Geography
Document Type
Article
Abstract
In this paper, seven researchers reflect on the journeys their research projects have taken when they engage with and synthesize complex problems. These journeys embody an adaptive approach to tackling problems characterized by their interconnectedness and emergence, and that transcend traditional units of analysis such as ecosystems. In this paper we argue that making such a process deliberate and explicit will help researchers better combine different research paradigms such as expert-driven and participant-directed work, thus resulting in both broad explanations and specific phenomenon; research tensions traditionally defined as oppositional must be approached as complimentary. This paper includes researchers’ personal journeys as they dealt with the emergent properties of complex problems and participant involvement. This paper argues that that research journey should be more than accidental but is a methodological necessity and should guide the theoretical and practical approaches to complex problems.
Publication Title
Ecology and Society
Publication Date
2014
Volume
19
Issue
3
ISSN
1708-3087
DOI
10.5751/ES-06518-190337
Keywords
complexity, interdisciplinarity, social-ecological systems, transdisciplinarity
Repository Citation
McGowan, Katharine A.; Westley, Frances; Fraser, Evan D.G.; Loring, Philip A.; Weathers, Kathleen C.; Avelino, Flor; Sendzimir, Jan; Roy Chowdhury, Rinku; and Moore, Michele Lee, "The research journey: Travels across the idiomatic and axiomatic toward a better understanding of complexity" (2014). Geography. 600.
https://commons.clarku.edu/faculty_geography/600
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
