How Do We Know It Works, and Could It Work Elsewhere? An Empirical Exploration on What Is Considered Transferable Across Cases

Abstract

Global change phenomena encompass numerous and interconnected processes in human-environment systems (e.g. land use, biodiversity and ecosystem services, climate change, globalisation and migration, among others). While many of these processes interlink at global scales, their impacts manifest and are felt differently across locales and regions, given context-specific and diverse natural and social factors. Consequently, research that responds to these impacts, i.e. generate ‘transformation’ knowledge on policy or other options to reduce net losses experienced because of these impacts, combines diverse scientific disciplines and inputs from practice and broader society. However, a core issue that has not yet received much research attention is whether one can infer that knowledge produced in a particular social and regional context is also applicable in another context, and if so how or under which epistemic criteria. Transferability of knowledge across cases is a critical issue for the overall quality of this research and consequently how these are viewed as evidence in assessments for action, given that inference on the application of knowledge for another case is often done on implicit assumptions. Yet, a systematic discussion of transferability across cases is missing. A proposal to first conceptualize transferability of knowledge across cases as arguments by analogy, was presented as a contribution to advance this debate (Adler et al 2018). Arguments by analogy imply identifying explicit considerations on whether the cases in question are sufficiently similar in relevant aspects while not dissimilar in other additional relevant aspects. On the one hand, this approach calls for explicit material considerations that are needed to learn about which aspects of cases are indeed relevant. On the other hand, formal considerations on how to weigh perceived relevant similarities and dissimilarities of the cases at hand for transferability are also needed. In this panel presentation, I highlight empirical results on research currently undertaken on the questions of what and how key knowledge is considered transferable from one case to another, focusing on the epistemic criteria that applies in this judgement (Elliott & McKaughan, 2014). This presentation therefore corresponds to the proposed panel’s question that asks: For what contextual and normative conditions are the considered strategies successful, and under what conditions are they not? Overall, the foreseen contribution of this presentation is an empirically based representation on how knowledge about a problem in a specific case applies to another case, as a fundamental first step for scoping the potential for scalability for global change strategies such as climate change adaptation. This in turns contributes to a deepened understanding and critical reflection on the concept of archetypes in global change research (Oberlack, 2016), as envisaged for this panel, particularly on key processes of social-ecological interaction between knowledge producers that play a role on how knowledge is valued as transferable.

References Adler, C., Hirsch Hadorn, G., Breu, T., Wiesmann, U., Pohl, C. (2018). Conceptualizing the transfer of knowledge across cases in transdisciplinary research. Sustainability Science, 13(1):179-190 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-017-0444-2 Elliott, K. C., & McKaughan, D. J. (2014). Nonepistemic Values and the Multiple Goals of Science. Philosophy of Science, 81(1), 1-21. doi:10.1086/674345 Oberlack, C., Tejada, L., Messerli, P., Rist, S. and Giger, M. (2016). Sustainable livelihoods in the global land rush? Archetypes of livelihood vulnerability and sustainability potentials. Global Environmental Change, 41: 153-171.