4.4. Dissent, Dissonance, and Conflicts

For the full version of the original text go to The Economy of Interdisciplinary Knowledge Transfer by Vannina Hofman, Jara Rocha and Josep Perelló.

In communities working on interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary projects, dissent or disagreement are likely to emerge at different points during the working process. The management of this dissent may end up taking on different overtones and it may even become a powerful strategy for creation. Generating spaces in which dissent can become creative dissonance can be a good option for some communities. But badly managed dissent can also end up turning into conflicts, which may be impossible to resolve and end up destroying the project or affecting third parties “outside” the community.

Ensuring that there is transparency in regards to what different members of the community expect for the project, and planning spaces in which to manage dissent, can be useful strategies for transforming differences into opportunities. Another option is to create highly mutable zones or spaces in which a need arises from a particular challenge, different individuals come together, collaboration and participation takes place, and then the community is disbanded. In the context of citizen science or knowledge, for example, we can think about this action-based form of science or knowledge (more like a guerrilla than an army), which is more liquid and multifaceted. This approach can involve radical experimentation with high levels of risk, but shared risk. In these cases the idea is to generate conditions that allow intense experimentation, free and without protocols, and avoid recreating the kind of laboratory that disciplines generate through their protocols.