Page 60 - Sustainability Communication Interdisciplinary Perspectives and Theoritical Foundations

4 Sustainable Communication as an Inter- and Transdisciplinary Discipline 43

and a system for scientific work. Kuhn (1970) has characterised this cognitive
organisational structure using three elements: its underlying theory (generalization);
idealized models and analogies (abstracted examples from real cases to ideal
phenomena) and exemplars (specific instances of generalizations and models).
Disciplines are social practices arising from human ideas and traditions. They
form a communication network and are ‘organised social groupings’ (Whitley
1976). As Becher (1989) describes in his ironic interpretation of the world of
science, disciplines or the ‘tribes of academe’ are characterised by “explicitly
cultural elements: their traditions, customs and practices, transmitted knowledge,
beliefs, morals and rules of conduct, as well as their linguistic and symbolic forms
of communication and the meanings they share” (Becher 1989: 24).
2. Questions about understanding between the disciplines as well as across scientific
boundaries. Language plays a key role here. “Differences in research methods,
work styles, and epistemologies must be bridged in order to achieve mutual
understanding of a problem and to arrive at a common solution. In transdisci-
plinary work, the language of stakeholders must also be recognized, although
the language of target groups has not been viewed traditionally as a resource”
(Thompson Klein 2004: 520).
Achieving understanding in an inter- or transdisciplinary team when fundamen-
tal terms are understood in radically different ways places high demands on the
actors involved. “Interdisciplinarity conceived as communicative action rejects the
naive faith that everything will work out if everyone just sits down and talks to each
other. Decades of scuttled projects and programs belie the hope that status hierar-
chies and hidden agendas will not interfere, or the individual with the greatest clout
or loudest voice will not dominate. The ideal speech situation assumes lack of coer-
cion and equal access to dialog at all points” (Thompson Klein 2005: 44).
In the following the emphasis will be more on which factors have a decisive
influence on the process of understanding. Inter- and transdisciplinary teams are a
collective of humans and group factors have an important influence on the quality
of their collaboration. The flow of information is a major element of every inter- and
transdisciplinary act of communication. Communication can be described, as Niklas
Luhmann puts it, as the “common actualisation of meaning” (Luhmann 1971: 42)
and is essential for collaboration. Beyond the simple exchange of information, the
goal and at the same time the highest quality level is a successful integration of
knowledge. The integration of a diversity of relevant perspectives and understanding
the complexity of a problem are the core challenges in inter- and transdisciplinary
research and learning processes.

Group Factors

There are important factors at work in inter- and transdisciplinary groups, as in
every other group. However each inter- or transdisciplinary team is not the same.
Van Dusseldorp und Wigboldus (1994) have classified interdisciplinary groups
according to the general type of discipline they are a member of. They describe