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Many contemporary social and environmental problems are increasingly ‘wicked.’ Convergence research offers an effective approach to tackle wicked problems by integrating diverse epistemologies, methodologies, and expertise. Yet, there exists little discussion of how to develop and employ a convergence research approach. This article describes our collaborative research efforts to achieve convergence research and team science. For over a decade, we have sought to understand how drug trafficking activities, and the counternarcotics efforts designed to thwart them, catalyze catastrophic changes in landscapes and communities. We first discuss how understanding our wicked problem called for epistemological convergence of diverse data through a team science approach. We then unpack the potential insights and challenges of methodological convergence by drawing upon examples from our land cover and land use change analysis. Third, we argue that the nature of complex, pressing problems requires convergence research to be politically engaged and accountable to the multiple communities affected. This article aims to provide research teams insight into how to pursue epistemological and methodological convergence while attending to the inherent politics of producing knowledge about wicked problems.
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ON THE SOCIAL AND COGNITIVE DIMENSIONS OF WICKED ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS CHARACTERIZED BY CONCEPTUAL AND SOLUTION UNCERTAINTY
We develop a quantitative framework for understanding the class of wicked problems that emerge at the intersections of natural, social, and technological complex systems. Wicked problems reflect our incomplete understanding of interdependent global systems and the systemic risk they pose; such problems escape solutions because they are often ill-defined, and thus mis-identified and under-appreciated by communities of problem-solvers. While there are well-documented benefits to tackling boundary-crossing problems from various viewpoints, the integration of diverse approaches can nevertheless contribute confusion around the collective understanding of the core concepts and feasible solutions. We explore this paradox by analyzing the development of both scholarly (social) and topical (cognitive) communities — two facets of knowledge production studies here that contribute towards the evolution of knowledge in and around a problem, termed a knowledge trajectory — associated with three wicked problems: deforestation, invasive species, and wildlife trade. We posit that saturation in the dynamics of social and cognitive diversity growth is an indicator of reduced uncertainty in the evolution of the comprehensive knowledge trajectory emerging around each wicked problem. Informed by comprehensive bibliometric data capturing both social and cognitive dimensions of each problem domain, we thereby develop a framework that assesses the stability of knowledge trajectory dynamics as an indicator of wickedness associated with conceptual and solution uncertainty. As such, our results identify wildlife trade as a wicked problem that may be difficult to address given recent instability in its knowledge trajectory.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2120065
- PAR ID:
- 10309499
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Advances in Complex Systems
- Volume:
- 24
- Issue:
- 03n04
- ISSN:
- 0219-5259
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1142/S0219525921500053
