Adaptive scholarship and situated knowledges? Hybrid methodologies and plural epistemologies in climate change adaptation research

2015/05/15 by Andrea J. Nightingale, Andrea J Nightingale · 13 citations
Environmental Science · Social Sciences · Agricultural and Biological Sciences · #Sustainability and Climate Change Governance #Climate Change Communication and Perception #Climate change impacts on agriculture

paper · doi:10.1111/area.12195

Abstract

Climate change, along with other so‐called global challenges, demands that scholars work across disciplines. Drawing on Donna Haraway's idea of situated knowledges, this paper develops an approach to mixing disciplines by engaging in epistemological pluralism, or approaching a research problem through more than one way of conceptualising it. The example of climate change adaptation planning in N epal is used to show how a hybrid methodology research design requires thinking through what can be known and also what cannot be known by using a particular method. The main argument is that it is not possible to prove methodologically which conceptualisation or analytical entry point is better than another. Rather, new insights are gained both by triangulating data from different methods, and by probing the ways that they present contradictory results. An interdisciplinary research design is therefore used as a kind of kaleidoscope wherein plural epistemologies help to reveal new, albeit partial and situated, patterns.

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