Collaborative introspection as a methodological tool of reflexivity - from multidisciplinary to transdisciplinary co-production

• This paper explores reflexivity through "collaborative introspection" as a methodological tool for transcending a multidisciplinary dialogue and achieving transdisciplinary co-production of knowledge. Reflexivity is argued to be applicable for critically addressing assumptions and ideologies of the research team (Popa et al., 2015), joint problem framing (Pearce & Ejderyan, 2019), experimentation (Popa et al., 2015), or more generally as a focal area to be used for addressing challenges in transdisciplinary projects (Jahn, et al., 2012; Polk, 2015). However, discussions on reflexivity rarely place focus on how a reflexive dialogue can be used to gather empirical material in a collaborative manner, making use of the participating researchers’ subjectivity, personal experiences and understandings of a specific topic. The authors of this text are part of a transdisciplinary research team exploring the role of tourism in multicultural societies. The team involves researchers from the fields of design, marketing, tourism studies, human-computer interaction, and migration studies. In the project we collaborate with each other across disciplines in different case studies. However, we have experienced a tendency to fall back into our disciplinary silos, where we explore the same topic from our own disciplinary lenses. As an attempt to bring ourselves together we decided to go personal. Instead of looking at the role of tourism in multicultural societies from our disciplinary viewpoints, we dug into our memories of acting as tourists ourselves in a reflective session. More specifically, inspired by the tool Tell your story by means of an object (td-net, 2021), we shared and reflected upon our own tourism experiences through our core project concepts, which are diversity, inclusivity and integration. The dialogue that emerged forced us to focus on our research topic not as researchers who are expected to maintain objectivity but rather as individuals allowing ourselves to be subjective. This created a feeling of working ‘together’ instead of ‘with’ each other. The reflections created genuine and honest dialogue highlighting our national, cultural, gender and racial differences. The differences and similarities of our personal experiences depend on the social categories and identities that we are part of. Thus, by bringing our personal stories as empirical material, we created an opportunity to listen to each other beyond our disciplinary boundaries. It made us understand the layers of hierarchy, privilege and disadvantages that we face in our lives as individuals, and to understand instances of inclusion and exclusion in tourism at a deeper level. From our experience, we propose what we term "collaborative introspection" as a reflexive methodological tool for transdisciplinary research and practice. Collaborative introspection exercises challenge the commonly held idea of neutrality. It can be used as a tool for a transdisciplinary group to come together, transform thoughts and develop empathy and ethics in research. References: Jahn, T., Bergmann, M. & Keil, F. (2018). Transdisciplinarity: between mainstreaming and marginalization, Ecological Economics 79 Pearce, B. J., & Ejderyan, O. (2020). Joint problem framing as reflexive practice: honing a transdisciplinary skill. Sustainability science, 15(3), 683-698. Polk, M. (2015). Transdisciplinary co-production: Designing and testing a transdisciplinary research framework for societal problem solving. Futures, 65, 110-122. Popa, F., Guillermin, M., & Dedeurwaerdere, T. (2015). A pragmatist approach to transdisciplinarity in sustainability research: From complex systems theory to reflexive science. Futures, 65, 45-56. Td-net (2021, April 7). Tell your Story by Means of an Object. Retrieved from: https://naturalsciences.ch/co-producing-knowledge-explained/methods/td-net_toolbox/_tell_your_story_by_means_of_an_object_

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Ekonomi och näringsliv -- Företagsekonomi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Economics and Business -- Business Administration (hsv//eng)

HUMANIORA  -- Konst -- Design (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Arts -- Design (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

collaborative introspection

transdisciplinary methodology

reflexivity

Publikations- och innehållstyp

vet (ämneskategori)

kon (ämneskategori)