Producing knowledge about Water. Theoretical and methodological controversies, flows, meanders, rigidities, and the pursuit of "full transdiciplinarity" (in English, Portuguese, and Spanish)
Creators: name: Castro, Jose Esteban
name: Luengo Gonzalez, Enrique
name: Gutierrez Serrano, Norma Georgina
name: Valencio, Norma
name: Rausch, Gisela Ariana
name: Aviña Escot, Rosa Paola
name: Bottaro, Lorena
name: Núñez, Ana
name: Salvadores, Franco
name: Sola Alvarez, Marian
name: Tercero Cuz, Laura Priscila
name: Villalba, Luciano
name: Vienni Baptista, Bianca
Publisher: name: WATERLAT-GOBACIT  Network
Year: 2023
Subjects: inter and transdisciplinarity

description: This issue of the WATERLAT-GOBACIT Network's Working Papers was organized
by members of the Network's Thematic Area 1, TA1 – X-disciplinarity in Research and
Action. TA1's membership includes academics, students, practitioners, representatives
of social movements and civil society organizations, among others. This TA has a
crosscutting function with interlinkages with the other Thematic Areas, of the Network,
as it focuses on theoretical and methodological aspects concerning the challenges and
opportunities facing our endeavours to produce knowledge about water from inter- and
trandisciplinary perspectives.
This particular issue offers significant contibutions that are relevant to all TA's but
some articles also address specific empirical examples that are connected with topics
covered by TA2 – Water and Megaprojects , TA3–, Urban Water Cycle and Essential Public
Services, TA6–Hydrosocial Basins, Territories, and Spaces,TA7– Art, Communication,
Culture, and Education, and TA8– Water-related Disasters. The issue features five articles, three in Spanish and the remaining two in English and
Portuguese, respectively.
Article 1, by Enrique Luengo González, addresses the challenges and obstacles
facing scientific institutions, particularly universities, to generate the conditions
required for developing, producing, and circulating knowledge that, beyond rhetorical
arguments and formal statements, actually embraces inter-and transdisciplinary
approaches. Among other issues, the author discusses the lack of institutional and
financial resources required for the promotion and strentghtening of these approaches
that seek to trascend monodisciplinary enclosures.The article explores the difficulties
facing universities to organize and sustain over time research teams dedicated to the
development of collective forms of knowledge informed by these approaches and
oriented at solving complex problems, involving a wide range of actors beyond the
academic sphere. Some of the obstacles identified are the lack of resources to support
the processes of mediation and negotiation to generate adequate conditions for the
production and dissemination of this type of knowledge, which is needed to provide
collective solutions to complex problems, including proposals for practical action. The
author argues that there is an urgent need to strengthen the capacities of universities 
to develop more situated, multidimensional, and complex approaches, and reorganize
their teaching and research structures to improve their ability to contribute towards the
development of more hopeful futures for human communities, particularly for the more
vulnerable sectors. The final comments highlight some promising examples suggesting
that inter-and transdisciplinary approaches have a fundamental role to play in the
contributions that universities can make in providing support for solving the highly
complex problems facing humakind in this historical stage. In Article 2, Norma Georgina Gutierrez Serrano discusses the design and
implementation of transdisciplinary research methods in the context of networks and
groups of researchers in Mexico. The author grounds the arguments in her experience
working closely with these research networks and groups which included following
up, and, occasionally participating in their activities. The article gives attention to
the diversity of forms and dynamics of the transdisciplinarity in research activities
practiced by these actors, and draws lessons about the interrelations that have allowed
these networks and groups to succeed in establishing the ground for transdiciplinary
research and also discussses how their practices also nurture the emergence of new
interrelations, thus contributing to the reproduction and expansion of transdisciplinary
approaches even in environments that not necessarily give priority or fully support these
initiatives. The author emphasises that a key principle in the creation and development
of transdisciplinary research activities is "thinking and acting with care", whereby
interrelations between researchers and other actors are characterized by the presence
of affective forms of human relations. In her view, transdisciplinary research is a "form
of producing commons".  Article 3, by Norma Valencio, addresses the contradictions and obstacles facing
research initiatives that seek to "trespass" monodisciplinary enclosures often fiercely
defended by institutional barriers, material interests and other hurdles. The author
draws her reflections from experiences characterizing the production of scientific
knowledge in the post-Dictatorship context of Brazil since the 1980s. She argues
that during this period, scientific institutions increasingly faced the demands of social
movements and other social actors affected by a wide array of socio-environmental
crises and conflicts. The article examines some research initiatives that provide a model
of commitment towards supporting grassroots struggles against socio-environmental
injustice and inequality by developing inter-and transdisciplinary approaches and
practices. Although the pioneering examples discussed are a source of encouragement,
the author highlights the fact that some of the more difficult challenges and obstacles
faced by these initiatives come from entrenched traditions of "disciplinary purism" and
the institutional organization of the scientific system itself. Article 4, was co-authored by Gisela Ariana Rausch, Rosa Paola Aviña Escot, Lorena
Bottaro, Ana Nuñez, Franco Salvadores, Marian Sola Alvarez, and Laura PriscilaTercero
Cruz. The paper is a product of a Research Workshop focused on the propositions put
forward by Christian Laval and Pierre Dardot on the concept of "common". The workshop
included a Dialogue with Pierre Dardot that took place in one of the sessions. The
authors discuss the implications and applicability of Laval and Dardot's understanding
of "the common" for inter-and transdisciplinary research initiatives focused on social
grievances and conflicts connected with water-related environmental injustices and inequalities in Latin America. The discussion presented draws from research carried
out by the authors in Argentina, Guatemala, and Mexico. The article argues that Laval
and Dardot's conceptualization of the "common" proposes a resignification of this
concept and an invitation to wider disciplinary diversity in addressing the topic, which is
required to develop more adequate conceptual frameworks to account for the growing
complexity of socio-environmental processes. In Article 5, Luciano Villalba and Bianca Vienni-Baptista present an assesment
of the implementation of a water-related transdisciplinary research and intervention
project involving university researchers, public institutions and civil society actors
in the City of Tandil, Province of Buenos Aires, Argentina. The authors' analysis is
informed by the heuristic Transdisciplinary Framework developed under the leadership
of Vienni-Baptista. The article presents details of this methodological framework for
transdisciplinary research and shows how it provides a useful tool for the design,
implementation, and evaluation of inter-and transdisciplinary projects.The paper places
emphasis on the complexities of processes of knowledge production oriented by
inter-and transdisciplinary approaches and casts light on the significance of learning
from unsuscessful activities, which often provide key information for tuning and
improving the design and implementation of research projects. In the particular case
examined by the authors, factors like the wider political context, the level of commitment
from key participants, failures of communication between different hierarchic levels of
the project's organizational structure, and the obstacles faced to achieve a meaningful
involvement of citizens and community representatives, particularly women, were
identified as important reasons for the eventual weakening and stagnation of the project.