How to?! Practical knowledge for transformative science - facilitation guidelines for two applications of the Human Scale Development Approach

Abstract

Multiple methods for transdisciplinary and transformative sciences have been presented and discussed in the literature on sustainability. Wider knowledge however, on how to implement global environmental change is still sough for. We suggest that understanding the practical knowledge with the Aristotelian concept of stechne and phronesis provides important contributions for change. With the present paper we will show the detailed facilitation outlines within the application of the Human Scale Development Approach (HSDA) that was introduced in the early 1980´s. Although the approach has been applied and adapted during the last three decades a particularized description of the facilitation process it requires is lacking. The same gap of information resides with regard in many other methods in transdisciplinary and transformative sustainability sciences. As a contribution of “how-to” practical knowledge within transformative science can beappliedwe present two detailed facilitation processes of adaptations of the original HSDA. With these contributions we would like to encourage other scholars and practitioners to test and validate the presented applications and further develop them in their own settings as well as for their own purposes.