Transdisciplinary Artful Doing in Spaces of Experimentation and Imagination

Hans DielemanTransdisciplinary Artful Doing in Spaces of Experimentation and Imagination 44

Transdisciplinary Artful Doing inSpaces of Experimentation andImaginationHans Dieleman, Autonomous University of Mexico-City, Mexico, Email: [email protected]

This article links transdisciplinarity with reflec-tive action and artful doing, as well as withthe concept of spaces of experimentation and

imagination. It argues that artful doing is a genuinetransdisciplinary practice that is at once rooted insensitivity, intuition as well as analytical rationality.It organically links analytical and feelings intelligencewith the intelligence of the body. It goes on to showhow artful doing can be studied, taught and prac-ticed in spaces of experimentation and imagination.Such spaces invite to explore the world simultane-ously on various levels of reality and through variousactivities such as analysis, introspection, dialoguesof knowing, manipulating reality thus constructingalternative realities. The article analysis that work-ing in such spaces implies hybridization of usuallyseparated spheres as art, science, engineering, de-sign, public policy, education, and more. Finally thearticle focuses on implementing transdisciplinarityin universities and identifies 5 critical aspects in theimplementation process.Keywords: transdisciplinary practice, reflective ac-tion, artful doing, experiences, imagination, educa-tion.

1 Introduction

There is still a lot of confusion around the concept oftransdisciplinarity. I realized that after a visit to the

new campus of the Autonomous Metropolitan Uni-versity of Mexico-City, the campus “UAM-Lerma”.The following text was written on the wall of themain campus building:

Our reality requires that knowledge will becreated through the conjunction of variouspoints of view that together create the scopefor transdisciplinary activities

Yet, the professors with whom I talked – they areworking in the transversal research stream of sustain-ability - had a hard time imaginating how transdisci-plinarity could be implemented in the curricula. I no-ticed that the professors continued thinking in termsof established disciplines and fields of knowledge in-stead of thinking in terms of processes of knowing orways to relate ourselves with our environment. With-out doubt this has to do with the dominant scientificworldview and its particular way of conceptualizingknowledge, knowing and education. Knowledge isphrased in terms of silos, containers, disciplines orfields of knowledge and education in terms of thetransfer of those fields of knowledge. This seriouslyhampers a clear understanding of transdisciplinar-ity. Transdisciplinarity is seen as the ultimate stepin a sequence of the disciplinary > multi- > inter->transdisciplinary whereas every step marks a differ-ent way in which the disciplines relate to the objectof study. It is correct but yet easily misunderstood.

Transdisciplinary Journal of Engineering & ScienceISSN: 1949-0569 online, c©2012 TheATLAS

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This article is reproduced with the permission of the ATLAS organization.


We talk about multidisciplinarity when variousdisciplines study, in one project, a problem or phe-nomena independently from each other. Interdisci-plinarity comes into play when the disciplines trans-fer their methods to arrive at one more integratedunderstanding of a problem or phenomena. Trans-disciplinarity is indeed a next step, but its essencecannot really be understood in terms of the relation-ship between disciplines and object of study. Thisimmediately becomes clear when we look at the wayNicolescu1 defined transdisciplinarity. Transdisci-plinarity, he said, concerns that which is at oncebetween the disciplines, across the different disci-plines, and beyond all discipline. In other words, itis not so much about disciplines but about that whatis “between, across and beyond” those disciplines.Its essence is to unite various ways of knowing and torelate us with the world in a more-than-disciplinaryway. Understanding its essence implies leaving theclassical scientific worldview with its established con-cepts of knowledge, knowing and education.

One of the professors at UAM-Lerma asked memore information on how to apply inter- and trans-disciplinarity in a typical university setting, andafter having returned from my visit I posted thisquestion on the Cultura21 website1, a website whereartists and academic researchers with interest andexperience in transdisciplinary practice unite. I im-mediately received a lot of feedback and two keywords caught my attention while going over all thevarious comments, recommendations and observa-tions: “sensitivity” and “action”. Transdisciplinarypractice is – in addition to disciplinary knowing -about being sensitive in non-cognitive ways or in thewords of Nicolescu about linking feeling’s intelligencewith analytical intelligence and the intelligence of thebody[2]. Transdisciplinarity equally is about know-ing through action, as linking the various ways ofknowing occurs in action.

The answers I received pointed at my own work on“reflective action and artful doing”, as well as on myideas about working in “spaces of experimentationand imagination” [3] [4] [5]. Yet I never related themin an explicit way to transdisciplinarity. Nicolescu,being included in the mailing list, invited me towrite an article for the Transdisciplinary Journal ofEngineering & Science of the ATLAS, The Academyof Transdisciplinary Learning & Advanced Studies.

1http://listi.jpberlin.de/mailman/listinfo/international (lastaccessed November 14, 2012).

So I decided to try to link my ideas on reflectiveaction and artful doing in spaces of experimentationand imagination with transdisciplinary practice andeducation. The result is this article that basicallyhas four parts: 1) transdisciplinarity, 2) reflective ac-tion/artful doing, 3) spaces of experimentation andimagination and 4) how to apply transdisciplinar-ity in a typical university setting. Before divinginto the last three parts I first need to present thekey elements of transdisciplinarity, in as far as andin the ways that I understand them. I try to dothis as short and concise as possible, making exten-sive reference to the text “Transdisciplinarity, past,present and future” written by Niculescu in 20062

After this first part the article explores the linksbetween transdisciplinarity, reflective action/artfuldoing and education in spaces of experimentationand imagination.

2 Transdisciplinarity

In the introduction I mentioned the importance ofleaving the classical scientific worldview with itsestablished concepts of knowledge, knowing and ed-ucation. This is important as transdisciplinarity isbased on the theoretical foundations of quantumphysics, such as quantum indeterminism and theprinciple of superposition of quantum. With theseprinciples (among others) quantum physics intro-duced a world that is very different from the classicalworld with its mechanical Newtonian and analyticalCartesian logic. The classical scientific worldviewsees a world that is ordered by the existence of cer-tain laws that function independently from our ownobservations, thus claiming the existence of order aswell as of objective knowledge and truth. Quantumphysics on the other hand, shows a reality that isnot at all ordered, but an entity full of ambiguitywith processes and relationships that are often con-flicting, competing and complementary at the sametime. Transdisciplinarity explores the epistemologi-cal, ontological and methodological consequences ofquantum physics, and discloses a world of complexityand complexity thinking, as in the way Edgar Morindeveloped this thinking throughout his academiccareer[6] [7] [8].

2The text is available online and published in the book “Mov-ing Worldviews - Reshaping sciences, policies and practicesfor endogenous sustainable development” (Haverkort andReijntjes ed., 2006).


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Transdisciplinarity is rooted in scientific develop-ments but is certainly not only an academic endeavor.Nicolescu explicitly refers to the important dangersthe classical scientific worldview incorporates. “Ob-jectivity”, he says, “set up as the supreme criterionof Truth, has one inevitable consequence: the trans-formation of the Subject into an Object. The deathof the Subject is the price we pay for objective knowl-edge. The human being became an object – an objectof the exploitation of man by man, an object of theexperiments of ideologies which are proclaimed sci-entific, an object of scientific studies to be dissected,formalized, and manipulated . . .The Man-God hasbecome a Man-Object, of which the only result canbe self-destruction” [9]. Cristina Nuez, coordinatorof the Master program in “Transdisciplinary Studiesand Sustainability” of the University of Veracruz inJalapa, Mexico adds to this by saying that: “In theAge of Reason, the irrational is more active thanever...if we do not create new relationships with lifeand within ourselves . . . we will not be able toexist for long as human beings in this planet.”[10].Because of these reasons, transdisciplinarity shouldbe considered as both a transformative process aswell as an epistemological, ontological and method-ological endeavor.

Werner Heisenberg was one of the first to seethe epistemological, ontological and methodologicalconsequences of quantum physics. “The concept of“objective” and “subjective” – writes Heisenberg -designate [...] two different aspects of one reality;however we would make a very crude simplificationif we want to divide the world in one objective re-ality and one subjective reality” [11]. Heisenbergalso asserted that we make a too strong differencebetween scientific knowledge that describes the “real”world and other ways of knowing such as artistic,imaginative and spiritual knowing, that deal withnot much more than ideas, concepts or experiences.This division has led to the widely accepted ideathat “all knowledge other than scientific knowledgeis . . . cast into the inferno of subjectivity, toleratedat most as a meaningless embellishment or rejectedwith contempt as a fantasy, an illusion, a regression,or a product of the imagination” [12]. Quantumphysics shows that we need to rethink the claims ofclassical science such as the total separation betweenthe subject and the object, the assumption that thematerial world is the only “real” world and the ideathat science can develop independently from othersources of knowing such as theology, philosophy, the

arts and culture, indigenous or spiritual knowing.

2.1 The Unity of Knowing inTransdisciplinarity; Axioms 1 and 3

The transdisciplinary response is that there are dif-ferent ways of knowing and there is no hierarchybetween them. By contrast, the different ways arecomplementary and – this is a key principle of trans-disciplinarity – refer to different levels of reality. Thenotion of levels of reality is not used in a loose ormetaphorical way, but is the very heart of transdis-ciplinarity and constitutes its key axioms. The firstand ontological axiom of transdisciplinarity is thatthere are, in nature and in our knowledge of nature,different levels of reality and, correspondingly, differ-ent levels of perception [13]. Nicolescu, a quantumphysicist himself, stresses on numerous moments thatthe concept of levels of reality - as well as realityitself – is not merely a social construction but thatit has a trans-subjective dimension. The conceptof levels of reality can be understood by looking atthe world of quarks that is guided by different lawsand concepts than the world of complex systems. Ina comparative way the level of the material worldand of traditional scientific knowing is governed byspecific laws and concepts, and such is the level offor instance the imaginative world with imaginativeand creative knowing and perception. The wholeof reality is a complex structure of the totality oflevels of reality and corresponding perceptions andevery level is what it is because all the levels ex-ist at the same time. No level exists in isolation.This last aspect is formulated in the third axiom oftransdisciplinarity, the axiom of complexity.

Thinking for instance in the relationship betweenman and tree, the various levels of reality and per-ception can easily be illustrated. On a scientific ormaterial level an important element of our relation-ship is that trees produce O2 and process CO2 todo so. We humans on the other hand exhale CO2

and need to inhale O2 to survive. This constitutes asymbiotic relationship between us, on one particularlevel of reality. There are various other levels ofreality however where we find other types of rela-tionships. In the course of history trees have servedas protection for us against rain and sun. Withoutdoubt they (together with rocks) have triggered ourimagination and creativity and made us think of theconcept of shelter and a roof to protect us from aharsh climate. This constitutes a different level of re-


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ality with different laws and concepts (Imagination,associative and lateral thinking, and creativity). Aes-thetics is yet another level that makes us see trees asliving sculptures with often incredibly beautiful lines,patterns, dimensions and angels. On this level manyartists over time were stimulated to paint and sculpttrees, thus trying to explore the essence of our reality.Whenever I (Hans Dieleman) enter a forest and evenwhen I am in the proximity of a few trees, I alwaysand almost immediately feel the relaxing effect thattrees have on me. This constitutes a relationship onyet another level, of emotions, with different lawsand concepts. And this relationship is equally “real”for me, or maybe even more real because it is whatI immediately feel. On a spiritual level trees mayrepresent wisdom and may be moderators that canhelp us enter in contact with Mother Earth, or helpus find wisdom that is otherwise inaccessible.

Is this New Age sentimentality? Transdisciplinar-ity is not about that but aims to prevent that (Irepeat): all knowledge other than scientific knowl-edge is cast into the inferno of subjectivity, toleratedat most or rejected as a fantasy, an illusion, a regres-sion, or a product of the imagination. The goal oftransdisciplinarity is to restore the unity of knowing,not by means of abolishing scientific knowing (orany other form of knowing) but to see all forms ofknowing as complementary making up one complexreality.

2.2 The Object, the Subject and theIncluded Third; Axiom 2

One may want to argue at this point: “All this isfine for me, one moment I put on my scientific head,another moment my emotional head and yet in oneother moment my spiritual head. This is actuallyexactly what I do”. The point however is not toseparate the different levels of reality and knowing,but to integrate them and to find ways to pass fromone level to the other. This is another crucial aspectof transdisciplinarity. Its second axiom (the logicalaxiom) deals exactly with that and states that “Thepassage from one level of Reality to another is insuredby the logic of the included middle”. This logicfundamentally challenges classical logic as that isfounded on the axioms that A is A and can never benon-A while there is nothing that can be A and non-A at the same time. The principle of the includedthird however states that A can be non-A, preciselybecause a third is included. But, and this is crucial,

A can be non-A at another level of Reality.

This abstract part of the theory of transdisciplinar-ity is not so difficult to understand when we think ofa concrete example. A room for instance can havea table (A) but cannot be without that same table(non-A) at the same time. That is, following classicallogic. It is however very well possible that a roomhas a table and is at the same time without that verysame table: it can have a table at the material levelof Reality but be without table at the imaginativelevel of Reality, or the other way around. “Ooh,yes”, someone may want to respond . . . “of course,but in that case the table is just there in our imagi-nation, whereas in “reality” it is not (or the otherway around)”. This response shows how challengingtransdisciplinary thinking is! The response clearlysees the “real” reality as the material reality and seesthe imaginative reality as “just imagination”, Theessence of transdisciplinarity – and its huge challenge– is to avoid making a hierarchy among levels of re-ality and corresponding levels of perception. Thelevel of imagination is as “real” as the material leveland therefor the table can be there and cannot bethere at the very same time. Apprehending this andmaking it a familiar part of our understanding ofreality is like a quantum leap or paradigm shift awayfrom the classical mode of knowing and seeing theworld.

It is not easy and a perfectly understandable ques-tion may be: “But then, where is that “reality”? Isit in our brain or imagination (subject) or outside ofus (object)?” Nicolescu would answer this questionin the following ways: “Knowledge is neither exteriornor interior: it is simultaneously exterior and interior. . . and the included middle logic is the tool for anintegrative process. It allows us to cross two differentlevels of Reality or of perception and to effectivelyintegrate, not only in thinking but also in our ownbeing, the coherence of the Universe”[14]. The useof the included third is a transformative process and[when this integration occurs (HD)] the includedthird ceases to be an abstract, logical tool: it be-comes a living reality touching all the dimensionsof our being [15]. The essence of transdisciplinaryknowing is the hidden third that is the interactionbetween the object and the subject trough the tran-scendence of the subject. This obviously can neveroccur when the subject is kept out of the process ofknowing and exploring reality.

Knowledge is not “out there”, neither is it “insideof us” and more importantly it is like a “reservoir


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of infinite potentialities”. Where interdisciplinar-ity aims at “the transfer of methods from one dis-cipline to another”; transdisciplinarity deals with“that which is at once between the disciplines, acrossthe different disciplines, and beyond all discipline”.This opens up an immense space of potentially avail-able knowledge, and the essence is that it IS NOTbut CAN COME INTO BEING. Nicolescu uses themetaphor of the galaxy to describe the immensespace between and beyond disciplines. The sepa-ration of disciplines he says is “like the separationbetween galaxies, solar systems, stars and planets. . . When we cross the boundaries we meet theinterplanetary and intergalactic vacuum. This vac-uum is far from being empty: it is full of invisiblematter and energy. It introduces a clear disconti-nuity between territories of galaxies, solar systems,stars and planets. Without the interplanetary andintergalactic vacuum there is no Universe”[16].

Similarly, disciplines have little meaning when wedo not see the spaces between, across and beyondthem. When we want to reach a stage of more com-plete – transdisciplinary – knowledge, we need toexplore the vacuum that is full of potential “know-ing”, find ways to open ourselves to this knowing andincorporate it in a more complete knowledge system.It is here where – in my interpretation – “sensi-tivity” and “action” come into being, or in otherwords the unity of analytical intelligence, emotionalintelligence and the intelligence of the body. Theincluded third only comes into existence in a processthat is inherently ”more-than-analytical” throughintegrating various emotional, imaginative and sen-sory ways to relate us with our interior and exteriorworld. It is like that because the other levels ofperception (other than analytical/disciplinary) arebased on non-analytical laws and ways of connectingus our environment.

The way to achieve the unity of knowing, and herewe make the bridge to the second part of this article,is in action and through action. Only in action wecan build bridges between different levels of percep-tion and reality, such as our emotions, intuition, ourbody, our mental and our analytical capacities. It isin action that the hidden third comes into being.

3 Reflective Action or Artful Doing

Like scientific research, reflective action is a way toexplore reality with the intention to understand it

and/or to create a base for taking concrete decisions.But unlike the “classical” - cognitive and analyti-cal - way of exploration, reflective action is at thesame time rooted in sensitivity, intuition as well asanalytical rationality. It was Nobel laureate HerbertSimon who laid the scientific foundation for the con-cept of reflective action, even though he did not usethe term himself. Simon[17][18] studied how peoplemake decisions when limited information is available,and discovered that we use two different strategies.The first is using logic and ratio, and the secondis using heuristics based on intuition and rules ofthe thumb. Simon observed that many successfulmanagers frequently make decisions using heuristics,and with very good result. Gerd Gigerenzer, writerof “Simple Heuristics That Make Us Smart” [19] andvery much working within the tradition of Simon,showed many case studies in which heuristics leadto better decisions than allegedly more sophisticatedlogical-rational procedures.

It should not be surprising. Using heuristics andintuition are very natural ways of understanding andrelating us with the world, and of creating a basefor decision making. However, the scientific world-view taught us during the past centuries that “weare because we think” and that we should focus onour cognitive and analytical skills to understand theworld. Feelings, emotions and body intelligence weredeclared to be inferior to analytical intelligence. Wedecided that emotions interfere in negative ways in“rational decision making” and that it is better toexclude them as much as possible. As a result weunlearned to use our complete potential to relate uswith the world, and we lost the ability to functionas full and complete human beings. The processof rediscovering our comprehensive and natural po-tential started with Simon while he analyzed theuse of heuristics. He discovered that it means usingcontextual information and mental maps instead offocusing on the narrow relationship between twovariables. These mental maps enable us to see twovariables in a wider context thus making decisionsin contextual, intuitive and holistic ways.

3.1 Mental Maps

The use of mental maps has been further exploredby Chris Argyris and Donald Schon[20][21] and Don-ald Schon alone [22] [23][24][25] and has led to theintroduction off the term reflective action or, in thewords of Schon, artful doing. A mental map, Argyris


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and Schon explain, is like a semantic representationof all the connections the brain makes with respectto a certain situation or problem, and it combineslogical thoughts, images and associative thoughts.Every time we have to make a decision, we comparethe situation that calls for a decision with similarsituations of the past, using our mental map that islike a reservoir of stored images and previous expe-riences. Schon: “When a practitioner makes senseof a situation he perceives to be unique, he sees itas something already present in his repertoire. . .It is . . . to see the unfamiliar, unique situationas both similar to and different from the familiarone, without at first being able to say similar or dif-ferent with respect to what. The familiar situationfunctions as a precedent or metaphor”[26]. Whiletaking decisions and performing tasks, we use ourreservoir or mental map of previous life experiences,knowledge, feelings, emotions, implicit assumptions,cultural codes of conduct, routines and more. Weconstantly “map” situations we encounter by com-paring them with the maps and images that we havestored in our reservoir of knowledge and experience.In a natural way this combines and integrates variouslevels of reality and various levels of perception.

Reflective action organically links analytical in-telligence, feeling’s intelligence and the intelligenceof the body. Yet it is not about these three typesof intelligence in separation but really about theequilibrium between mind, body and feelings. Schondescribes it as follows. Reflexive action is not re-ducible to knowledge and specific skills and is infact not reducible to or deconstructable in any sep-arate aspect at all. It is a sequence of actions toachieve a goal and when we know well how to doit, we have difficulty saying how we did it. It is likeriding a bike or car, playing a musical instrument,basketball or tennis. It is really an integration ofexperiences, skills and knowledge in action within anintegrated system: the experience feeds the knowl-edge and the sentiments, whereas the knowledge andthe sentiments feed the experience[27].

3.2 Reflection-in-Action andReflection-on-Action

The game of basketball illustrates very well howreflective action works. In order to be able to playbasketball we need to know the rules and strategiesof the game, as well as certain facts like size ofthe playing field and meaning of lines drawn on that

field (analytical intelligence). But that is not enough.We also need to be sensitive to the opportunitiesthe game offers at certain moments and to takeadvantage of those opportunities. It is about beingsensitive to the movements of the others, both inones own team as in that of the competitor, andit is about being sensitive to ones own (corporal)possibilities to accelerate, intercept or score. It is allthe time using intuition and calculating while theintuition is constantly nourished with the experiencesgained through action.

The example of playing basketball show that ac-tion is a key aspect of knowing, as is embodiment.It is in action that we go from one level of realityand corresponding perception, to the other. It isbecause of this that action is so important, as wellas thinking in action or reflection in action. Schonintroduced a distinction between reflection-on-actionand reflection-in-action. Reflection-on-action is hav-ing an evaluative moment or session after an activityor task is completed. This is often applied in allkinds of professional settings. Reflection-in-actionis different and sometimes described as ‘thinking onyour feet’. It involves looking – while acting - toour experiences, connecting with our feelings, andattending to our theories-in-use (know-how). It ishere where knowing or intelligence cannot be sepa-rated from action because knowing and doing aretwo sides of the same coin in a constant sequence ofdoing – reflecting – doing again – reflecting, etc.

Schon introduced the word “artful doing” as analternative to reflective action because it involvesa sequence of acts comparable to the one a painterapplies while making a painting. The painter addssome color or form to the canvas, takes one step back,overlooks the result, goes back to correct or to addmore color or form, takes one more step back, andso on. Schon phrases it as follows: “The practitionerallows himself to experience surprise, puzzlement,or confusion in a situation which he finds uncertainor unique. He reflects on the phenomenon beforehim, and on the prior understandings which havebeen implicit in his behavior. He carries out anexperiment which serves to generate both a newunderstanding of the phenomenon and a change inthe situation”[28].

The concept of reflective action or artful doinghas been applied in various fields of knowing, and inparticular in the field of organizational learning. Thefive disciplines in Peter Senge’s famous book “Thefifth discipline, the art and practice of the learning


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organization”[29] clearly echoes reflective action andartful doing. The word “art” in the title is not with-out meaning and refers to the importance of usingmore than analytical/cognitive rationality. Two ofthe five disciplines presented in the book are ratherstandard. They focus on “building a shared vision”and on “team learning”. They can be found in virtu-ally any textbook on organizational behavior. Thethree others however, that give answers on how tobuild a shared vision and learn in teams, can directlybe traced back to the ideas of Argyris and Schon.One is called the discipline of “mental models” and isexactly about learning to work with complex mentalmaps and about learning how to identify them ingroup work and group decisions. The discipline of“personal mastery” is all about knowing oneself as acomplex person and is the “discipline” of functioningas a complex and complete person. The final (orfirst) fifth discipline is “systems thinking” which isabout learning to see in contextual and systemicways, going beyond simple linear relationships.

I want to make a plea here to also study and applyartful doing or reflective action as a really transdis-ciplinary practice, as it is an archetypical way tomake the hidden third come into being. It is simul-taneously intellectual and analytical, constructiveand creative, social and communicative as well assensorial and emotional. It therefor results in a morecomprehensive understanding of oneself and of theworld in general, and creates a more comprehensivebase for decision making in various contexts, privateas well as professional. Equally it has the potentiallyto create various types of knowledge and knowing. Itcan create “hard” knowledge in the form of data orin the form of practical information or ready-to-useapplicable knowing. Yet it also has the potential togo beyond this and to create symbolic and visionaryknowing, as well as creative knowing and new ideas,concepts, products or systems. Finally it has thepotential, because it links emotions, the body andanalytical thinking, to give us (again) control overour own self and our destiny, reducing alienationand disenchantment. As such it has the extremelyimportant transformative potential of, in terms ofNicolescu, changing us back from object into subjectthus restoring the Man-God relationship.

Therefor I think it is important to study reflectiveaction and artful doing as a genuine transdisciplinarypractice, and to teach it as part of transdisciplinaryeducation. One way to teach, practice and study itis in what I have called spaces of experimentation

and imagination.

4 Spaces of Experimentation andImagination

Artful doing or reflective action consists of a sequenceof actions, but that by no means implies a linearsequence of very well distinguishable steps. Eventhough this clearly results from the text above, itis not immediately obvious how to apply it in areal life situation. Almost all projects all over theworld – in public policy, in business, in research,in education - use a more or less standard schemeof organizing steps and activities that is based onthe sequence of: “Formulate a vision” > “Diagnosethe problems” > “Develop alternatives” > “Seekconsensus” > “Take decisions” > “Implement andexecute”. This universally applied scheme is basedon the traditional concept that one should thinkbefore one act and largely excludes the importance ofreflection-in-action. Taking the concept of reflectiveaction serious however, a logical consequence is tochange this traditional scheme and replace it witha model that respects the essence of reflection-in-action where thinking and acting are intrinsicallylinked.

In a number of publications I have proposed towork in “spaces of experimentation and imagination”,spaces that do not start with an abstract vision butstart at the other end: with the execution. Theyimmediately engage in action and apply the constantsequence of action-reflection-action as a way to simul-taneously create vision, diagnose, imagine alternativeways of defining the problem as well as the solution,test and create a shared strategy based on consensus.Such spaces allow and invite to explore reality in var-ious and simultaneous ways such as through analysis,exchanging life experiences, introspection, physicallyor mentally mimicking or manipulating reality thusconstructing alternative realities. They invite toexperience puzzlement, surprise and confusion andthey seek to transcend existing boundaries[30].

Even though spaces of experimentation and imag-ination are organized around problematic situationstheir purpose is not to “solve the problem” in anarrow sense but to “engaging in the situation”[31].This involves entering in contact with them, “talkingwith them” and seeing how situations “talk back”.

Engaging in problematic situations is establishinga relationship with them and to frame them, as well


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as to frame oneself in relation to that situation. Itis like diagnosing, problem definition, visioning andtesting alternatives in one and includes at the sametime defining ones own engagement with the situa-tion. Schon proposes to actively test various waysto frame and reframe a situation and proposes todevelop so-called “generative metaphors” that char-acterize the situation and generate the way prob-lems are defined. “Through the discovery of newmetaphors”, he argued, “new perceptions and ex-planations can be generated”. And, “the discoveryof new and of generative metaphors is not an actof abstract conceptualization or visioning, but anact of being in contact with, reflecting on and aboveall experiencing the phenomena”[32]. The essenceof experiencing is to contextualize situations and toconnect with them while integrating different waysof knowing thus going beyond a mere analytical “di-agnose” of a problem. Experiences are the adequatestages for transdisciplinary exploration and prac-tice and for connecting us with the complex worldaround us integrating – in the words of GregoryBateson - “hard” data and “soft” data present inany situation[33].

Spaces of experimentation and imagination cantake different forms and various rather “classical”spaces are found within the arts. A theatre play isan almost archetypical space of experimentation andimagination, and so are many other art performancesand installations. These spaces present “situations”,touch upon emotions and feelings and literally inviteto reflect in the sense of thinking and rethinkingand framing and reframing. Sometimes they alsoinvite to participate, act and co-create, as for in-stance in the “Theatre of the Oppressed”, developedby Augusto Boal[34] and in “Social Sculpture” asdeveloped by Joseph Beuys[35]. Forum theatre (oneof the techniques developed by Boal) literary invitesmembers of the audience to replace acting actorsthus really reframing the situations acted out duringthe play. Shelley Sacks, former student of Beuys andnow professor at the Oxford Brooks University, cre-ated various social sculptures that really “come intobeing” thanks to the participation of the audience.In the description of her “Landing Strips for Souls”she writes: “. . . I welcome everyone to ‘the placeof questions’, outlining some of the choices we arefaced with and the need to choose . . . the landingstrip is used to welcome souls into the ‘imaginativespace’ of the gathered participants. After a periodof silence I open the space for discussion, which is

part of the process of reconnecting with the world.”3

Reading a novel equally can create a space ofexperimentation and imagination, spaces that areprimarily mental where the imagination and experi-mentation is hidden to the eye of an observer. Yetthe included third is very real here as well and comesinto being as a consequence of the interaction be-tween the book and the reader, as a real hidden third.Meditation as well is a way to open a space of imagi-nation and mental experimentation, on another levelof reality and in a very personal way. Games are yetanother vehicle to create spaces of experimentationand imagination. Playing games can be helpful tofeel and experience complexity and the functioningof complex systems, and thus are valuable tools intransdisciplinary education[36]. Finally, the creationof alternative realities as well is a very adequate formof transdisciplinary action. Nicolescu mentions inhis 2005 article a visit to an Eco-village in SouthAfrica and indeed, the creation of such an “alterna-tive community” (like many other social experiments[37]) certainly also can be part of a transdisciplinaryexploration of reality, and can thus also be calledtransdisciplinary reflective action.

Spaces of experimentation and imagination cantake other forms as well, and can be created withinany sphere of life like public policy, business, re-search and education. In the field of urban studies,where I currently work, I have come across manyspaces of experimentation and imagination. Oftenthe projects do not only work with a generativemetaphor but equally use a conceptual approachthat helps seeing the various dimensions of the situa-tion simultaneously, thus avoiding a linear approachon just one level of reality. A classical and ratherfamous example is the project “Mouse Hole” in thecity of Rotterdam, the Netherlands4 The “MouseHole” was an abandoned space in the city wherevarious problems used to come together such as ex-cessive dumping of waste and prostitution. Yet thespace also was hosting an important water treat-ment system and marked an administrative frontierbetween two city delegations. Various engineeringconsultants were invited to create a plan for theredesign of the space and to find a proper place forthe water treatment system, respecting the adminis-

3http://greenmuseum.org/c/enterchange/artists/sacks/ (lastaccessed November 14, 2012).

4http://www.publicartonline.org.uk/casestudies/environmental/muizengaatje/description.php (last accessed November14, 2012).


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trative demands of the delegations involved. Theyall failed as the various demands (technical, admin-istrative, esthetic, ecological) were too conflicting.The project then was adopted by three artists whocreated a solution that enabled the integration ofthe various demands. The key difference in theirapproach was twofold. First of all they did not tofocus on the designated problems, but on the area.The literally entered in contact with the area, identi-fying its typical and positive features and started tocreate a plan based on those features. The other partwas to implement a paradigm change in the way tohandle to water treatment system. The engineers alltried to obscure the technology as it was supposedto be ugly, while the artist placed the technologyin the center of the space, thus reframing the senseof esthetics and giving the space the recognition itdeserved as an important contributor of clean waterto the city. The project received various prices for itsinnovative approach, an approach that can be char-acterized as a typical example of transdisciplinaryartful doing in a space of experimentation and imag-ination. Chiara Camponeschis book “The EnablingCity: Place-Based Creative Problem-Solving andthe Power of the Everyday”, presents many projectsin various parts of the world mainly coming fromNGO’s, that almost all open spaces of experimenta-tion and imaginating in urban contexts5.

Many projects in spaces of experimentation andimagination are “artful” in the sense of working withartistic expressions as theatre, performances, sculp-tures, music and more, as well as in the sense ofbeing reflective-in-action. In some cases the objec-tive is to create art in the traditional sense of a workof art. In many other cases however, artistic expres-sions and artful doing are ways of exploration andways of doing. They may very well result in whatwe normally call art and they simultaneously resultin solutions for problems, new systems or new waysof seeing reality. It was like that in the “Mouse Hole”project and is very much like that in the project“Neighborhood Satellites Energy Harvests” presentedin Box 1. This as well is a very interesting exampleof transdisciplinary artful doing in a space of experi-mentation and imagination currently being realizedin Berlin, Germany. In this project the problem ofurban CO2-emissions is framed within the generativemetaphor of the city as a field of numerous energy

5http://enablingcity.com/wpcontent/uploads/2010/10/the

−enabling−city2010-3.pdf (last accessed November 14,2012).

crops (emissions) that are out there to be harvested.Reframing the city in such a way opens a whole newrange of actions to solve the emissions problem whileat the same time establishing new relationships withthe city.

A key characteristic of working in spaces of exper-imentation and imagination is the hybridization ofwhat used to be separated spheres of art, science,engineering, design, public policy, education, urban-ism, social work, environmental studies, ecologicalrestoration and much more. It is through this hy-bridization that we realize transdisciplinary studiesand open up the possibility to transcend and makenew knowledge and insights come into being. Thereare probably hundreds of such hybrid projects inspaces of experimentation and imagination aroundthe world, and we should study them as they canteach us how to work in transdisciplinary ways inconcrete settings. Probably the only reason we don’tdo that is because we have not framed them as such.

The project “Neighborhood Satellites EnergyHarvests”, developed by the Berlin basedartists Hanspeter Kadel and Myriel Milicevic,reframes the city as a field of numerous en-ergy crops that are out there to be harvested.Energy coming from heat produced by electri-cal equipment like air conditioners, vibrationcaused by heavy traffic, heat of light emittedin shop windows, or noise coming from a vari-ety of sources as sirens and heavy trucks canall be turned back into usable energy. Theartists designed a variety of simple and in-genious harvesters to collect energy comingfrom light, noise, vibration and heat.

The metaphor that frames the city and itsrelated emissions problem definition unfoldsimmediately in a variety of actions to be takenon various levels of reality. On a creative level,the artists provide kits with instructions sopeople can make their own harvesters, andthey organize workshops to help citizens to re-ally build them. Simultaneously the citizens,with the help of the artists, make inventoriesof energy leaks in their neighborhoods, andexplore ways to create a local micro-power-network using the self-constructed harvesters.In these moments they work in both the ana-lytical as well as the creative levels. Duringthe entire time the project invites citizens to


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look in new ways at themselves and at theirrelationship with the city, giving them thetools to actively interfere in that city, thustaking control and being creative. Finally theproject potentially changes the relationshipbetween citizens within their communities.

The harvesters in the micro-power-networkreally need to function well, or the project willbe doomed to fail. The level of technical andanalytical reality is crucial, but so is the levelof imagination and of being open to new ideasand metaphors. When participants cannotlink themselves with the vision that forms thebase of the entire project, it will be difficultto have confidence in the project and to bemotivated to really go for it results. Thiscapacity to link to such a new and avant-garde reality depends on both ones personalcharacteristics (and relates back to knowledgeof one self) as well as characteristics of theproject. The success of such a project reallydepends on the capacity to link various levelsto make it one comprehensive project.

Box 1: “Neighborhood Satellites EnergyHarvests” as Space of Experimentation andImagination.

5 Back to the Question of Inter- andTransdisciplinarity in a TypicalUniversity Setting

This article started with the question asked to mehow to implement inter- and transdisciplinarity ina typical university setting. I want to address thisquestion in an explicit way and the first thing to dois to distinguish well between inter- and transdisci-plinarity. Nicolescu framed this distinction withinthe concept of horizontal and vertical complexity[38].Where horizontal complexity refers to the complex-ity in one level of reality, for example the materiallevel with its analytical way of knowing, verticalcomplexity refers to the complexity on various levelsof reality. Interdisciplinarity is a way to cope withhorizontal complexity while transdisciplinarity aimsto address vertical complexity. Interdisciplinarity isa valuable response to the challenge of complexity,but only on one level of reality. Although the inte-

gration of various disciplines is important, it doesnot contribute to the important need to unite waysof knowing and restore the links between the objectand the subject of knowing. That is why transdisci-plinarity is important and fundamentally differentfrom interdisciplinarity. This first of all should berecognized within universities.

Secondly there are changes in knowledge and skillsto be considered. Transdisciplinarity requires therange of standard capacities and skills taught withinthe context of any academic discipline. On top ofthat it requires communicative and collaborativeskills that we normally find in business school butthat are certainly not standard in curricula outsideof business schools. Beyond these “standard” skills,transdisciplinarity requires capacities and skills onrather different levels of reality and perception. Anextensive level of self-awareness and knowledge of oneself is important and this involves, besides rational-analytical skills, skills like daring to rely on intuition,daring to work in iterative schemes allowing one-self puzzlement and confusion, as well as skills thatenable (re-) establishing sensatory links with onesbody. Therefor training the senses of seeing, hearing,smelling, tasting and touching/feeling is an integralpart of transdisciplinary education. Learning to re-late ourselves with our environments equally is achallenge that implies capacities of conceptual think-ing and the development of generative metaphors asnew ways of seeing reality in an experiential way. Fi-nally it involves organizational capacities and skills,necessary to create the conditions to engage in con-crete action, as concrete action is needed to makethe hidden third come into being, and to connectand unite various levels of reality.

Thirdly, curricula should ensure the integration ofthe skills and capacities through integrated reflectiveaction or artful doing. Therefor a large – and crucial –part of transdisciplinary education should be project-based and action-based[39]. BUT (!), these projectsshould include reflective action enabling to changefrom one level of reality to another. And this calls forproject-based and action-based education in spacesof experimentation and imagination. I will illustratewhat this means around the concept of the ecologicalfootprint.

Teaching the ecological footprint is a pretty stan-dard element in environmental sciences curriculatoday. Usually the concept is introduced in an ana-lytical way (presenting foot print categories, energyequivalents, level of the sustainable footprint, etc.)


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and students calculate their own footprint usinga computer. It results in analytical knowing andin a feeling of guilt when the footprint exceeds themargin of sustainability. In 2002 I created a transdis-ciplinary project around the concept of the ecologicalfootprint, called “Ego-Travels”. In this project stu-dents really engaged in the situation and were notmerely confronted with “a number” (a footprint) butwith choices for life that have ecological implications.Yet organizing such a project really involves manychanges in the standard way of working and showsus what it means to work at once between and acrossdisciplines, as well as beyond all discipline (see box2).

“Ego-Travels” was an educational project re-alized in the Erasmus University Rotterdamin 2002. The project aimed at introducingthe concept of the ecological footprint usingthe generative metaphor of the journey oflife. The project created a space of exper-imentation and imagination that was – inthe words of Sacha Kagan, one of the partic-ipating students – at the same time a (fake)travel agency, a performance, an installationand a party. The metaphor of the journeyof life resulted in the idea to create a travelagency where students could book the jour-ney of their life (their ego-travel) thus makingthem sensitive to the ecological impacts oftheir lifestyle. The metaphor and concept ofthe travel agency immediately unfolded var-ious activities to be realized simultaneously:to create a travel agency and a travel guide,to design a house style and logo, to formulatealternative “lifestyle arrangements”, to thinkin terms of payment of such arrangementsand link those payments with ecological foot-prints, to think in terms of marketing of thenew agency, of funding, of convincing studentsand the faculty of the relevance of the concept,and to be open to let students, sponsors oranybody else expand on the original idea.

Thanks to financial support of the ErasmusUniversity and a Rotterdam based GreenShopping Mall the project could be realizedand a party-center was rented to organizea party that was announced as the openingparty of the new travel agency. Meanwhilethe travel guide was produced and the costs

of the arrangements calculated in ecologicalfootprints of every lifestyle element, thus cal-culating the ecological costs of the specificjourney a customer would choose.

During the party a DJ played ambient music,slide shows showed environmental effects oflifestyles and activities as a garbage contestand a fortune teller added to the environmen-tal “experience”. The customers/participants,while entering the center, were invited to“book the journey of their life” and for this pur-pose a typical travel agency was created withdesks, images on the wall and hostesses thatpersuaded the customers to book their travel.The hostesses then calculated the costs andinvited the customers to pay. Payment was inthe form of helping to blow up a big balloonthat represented the globe and was hangingin the middle of the party. The amount ofair the participants/customers needed to addto the balloon corresponded to the ecologicalcosts of the journey they selected: the higherthe costs the more air they needed to inflateinto the balloon. Obviously the balloon grewrapidly and posed an ever increasing threatof explosion. Yet as in “real” life the partywent on . . . until the moment the globereally exploded, showing that the world isnot big enough for all our combined lifestyleaspirations.

Box 2:“Ego-Travels”, Educational ProjectRealized in the Erasmus University Rotter-dam in 20026.

Fourthly, engaging in transdisciplinarity within auniversity is a personal challenge for professors andstudents alike. I organized the project together withmy students and they needed to engage in manyactivities that could not be accounted for in strictacademic terms. In many ways the project crossedestablished boundaries and called for an enormousamount of conviction and determination to be re-alized. Such a project really exceeds that what isnormally required from students, a university profes-sor or faculty as a whole. The university professor

6http://sachakagan.chez-alice.fr/sust1024.htm (last accessedNovember 14, 2012)


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remains professor but converts into a project man-ager at the same time. The student remains studentbut is a member of a workforce as well. Colleaguesfrequently look at such a project with suspicion andsometimes with disdain as “it is not academic”, anddoes not meet academic standards. Finally it isexperimental and reflective and not at all straightforward or linear. As a responsible I was all the wayconfronted with uncertainty and puzzlement, notknowing (and not being able to know) if the projectwould end in a success or a big failure, equally notknowing how to define “success” nor “failure”.

Professors only can teach in such spaces whenthey themselves know how to link analytical intelli-gence with feelings intelligence and the intelligenceof the body. They themselves need to dare to workin iterative and reflective – artful - ways and allowthemselves puzzlement and confusion. It is a bigstep for a university professor that is used to workwith his or her cognition and feels comfortable ina university precisely because it is a temple of ana-lytical activity. That is why training professors intransdisciplinary artful doing is extremely important,and this training obviously can only be realized inspaces of experimentation and imagination.

Fifthly, the university as institution will need tomake changes. It is important that universities cre-ate spaces within the curricula to engage in trans-disciplinary practice, and designate professors whofeel comfortable working in these spaces. The keyin realizing this is, as almost always, engaging in adialogical process that simultaneously involves ini-tiatives at the top of the university as well as onthe bottom[40]. Starting at the bottom howeveris crucial as experience with real transdisciplinarypractice in spaces of experimentation and imagina-tion certainly will reduce the confusion that stillexists around the concept of transdisciplinarity, andwill open ways to institutionalize it and change ouruniversities.

6 Concluding Remarks

I like to finish making a reference to Mary Cather-ine Bateson’s book “Peripheral visions: Learningalong the way”[41] (M.C. Bateson, 1994). The bookis about how we make sense of life and Bateson’sanswer is that we all the time make connectionsbetween seemingly random events and experiences,thus finding the underlying patterns. She makes a

plea to organize education as much as possible in thissame “natural” way: experience based, spiral and“along the way”. Often we do not understand all weexperience in life, she says, and many experiencesresult in memories that are stored while only partlyunderstood. New experiences however may put thestored ones in perspective so we later understandwhat we had not understood before. Because of thatit is important to learn to make meaningful connec-tions between different life experiences, and to findthe underlying patterns. She describes her own bookas “a book of stories and reflections strung togetherto suggest a style of learning from experience”. Thebook possibly shows the challenge that transdisci-plinarity is placing on universities: to organize themas experimental and imaginative spaces for analysis,stories and reflections strung together in randomways thus stimulating a spiral and natural way oflearning along the way.

References

[1] Nicolescu B., 2002. Manifesto of Transdisciplinarity.Albany : State University of New York Press.

[2] Nicolescu B., 2006. Transdisciplinarity, past, presentand future, published in: Haverkort Bertus and CoenReijntjes ed. (2006): Moving Worldviews - Reshap-ing sciences, policies and practices for endogenoussustainable development, COMPAS Editions, Hol-land, p. 142-166; page 18.

[3] Dieleman H. y Juarez, M., 2008. Como se puededisenar educacion para la sustentabilidad?, in: Re-vista Internacional de Contaminacion Ambiental,24 (3-August), Universidad Nacional Autnoma deMexico.

[4] Dieleman H. 2011. Las competencias del quehacerartstico y el conocimiento artstico en la EducacinSuperior, in: Pedro Medelln Milan et al (2011): UnMundo en Transicion: Perspectivas de SustentabilI-dad para la Educacin Superior, La Editorial Univer-sitaria Potosina.

[5] Dieleman H., 2012. Resilient cities and organiza-tional learning; stimulating eco-cultural innovations.Journal of Cleaner Production, Special Volume “Ad-vancing sustainable urban transformation” editedby Kes McCormick, Lena Neij, Stefan Anderberg,Lars Coenen, Elsevier Publishers, Volume 38.

[6] Morin E., 1973. Le Paradigme perdu: la naturehumaine. Paris: Seuil.


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[7] Morin E., 1992. Method. Towards a Study of Hu-mankind. Volume 1: The Nature of Nature. NewYork: Peter Lang

[8] Morin E., 1996. Introduccin al pensamiento com-plejo, Gedisa, Barcelona.

[9] Nicolescu B., 2006. Transdisciplinarity, past, presentand future, published in: Haverkort Bertus andCoen Reijntjes ed.: Moving Worldviews - Reshapingsciences, policies and practices for endogenous sus-tainable development, COMPAS Editions, Holland,p. 142-166; page 3.

[10] Nunez M. C., 2011. Sustainability and Spirituality:A Transdisciplinary Perspective, en: ATLAS, Trans-disciplinary Journal of Engineering & Science , 2,page 81.

[11] Nicolescu B., 2006. Transdisciplinarity, past, presentand future, published in: Haverkort Bertus andCoen Reijntjes ed.: Moving Worldviews - Reshapingsciences, policies and practices for endogenous sus-tainable development, COMPAS Editions, Holland,p. 142-166; page 3.

[12] Ibid, page 3.

[13] Ibid.

[14] Ibid, page 14.

[15] Ibid, page 10.

[16] Ibid, page 5.

[17] Simon H.A., 1955. A Behavioral Model of RationalChoice, quarterly journal of economics, p. 69.

[18] Simon, H.A., 1972. Theories of bounded rationality.In C.B. McGuire and R. Radner (Eds.), Decision andorganization: A volume in honor of Jacob Marschak(Chap. 8). Amsterdam: North-Holland.

[19] Gigerenzer, G., Todd, P.M., 1999. ABC ResearchGroup, Simple Heuristics that Make us Smart. Ox-ford University Press, Oxford.

[20] Argyris, M. and Schon, D., 1974. Theory in Practice.Increasing professional effectiveness, San Francisco:Jossey-Bass.

[21] Argyris, C., & Schon, D., 1978. Organizational learn-ing: A theory of action perspective, Reading, Mass:Addison Wesley.

[22] Schon, D., 1979. Generative Metaphor: A Perspec-tive on Problem Setting in Social Policy. In A.Ortony (Ed.), Metaphor and Thought. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.

[23] Schon, D. A., 1983. The Reflective Practitioner:How professionals think in action. London: TempleSmith.

[24] Schon, D. A., 1985. The design studio: an ex-ploration of its traditions and potentials, London: RIBA Publications for RIBA Building IndustryTrust.

[25] Schon, D. A., 1991. The Reflective Turn: CaseStudies In and On Educational Practice, New York:Teachers Press, Columbia University.

[26] Schon, D. A., 1983. The Reflective Practitioner:How professionals think in action. London: TempleSmith; p. 138.

[27] Ibid.

[28] Ibid, page 68.

[29] Senge P.M., 1990. The Fifth Discipline: The Art andPractice of the Learning Organization. New York:Doubleday Currency.

[30] Footnotes 3,4 and 5.

[31] Schon, D. A., 1983. The Reflective Practitioner:How professionals think in action. London: TempleSmith, p. 15.

[32] Schon, D., 1979. Generative Metaphor: A Perspec-tive on Problem Setting in Social Policy. In A.Ortony (Ed.), Metaphor and Thought. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, p. 259

[33] Bateson, G., 1973. Steps to an Ecology of Mind:Collected Essays, in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evo-lution and Epistemology, London: Paladin, Granada,pp. 250-279.

[34] Boal, A., 1979. The Theatre of the Oppresse, NewYork: Urizen Books.

[35] Harlan Volker, ed., 2004. What Is Art? Conversationwith Joseph Beuys. Clairview Book.

[36] Dieleman H. y Donald H., 2006. Games by whichto learn and teach about sustainable development:exploring the relevance of games and experientiallearning for sustainability. Journal of Cleaner Pro-duction, 14(9-11), pp. 837-847.

[37] Dieleman, H., 2007. Cleaner production and innova-tion theory; social experiments as a new model toengage in cleaner production, Universidad Metropoli-tana, Revista Internacional de Contaminacin Ambi-ental, Mexico DF, Vol. 23(2), pp. 79-94.

[38] Nicolescu B., (ed.), 2008. Transdisciplinarity – The-ory and Practice, Hampton Press, Cresskill, NewJersey.


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[39] Adame D. 2011. From a Disciplinary to a Transdisci-plinary Vision of the University: A Space of Knowl-edge, Culture, Art, Spirituality, and Life. Transdis-ciplinary Journal of Engineering & Science, Volume:2 (December), page 39.

[40] Ibid, page 39.

[41] Bateson, M.C., 1994. Peripheral visions: Learningalong the way. New York: Harper Collins.

About the Author

Dr. Hans Dieleman is full professor at the Centre of UrbanStudies (CEC) of the Autonomous University of Mexico-City (UACM), where is responsible for the research linein urban sustainability, culture and the arts. He also sitson the board of the College of Sciences and Humanitiesof that university. He is a member of the team currentlydeveloping a doctoral program in Transdisciplinarity andDialogue of Knowing in the University Veracruzana inJalapa, Mexico. He is a member of the internationalcoordination team of Cultura21, an ONG that promotessustainability as cultural change.


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Transdisciplinary Artful Doing in Spaces of Experimentation and Imagination

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