Marida shared three main learnings from her time as a visiting researcher with the DIT platform in 2023. She visited while in the midst of her PhD in Architecture and Landscape with the Sapienza University of Rome, and Urbanism and Aménagement (law and political sciences faculty) with the University of Aix-Marseille.
The relevance of being situated in the DIT research environment
I came to the DIT platform, and Erasmus University Rotterdam, as a visiting researcher focusing on how space and place can help to “understand” innovations and transitions “socially”. Based on “situated knowledge” (Haraway 1989), I wanted to compare innovative practices in spaces and places in different areas and from different perspectives of Europe. I chose to focus on the different cultural urban societies of Rome and Marseille, for Southern and Central European perspectives. I chose Rotterdam as a particular case for northern Europe, as a context where social experimentation is highly active.
Considering my disciplinary units are Architecture and Landscape (University of Rome) and Urbanism and Political Sciences (University of Aix-Marseille), I am focusing on the spatiality and social political sides of innovation and transitions. The complexity of transition studies was not entirely approached on either of these two sides. Due to this, I needed common interdisciplinary tools to join the two aspects of my research.
In my research, I mobilise the epistemological framework of Latourian political-ecology theories. This justifies the necessity to join the spatial and governance structures in studies. Mainly, the Actor-Network Theory informs the importance of a revolution in science from a focus on “objects” to a focus on “relations”. Consequently, this revolution means everything needs to be analysed and studied in relation to something else, giving no consistency to an abstract analysis of an object cut from its environment. From a time perspective, this also demonstrates the necessity to analyse objects more as open processes.
Not fearing to be ‘un-disciplined’, for it enriches one's original discipline
Through my visit to DIT, I saw that moving beyond traditional disciplines is, in some ways, a normal condition. Social transformation across fields deals with complexity and requires a phase of “un-disciplined” research to touch the boundaries of other disciplines. These interactions with other disciplines then allow the researcher to come back to one's own discipline more enriched. Everything is connected. DIT tests a way to scientifically understand the how and why of these connections.
As DIT focuses on the impact, on the tangible and visible aspect of transformative actions, they are indeed more architects than the conceptual or archistar (celebrity architect). DIT is more of an architect than a “technocratic” architect, who doesn’t give consistency or meaning to society.
I saw “un-disciplined” research done practically at DIT on many levels. For example, the research group consists of multi-disciplinary researchers who provide a different contribution to the same object in discussion group meetings. The DIT day workshops were a practical example of co-creation in the making for this way of thinking, in interaction with “external” people outside of DIT. The immersive Transformative education learning program, through the Holistic Workshop, gave the opportunity for participants to connect these ideas and theories with their body experience in practice; Then, the DIT implication in Sustainability Days fought for a softer skills appreciation in teaching and evaluation of students, to form to a trans-disciplinary thinking.
Communicating and making your researches visible for others are some concrete Open Science productions. ‘Classical’ academia doesn’t always take the time to really focus on this.
The risk of hybrid positioning both as a researcher and as an institute
The Transition Management vision at DIT allows for a common and broader sense to smaller, local interventions, that are necessary to realise just transitions. This double and complex perspective is not always joined in Architectural and Landscape studies (thinking about the local) or for Urbanism studies (thinking about a top-down transition).
DIT also works as a “third” academic actor, in a hybrid posture not only among disciplines and tools, but also in between big actors leading transitions (financial companies) and local social actors, that normally never have the occasion to interact. DIT takes the risk of being misunderstood by both, as the “intermediary” and boundary posture it has.
Bringing together different identities automatically creates spaces and arenas for interaction of discourse, for relations, for what we call the “social”. Within the DIT platform, I interacted with DIT academics who were working to enable spaces and interactions on how places can communicate values for coordination, how finance becomes tangible, and an ecological perception of space.
As a “broker” or “pioneer”, the risk of abandoning your discipline is to not be understood anymore by your original group, and further, to not be able at the same time to deeply connect with other discipline groups. Inter-disciplinary research does not need to lack science. It’s made by disciplinary parameters that need to stay and proceed vertically, while in the meantime connecting horizontally with other disciplines.
Conclusion
It was astonishing how much I learned about space and social transformation without talking about space and architecture. From this, I see how di-verting from the discipline is fundamental to believe in your discipline and make it useful for society, as this is fundamental to be able to talk and communicate in other ways.DIT is doing an important job in developing common tools for helping the disciplines talk together.
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About the Design Impact Transition (DIT) platform
The Design Impact Transition (DIT) platform is a strategic initiative that creates infrastructures for transformative academic work at Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR). If you want to learn more about similar initiatives organised by the Design Impact Transition Platform, or if you would like to get involved in transforming education and academia, please send an email to dit@eur.nl.