Browsing by Author "McClure, Alice"

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    Application of Systems-Approach in Modelling Complex City-Scale Transdisciplinary Knowledge Co-Production Process and Learning Patterns for Climate Resilience
    (2021-01-22) Mkandawire, Burnet; Thole, Bernard; Mamiwa, Dereck; Mlowa, Tawina; McClure, Alice; Kavonic, Jessica; Jack, Christopher
    Literature shows that much research has been conducted on the co-production of climate knowledge, but it has neither established a standardized and replicable model for the co-production process nor the emergent learning patterns as collaborators transition from the disciplinary comfort-zone (disciplinary and practice biases) to the transdisciplinary third-space. This study combines algorithmic simulation modelling and case study lessons from Learning Labs under a 4-year (2016–2019) climate change management project called Future Resilience of African CiTies and Lands in the City of Blantyre in Malawi. The study fills the research gap outlined above by applying a systems-approach to replicate the research process, and a Markov process to simulate the learning patterns. Results of the study make a number of contributions to knowledge. First, there are four distinct evolutionally stages when transitioning from the disciplinary comfort-zone to the transdisciplinary third-space, namely: Shock and resistance to change; experimenting and exploring; acceptance; and integration into the third-space. These stages are marked by state probabilities of the subsequent stages relative to the initial (disciplinary comfort-zone) state. A complete transition to the third-space is marked by probabilities greater than one, which is a system amplification, and it signifies that there has been a significant increase in learning among collaborating partners during the learning process. Second, a four-step decision support tool has been developed to rank the plausibility of decisions, which is very hard to achieve in practice. The tool characterizes decision determinants (policy actors, evidence and knowledge, and context), expands the determinants, checks what supports the decision, and then rates decisions on an ordinal scale of ten in terms of how knowledge producers and users support them. Third, for a successful transdisciplinary knowledge co-production, researchers should elucidate three system-archetypes (leverage points), namely: Salient features for successful co-production, determinant of support from collaborators, and knowledge co-production challenges. It is envisioned that academics, researchers, and policy makers will find the results useful in modelling and replicating the co-production process in a methodical and systemic way while solving complex climate resilience development problems in dynamic, socio-technical systems, as well as in sustainably mainstreaming the knowledge co-produced in policies and plans.
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    Contesting transdisciplinary climate knowledge: a decolonial perspective on the FRACTAL project in Windhoek, Namibia
    (2019) Pelaez, Avila Julia Peláez; Scott, Diane; McClure, Alice
    Recent trends in sustainability research have particularly propagated transdisciplinary approaches in knowledge production. These new modes of knowledge production seek to deconstruct universalist principles and epistemic authorities from positivist research approaches. The potential of replicating existing power dynamics into these transdisciplinary spaces has, however, not sufficiently been critically questioned yet. This study proposes that transformative change in development of African cities requires a deconstruction of these power dynamics, that current transdisciplinary sustainability research is not yet sufficiently engaging in. To examine the power dynamics, the study applied a decolonial lens in its analysis. In a novel approach to contesting climate knowledge, the study sought to deconstruct the foundational concepts that are operationalised in the transdisciplinary knowledge generation. The analysis focused on tracing assumptions to identify imaginaries, that construct the geopolitical space and condition knowledge politics within a transdisciplinary research programme in Windhoek, Namibia. It further sought to reveal the mechanisms in the programmatic research design that condition epistemic authorities and subjectivities in the collaborative processes. Power dynamics were traceable through imaginaries as well as the evidencing of epistemic authority. Two overarching imaginaries could be traced, which are based in the construction and engagement of the geopolitical space in Windhoek: the imaginary of the social impact and desirable future and the imaginary of the sciencepolicy interface. Both imaginaries were underpinned by the vision of transformation, whose operationalisation revealed to be instrumental in determining the actual transformational potential in contrast to the envisioned one. The analysis indicated the concept of transformation to be an inhibiting factor due to uncontested power dynamics that were replicated in the transdisciplinary space. Epistemic authority was especially evident in connection with the climate information that was generated to inform the knowledge co-production. A contestation of authoritative knowledge was evident with regards to contextualising the information for present and future climates in Windhoek. However, the scientific climate information itself was not questioned for its authority. The conceptual design of the stakeholder engagement revealed to be the main mechanism that created subjectivity. The study concluded with an exploratory section, an ‘epistemic disobedience’, which engages the principle of Walking With that is used by the indigenous activist movement of the Zapatistas in Mexico to create a vision of a new world. Walking With is used to reconstruct a vision of a decolonial approach to generating climate knowledge in an African urban space. This exploration further exemplifies a dimension of decolonial criticism, which is the importance of going beyond deconstruction towards fostering decolonial thinking.