An Emergent Transdisciplinary Methodology for Effective Collaboration in Ecological Economics

Abstract

In ecological economics, common themes notwithstanding, there is a lack of consensus in basic views, with no signs of convergence. All the while, ecological, economic, and social crises continue to deepen globally. A question arises: philosophical speculation and mathematical modeling aside, how can we make progress in theory and praxis when there are mutually incompatible views and sources are transdisciplinary? This article describes a transdisciplinary methodology for effective collaboration that is already emergent in ecological economics, but which has not yet been identified. The method employed in the paper allows for but also is an extension of traditional empirical method. One looks not only to output (of, for example, disciplines) but also to operative methods generative of output. And so, for example, in the effort to interpret an author’s writings, one adverts not only to familiar sources of data but also to one’s own experience. Within this broader focus, components of the methodological solution to the problem in ecological economics begin to come into view. More specifically, sample texts from the literature reveal eight distinct but mutually dependent modes of thought and expression (or, in other words, eight distinct tasks). Four are past-oriented, and four are future-oriented. It also becomes evident that, at this time in history, these modes often are inadvertently combined in semi-random, fragmentary, and counter-productive ways. By the same token, however, when looking to future possibilities, emergent in contemporary ecological economics is a potential methodology for effective collaboration that will be explicitly centered on the eight modes identified. Because it will be grounded in operative methods rather than discipline-specific output, the methodology will be transdisciplinary functional collaboration.