GEO Seminar: Transdisciplinarity in transport? A case for reconfiguring sustainable urban logistics governance in Bergen

We will meet physically, but you can follow the presentation via Zoom, too.

Speaker: Subina Shrestha (CET, UiB)
Title: Transdisciplinarity in transport? A case for reconfiguring sustainable urban logistics governance in Bergen
Time: 21 September 12:15-13:00
Place: Room 744 or ZOOM

Transdisciplinary approaches are increasingly being used in urban sustainability research to address complex societal problems. These approaches bring together diverse actors to unpack differences in their underlying rationalities to collectively frame problems and seek solutions. Such diverse rationalities in sustainable urban logistics planning are manifest as competing interests and contested policy preferences. Yet, sustainable urban logistics policymaking has largely focused on market-driven solutions to optimize the sector. In this paper, we reframe the challenge of urban logistics governance as that of knowledge integration, bringing the diverse actor rationalities to the fore. We investigate how a transdisciplinarity in practice unpacks diverse rationalities and its implications for urban sustainability governance by drawing on the deconstruction-reconstruction framework. Empirically, we apply it in a multi-stakeholder dialogue workshop as part of our three-year transdisciplinary project on sustainable urban logistics in Bergen, Norway. Results reveal how dialogic processes can tackle the messy process of urban logistics governance by (a) revealing diverse rationalities are manifest as integration, process and solution tensions, the emergence of which are unpacked through (b) reflexive dialogic processes to deconstruct the actors’ underlying assumptions and diverse rationalities, thus enabling (c) individual and social learning to collectively reconstruct common ground as entry points for reorienting urban logistics governance. Transdisciplinarity in practice, we demonstrate, enables actors to reflexively navigate emergent tensions which in turn shapes individual and collective learning. We thus call for planners to shift from problem-focus to process-focus to navigate the innate messiness of governing urban logistics.