Ecologically and Transdisciplinarily Inspired Research: Starting Points for Practitioner Research and Sustainable Change

Abstract

This article reports an adventure of collective creating in which learning psychology, sociology, professional learning, managerial and nature thinking came together and enriched the authors’ perspective on the methodology of practice-oriented research. It resulted in the manifestation of two base tunes and six ‘ecologically and transdisciplinarily inspired’ (ETI) research principles. The ETI perspective includes an ecological way of dealing with the social and physical research issues, which means holistic thinking and working and thinking in terms of connectedness. It also means that mono-disciplinary and interdisciplinary scientific and practical thinking need to be ‘transcended’ to deal with practitioner research issues. Other fundamental matters include dealing with wisdom, narratives, and the ecological fallacy; collectively and transdisciplinarily creating knowledge and improved practice with stakeholders, e.g. actors; and being cognitively inspired by nature.