Toolbox

Knowledge Co-production

Methods used

System dynamics modeling

Content analysisNarrative analysisThematic analysis

Interviews

Research focus & objectives

The research focus of this project is collective construction of knowledge with the objective of investigating how the critical and collective construction of knowledge can contribute to the creation of distinct territorial practices acknowledging and embracing the complexities of the land-sea continuum.

Methods applied

System dynamics modeling

Content analysisNarrative analysisThematic analysis

Interviews

System Dynamics Modelling: Lade, S. J., Anderies, J. M., Currie, P., & Rocha, J. C. (2022). Dynamical systems modelling. In R. Biggs, A. de Vos, R. Preiser, H. Clements, K. Maciejewski, & M. Schlüter (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Research Methods for Social-Ecological Systems (p. 3). Routledge.
Narrative analysis: De Fina, A., & Georgakopoulou, A. (2015). The handbook of narrative analysis. John Wiley & Sons.
Content analysis: Selvi, A. F. (2019). Qualitative content analysis. In The Routledge handbook of research methods in applied linguistics (pp. 440-452). Routledge.
Thematic analysis: Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2012). Thematic analysis. American Psychological Association.
Semi-structured interviews and participatory methods: Biggs, R., De Vos, A., Preiser, R., Clements, H., Maciejewski, K., & Schlüter, M. (2021). The Routledge handbook of research methods for social-ecological systems (p. 526). Taylor & Francis.
Transformation Laboratories: Charli-Joseph, L., Siqueiros-García, J. M., Eakin, H., ManuelNavarrete, D., Mazari-Hiriart, M., Shelton, R., Pérez-Belmont, P., & Ruizpalacios, B. (2022). Deliverable 6.2 15 Enabling collective agency for sustainability transformations through reframing in the Xochimilco social–ecological system. Sustainability Science [link]
Participatory action research: Alban, G. P. G., Arguello, A. E. V., & Molina, N. E. C. (2020). Metodologías de investigación educativa (descriptivas, experimentales, participativas, y de investigación-acción). Recimundo, 4(3), 163-173.

Analytical tools & literature

Vensim: "industrial-strength simulation software for improving the performance of real systems. Vensim’s rich feature set emphasizes model quality, connections to data, flexible distribution, and advanced algorithms. Configurations for everyone from students to professionals." [source]
SpaCy: "open-source library for Natural Language Processing in Python. It features NER, POS tagging, dependency parsing, word vectors and more." [source]

Recommended resources

Sterman, J. (2000). Systems Thinking and Modeling for a Complex World.
Wiles J L et al (2005) Narrative analysis as a strategy for understanding interview talk in geographic research. Area 37(1), 89–99.
Taylor, S. (2009). Narratives of Identity and Place. Routledge [link]
Vaismoradi, M., Jones, J., Turunen, H., & Snelgrove, S. (2016). Theme development in qualitative content analysis and thematic analysis. Journal of Nursing Education and Practice 6(5).
Vaismoradi, M., & Snelgrove, S. (2019). Theme in qualitative content analysis and thematic analysis. Forum Qualitative Social Research 20(3).
On the collective construction of knowledge [link]
On decolonial feminist approaches [link]
Baumann, M. D. (2022). Living a callejera methodology: Grounding María Lugones’ streetwalker theorizing in feminist decolonial praxis. Gender, Place & Culture 29(11), 1528- 1545.
Keating, AnaLouise. Entre Mundos/Among Worlds: New Perspectives on Gloria E. Anzaldúa. Springer, 2016.

Reflections and recommendations by the researcher

My main recommendation is to resist bounding your research within the apparent methodological limitations set by the prevalent (computational) research canon. Articulating your research in a computational idiom is key for your ideas to enter in a dialogue with current discursive practices, ever more reliant on AI developments. However, this should also be countered by a conceptual engagement with the methods themselves, for they are not mere tools. The epistemological and sociological presuppositions upholding these methods, their colonial/patriarchal genesis, cannot be sidelined as philosophical considerations, they are constitutive to the socio-historical situation of your research.

Decolonising your work does not only require this awareness, but an openness to challenging and questioning your research, and yourself.

These recommendations are not only circumscribed to research articulated in a computational idiom, but are also extensive, in our case, to knowledge co-production itself.

Publication(s)

We invite you to read the paper published as part of this doctoral research:

Zuluaga-Guerra, P.A., Martinez-Fernandez, J., Esteve-Selma, M.A. & Dell'Angelo, J. (2023). A socioecological model of the Segura River basin, Spain. Ecological Modelling, 478 [link]

Researcher

Paula Andrea Zuluaga-Guerra

Paula Andrea Zuluaga-Guerra recognises herself a borderdweller. Paula sentipiensa (think-feels) her research as fundamentally entangled with her mestiza journey. She finds inspiration in decolonial feminist theorisations, emanating from Abya Yala, to articulate alternative/disruptive water(e)scapes in germinative multivocality. Her doctoral research revolves around the collective construction of knowledge with locals across the Mar Menor lagoon and the Campo de Cartagena in South-East Spain. This work is orientated towards the reflexive untangling of the collective and territorial practices shaping land-ocean spatialities over the past 50 years. Paula wishes to further cultivate her decolonial feminist thinking-feeling around gender, race, and identity formation, while reflecting back on her experience in participatory research processes in Colombia, within transdisciplinary research ambits concerned with environmental problematics.