In the last century, ecology has morphed from a tight disciplinary science, working on local problems, to an interdisciplinary science working on increasingly complex, interconnected, and urgent problems concerning global change and sustainability. Many ecologists now work directly with stakeholders, like practitioners, local communities, Indigenous Peoples and policy makers, in a transdisciplinary manner. Specific local contexts, like rangelands, provide some of the best laboratories for this work, with their complex suite of intertwined social-ecological problems and knowledgeable and active stakeholders to work with. Here we ask: How are rangeland community-scientist teams around the world changing the process of science by working closely together on integrated ecological and social issues? This emerging science brings together participatory action research, citizen science, transdisciplinary science, adaptive ecosystem management and community development to catalyze transformations in social-ecological systems. It draws on the scholarship on power and inclusion, decolonizing methodologies, social-ecological transformations, panarchy and social innovation. We present conceptual models and collaborative processes useful in this type of work. We also describe field case studies in Africa, Asia and the US, based on our experiences over several decades of using these approaches, participating in this evolution and evaluating our impacts on important societal problems.
Results/Conclusions
Our work shows that ecology can be a force for social change, if ecologists approach the scientific process in a highly non-traditional way. This process starts with the simple (but difficult to implement) process of knowledge co-production, engaging with different ways of knowing. In its most effective form, ecologists involve stakeholders in every part of the scientific process, from problem identification through analysis and data interpretation. This also means including different knowledges, like Indigenous Science, local knowledge, and practitioner knowledge. There is a need for deep reflection about power sharing, the methods we use to collect and analyze information, who is part of our scholar-stakeholder teams, whose interpretation of the results we highlight, and how to negotiate conflicting information from these different knowledges. We provide some suggestions to both new and more experienced transdisciplinary ecologists who are deep in this evolution of their science. This includes a full recognition of how difficult this work is and how unprepared ecologists are for its complexity. It highlights the need for ecologists to include mixed methods and qualitative data in their work. We end by presenting a more equitable model of science fully integrated with practice, which we call ‘transformative science with society’.