I Come From: Using Collaborative Auto/Biographical Poetry to Foster Transdisciplinarity and Build Inclusion

Abstract

Transdisciplinarity refers to ways of working that bring together people from different backgrounds—academic and nonacademic—to address real-world challenges. This article explores how team members on the IncludeAge project, funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council, enabled transdisciplinary ways of working to build inclusion in the project, by designing and facilitating a collaborative auto/biography poetry activity for transdisciplinary team members. The article demonstrates the potential for using collaborative creative writing to foster transdisciplinarity and build inclusion within the context of a research project with multiple team members from different backgrounds. The article aims to contribute to methodological discussions on transdisciplinary ways of working in research, particularly with seldom-heard populations, and how creative methods such as auto/biography and collaborative poetry writing may contribute to these.