematic condition, including epistemic diversity, institutional structures and knowledge politics in academia at large as well as cognitive limitations of individual researchers and values in the knowledge culture of human ecology. Further, Human Ecology as a broad interdisciplinary field nowadays has to compete with disciplinary based strong environmental research programs within the social sciences like environmental politics, environmental sociology and environmental economy as well as several mature environmental natural sciences. Given these conditions, what are the prospects for Human Ecology in academia? This paper will contribute to this discussion by analysis of a single case, Human Ecology in the local context of the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. This may illuminate more general characteristics that can be used for informed strategic decisions for future paths of development.
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| 52. |
- Brauer, Rene, et al.
(författare)
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How to write a REF impact case study? Critical discourse analysis of evidencing practices
- 2016
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Ingår i: “Making an impact: Creative constructive conversations” International Conference, 19-22 July 2016, School of Hospitality and Tourism Management, University of Surrey, Guildford, UK.
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This paper applies critical discourse analysis to scrutinize submissions to the “REF [Research Excellence Framework] 2014 Impact Case Study” platform. More specifically, it focuses on the rhetorical practices used within these submissions to evidence research impact as outlined by the Higher Education Institutions (HEI) within tourism studies. The evidencing practices used within the submissions to Panel 26 (Sport Science, Leisure and Tourism) included quantitative sources and measures (e.g. Google Scholar, citation counts, journal ranking scores, monetary value of research grants, value of policy investment, industry revenue figures, etc.) and implicated ‘high status’-end users (e.g. government bodies, the UN, industry, NGOs) as their main type of evidence. The evidencing of impact did not differ depending on whether the research was of quantitative or qualitative character, neither on the type of research impact claimed. Instead, the disciplining of the epistemic evidencing practices was enforced by the outlined guidelines for submission (verifiable evidence, word count, type of impact). Leaning on Collins and Evans’ (2007) notion of ‘expertise’ used to conceptualize evidencing practices, this paper discusses the implication of such evidencing for an evaluation practice that sets out to assess the quality of research impact. The rhetoric such evidencing evokes, however, is not necessary indicative of the impact claimed. Furthermore, the evidencing practices used within the REF marginalize so-called negative impacts (failures), despite their specific value for research and, consequently, for societal progress at large.
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| 53. |
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| 54. |
- Brodén Gyberg, Veronica, 1978-
(författare)
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Climate and environment in Swedish research aid policy 1973-2017: discursive trends
- 2017
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Solutions to global development challenges often involve scientific research but there is still great inequality concerning resources for research globally and many of the countries that are vulnerable to climate change. International aid directed towards universities is one way by which this inequality is being counteracted. Using discourse analysis, I focus on the pioneer case of Swedish research aid policy and analyze in what ways the environment and climate change have been portrayed as important for development between 1973 and 2017. How have problems and solutions been described and what is perceived to be the role of scientific research in creating transitions from less to more “sustainable”? Environment and climate has been central to the research aid discourse from the start, but the focus was mainly on natural resource management and efficiency in the first decades. In the 1990s and 2000s, the level of urgency and priority increases and the focus is on the negative and unequally distributed consequences of climate change.
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| 55. |
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| 56. |
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| 57. |
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| 58. |
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| 59. |
- Dymitrow, Mirek, et al.
(författare)
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Crossing dichotomies and breaking mental patterns: Green business development when all else fails?
- 2017
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Ingår i: 8th International Scientific Conference “Rural Development 2017: Bioeconomy Challenges”, 23–24 November, 2017 Kaunas, Lithuania.
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Obtaining sustainable and inclusive societal organization is not merely a simple matter of ‘doing it’ by subscribing to some winning formula. Given that conceptual frameworks always guide our thoughts, judgments and actions (Latour, 2013; Harvey, 1996; Dennett, 1993), the ways in which we relate to concepts chosen to serve as guiding forces for future development will eventually determine its outcome. As scholarly evidence continuously suggests the concepts ‘rural’ and ‘urban’ are increasingly recognized as artificial barriers for conducting sound and integrated development endeavors in a globalized reality of interconnectedness. In line with the Sustainable Development Goals, which aim to eradicate poverty, shield the planet and safeguard prosperity for all, commitment to universal access to healthy food year round has become an important agenda point. This, however, has been exacerbated by binary thinking and separate ways of doing policy. This paper aims to share experiences from a unique project launched in the northern parts of Gothenburg, Sweden’s second largest city. While the area offers ample resources and immense opportunities for areal economies, it at the same time remains one of Gothenburg’s most segregated, with high levels of unemployment, ill health and crime. The uniqueness of the project lies not only in its way of abridging the rural-urban divide, but also by consciously deferring from the debilitating rhetoric of previous ‘immigrant policies’, and instead focusing on agricultural productivity, small-scale food producers and sustainable food strategies. Such exhortations to bridge between philosophical and material polarities, however, have not come without conceptual and practical challenges, something this paper aims to subsume and open up to debate.
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| 60. |
- Dymitrow, Mirek, et al.
(författare)
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The ‘Research Forum’ as a methodological tool for transdisciplinary co-production
- 2019
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Ingår i: International Transdisciplinarity Conference 2019. - Göteborg : University of Gothenburg.
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Transdisciplinarity connotes a strategy that crosses many disciplinary boundaries to create a holistic approach. Due to this insistence, it has gained widespread popularity in recent years. However, in transdisciplinary collaborations based on academic–practitioner interactions, this is not always as straightforward. In this text, we share some insights from our past and ongoing work with the project ‘Urban Rural Gothenburg’, within which we have launched the Research Forum (RF) model as a means of co-producing new transdisciplinary knowledge. RF ‘Urban Rural Gothenburg’ constitutes Mistra Urban Futures' contribution to the project ‘Urban Rural Gothenburg’, a three-year (2017–19) EU-sponsored project for sustainable development with the overarching aim to create improved conditions for green innovation and green business development between the city and the countryside. The RF constitute the project’s academic component within a transdisciplinary (penta-helix) model. The RF is meant to serve as an incubator and accelerator of various initiatives concerned with understanding, testing and implementing ecologically oriented solutions that may arise through academic–practitioner interactions. The RF is thus not a ‘place’ (in the concrete sense) but a collaborative effort of two coordinators – one practitioner and one academic, aided by an assistant, who actively pursue and facilitate new ways of extracting knowledge within a large and heterogenous project structure. Identifying and successfully matching different perspectives, points of view and pools of knowledge is a difficult challenge. This is mainly because interactions are seldom based on the same principles; different people have different foci, incentives, and agendas, while understanding how they work out in practice is key to successful implementation of the RF model. In this presentation, we focus on the description, analysis and evaluation of the RF as a methodological endeavor. The findings center on four of the most common modes of interaction encountered during our work with the RF: academics to practitioners (A > P); practitioners to academics (A < P); academics with practitioners (A >< P); and academics without practitioners (A | P). We conclude that if we truly want to embrace co-production as way to obtain new knowledge we inherently must concede part of our individuality towards a homogenous goal. At the same time, the specificity of different forms of knowledge cannot be melted into an amorphous mass, elsewise co-production is likely to become a tokenistic effort of little applicatory utility. Put simply, we must constantly remain open to change but also stay protective of knowledge that works without reinvigoration.
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