Evolutionary Thought and Transdisciplinary Practices

• In Event: TRANS-disciplinary Research Through STS Practice Part 2

Abstract

My paper will discuss a research project aimed at establishing transdisciplinary research tools and methods to creatively explore existing systems of meaning-making (social, cultural, political and aesthetic), critically analysing normative conceptions of evolution founded upon human exceptionalism and competitive individualism, and restructure our collective imaginations. Darwin’s theory of evolution is described as one of the major philosophical “decenterings,” placing humanity in the midst of all other creatures. Yet we are now entering a new epoch—the Anthropocene—placing humans once again at the center, as the main causal force of change. It seems that Darwin’s decentering of the human did not stick. There have only been a few scientists/scholars who have proposed alternative (re)interpretations of evolution, and even fewer able to extrapolate the significance into other disciplinary fields—Margulis’s sybiogenesis, Carla Hustak and Natasha Myers’s involutionary momentum, Deleuze and Guattari’s creative involution, and Elizabeth Grosz’s work on sexual selection. Challenges to such transdisciplinary work include deeply rooted institutionalized structures and disciplinary practices, as well as limited funding resources, which don’t allow for the extra space and time needed for translation, negotiation, and dialogue. Indeed, currently such work requires scholars to already be literate and knowledgeable in multiple fields and disciplines of research. Drawing on current research in eco-evo-devo biology, working with the Center for Creative Ecologies at UC Santa Cruz, my research focuses on establishing transdisciplinary research collaborations—drawing together scientists, philosophers, artists and cultural practitioners—in order to create new conceptual, theoretical, methodological, practical and translational understandings of evolution.

Author

• Chessa Adsit-Morris, University of California, Santa Cruz