New Zealand Journal of Agricultural Research abstracts

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Forum¹

For want of the social, was the biodiversity battle lost? On the need to approach social-ecological resilience through transdisciplinary research

Christopher Rosin

Chris Perley

Henrik Moller

Katherine Dixon

Agriculture Research Group on Sustainability
Centre for the study of Agriculture, Food and Environment
University of Otago
PO Box 56
Dunedin 9054, New Zealand

chris.rosin@otago.ac.nz

Keywords agricultural science; social science; transdisciplinarity

The process of drafting the paper by Moller et al. (2008a) was intentionally transdisciplinary, including colleagues from more traditional agricultural sciences such as ecology, zoology and soils, as well as two social scientists trained as geographers. The challenge of incorporating our varied perspectives into a single article that emphasised both the importance of biodiversity in New Zealand’s ecosystems and the capacity of agricultural systems to perform an integral role in the maintenance of such biodiversity was welcomed because it invited us to engage with and learn from one another. It also seemed the appropriate venue within which to promote the ideal (what, in a philosophical sense, we might refer to as a Utopia) of a transdisciplinary approach (Moller et al. 2008b). Unfortunately, but not wholly unexpectedly, the high expectations and eagerness of the team produced the inevitable novel where a short story was required. In our subsequent efforts to produce an article more closely reflecting the format required by this journal as well as conforming to the comments of reviewers, substantial portions of the original draft were removed including most of our efforts to elaborate the underlying social dynamics affecting both the understandings and the valuations of biodiversity among farmers, researchers, policy makers, consumers and others.

 

¹The Forum section contains short opinion articles on topics within the scope of the New Zealand Journal of Agricultural Research. Forum articles are not refereed, and editing is limited to style matters. They should be no more than the equivalent of 2500 words including references. Articles commenting on a specific paper will be referred to the author(s) of that paper for right of reply before publication. Forum articles should not be cited as scientific papers.

A08054; Online publication date 30 October 2008
Received 10 September 2008

New Zealand Journal of Agricultural Research, 2008, Vol. 51:481–484
0028–8233/08/5104–0481 © The Royal Society of New Zealand 2008

PDF file of entire paper: Print-quality (617K)

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