BRIDGES – Building Reflexivity and response-ability Involving Different narratives of knowledGE and Science
BRIDGES BRIDGES employs transdisciplinary and participatory research methods to understand and strengthen the relationship between science, society, and ecological systems in the Italian context. To do so, it uses soil fertility as a case study, a topic of local and global concern, declared by the United Nations General Assembly as one of the three global emergencies, along with climate change and biodiversity loss. Soil fertility is also a complex and controversial issue, as its management and protection imply a series of new relationships and visions between science, society, ecosystems, and human and non-human actors.
The project includes a social investigation, in the Italian context, into the dominant narratives of the science-society relationship surrounding controversial issues. Drawing on emerging discourses, a series of meetings and seminars will be organized in urban and rural settings, where young researchers and citizens will experiment with a participatory and hybrid type of research, working with educators, artists, soil microbiologists, and farmers, to produce collectively constructed soil fertility indicators.
The goal is to develop a reflective attitude in researchers, making them aware that they are a fertile resource for Italy and that collaboration with artists, citizens, and other local stakeholders is the only way to be respons-able (i.e., able to respond) in situations of uncertainty and complexity, such as the pandemic we are experiencing.
The title, BRIDGES, encapsulates the project's idea of creating connections between various narratives, knowledge, disciplines, and generations, towards a new ecological awareness, starting from a concrete case of collaborative research.
The research group exemplifies this diversity of approaches: Italy's leading multidisciplinary research institution, the CNR, which has expertise in a wide variety of research fields and is very active in Milan Pianpicollo Selvatico – Center for Research in the Arts and Sciences a unique network of researchers in the arts and sciences engaged in an agroecology project; and the Center for Excellence in Transdisciplinary Studies (CEST)an association of young students and researchers interested in communication, dialogue, and transdisciplinarity, interested in developing new research practices. The team will also benefit from collaboration with theUniversity of Edinburgh, one of the most advanced centers in experimenting with transdisciplinary methodologies on complex and controversial socio-ecological issues.