Transdisciplinary Art and Climate Science Collaborations: Framework Conditions Creating Epistemic Injustices

Abstract

Transdisciplinary art-science collaborations addressing the climate crisis aim to co-create knowledge by integrating diverse perspectives and knowledge types to tackle complex sustainability challenges. Despite growing institutional and funding support, little research has been done on how framework conditions shape such collaborations. This study examines how framework conditions of transdisciplinary art-science collaborations influence collaborative dynamics of knowledge integration and contribute to epistemic injustice. Framework conditions refer to circumstances, thus structural and situational factors shaping collaboration, which can enable or constrain it. Epistemic injustice involves knowledge-related injustices, including the exclusion or silencing of knowers. Applying semi-structured interviews and the transdisciplinary storywall method, six Switzerland-based transdisciplinary art-science collaborations addressing climate, ecological or sustainability issues were analysed. The exploratory thematic analysis identified the six key framework conditions of temporality, financing, location, internationality, partnering and outcome, which elicit circumstances creating epistemic injustice. Applying four epistemic injustice dimensions to categorise collaborators' experiences on conditions further, the findings show that these conditions most frequently contribute to participatory and procedural, followed by distributive and then recognition epistemic injustices. Early phases of collaboration were found to be particularly influential in shaping unjust processes. This study suggests the need for greater awareness of injustice among scientists, practitioners and artists and calls for structural adjustments by those shaping or initiating such collaborations. It offers practical recommendations to reduce epistemic injustices and strive for more inclusive and pluralistic knowledge integration and co-creation in art-science contexts, as well as across broader transdisciplinary sustainability efforts to address the climate crisis.