Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Appendix 1: Why Emphasize Collaboration in Environmental
Research?
(Drawn from Taylor et al.
2011
)
A. Sum of the Parts
Combining multiple perspectives
• When research is tied up with planning and management that involves meet-
ings and networks of representatives of established and emerging stakeholder
groups, research projects also need to integrate knowledge and questions from
the different groups and kinds of research (Margerum
2008
; Wondolleck and
Yaffee
2000
).
• When researchers are concerned about social justice, they can shape their
inquiries through on-going work with and empowerment of people whose
lives stand to be most affected by some change in social policy or technologi-
cal development, such as digging of deep wells for irrigation (Greenwood and
Levin
1998
).
• When the knowledge and research skills of more than one person/speciality
are needed, multi-disciplinary research teams are established.
• When the labor of research, especially in data collection, is beyond any
research group, amateurs—“citizen scientists”—can be sought as collabora-
tors (
Wikipedia n.d.
; Barrow
2000
).
• Workshops and other organized multi-person collaborative processes in envi-
ronmental research constitute a self-conscious example of what sociologists of
science and technology have called “heterogeneous engineering” (Law
1987
,
i.e., the mobilization of heterogeneous resources by diverse agents spanning
different realms of social action) (Taylor
2005
, p. 93ff).
Extending over time
• The nature of environmental complexity means that ongoing assessment
(as against a one-time analysis) is needed, so an ongoing organization or
group is formed to conduct the assessment, as recognized in the fi eld of
Adaptive Environmental Assessment and Management (
Resilience Alliance
n.d.
; Gunderson et al.
1995
) .
Spanning distance
• Researchers in separate projects and disparate locations use the tools of
eco-informatics to link their data into a larger picture (Halpern et al.
2008
) .
B. Greater than the Sum of the Parts (i.e., outcomes over and above A.)
Generating new perspectives
• Knowledge and further research questions can be generated that the collabo-
rators (individually or in sum) did not have when they came in (Olson and
Eoyang
2001
) .
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