Advancing transdisciplinary action research in rural Pennsylvania: The case for plural design in the Susquehanna River towns

Abstract

The current academic discourse around interdisciplinary scholarship and dissemination has major implications for plural design, a prominent area of academic engagement in landscape architecture. The engagement of citizens in dialogues on public policy indicates increasing consensus that plural design must be embedded in larger, interdisciplinary systems that will advance the work of creating public policy. This paper participates in an inquiry of Stokols's Transdisciplinary Action Research (TDAR) (2006) methodology and its potential to extend current theoretical and methodological limits in plural design research. Aligning with others, the author argues the importance of a structuring framework for plural design research and queries the philosophical and ethical changes necessary to advance environmental and community-based knowledge into higher levels of interdisciplinary discourse. The first or "theory" section juxtaposes plural design in academia with Stokols (2006) and other interpretations of transdisciplinary research. The second section uses the TDAR model to frame plural design research in three Susquehanna River towns in Pennsylvania. The discussion and conclusion speculate on the methodology's specific applicability to the case study research and the value of TDAR for university plural design practice in general. © 2011 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System.