Metálogo como herramienta de colaboración transdisciplinaria

Abstract

Contemporary society shows an increasing demand for participatory instances able to effectively foster the collaboration of diverse organizational, disciplinary and socio-cultural areas. The challenges intrinsic to such participatory instances require the development of methodologies that may allow for the insertion of reflexivity within the dialogical interaction, while also promoting the collective construction of "boundary objects": such objects, in turn, by serving as a common reference for the different perspectives involved in the dialogue, have the potential of facilitating the future collaboration among such perspectives. To respond to these demands-and inspired by the notion of metalogue originally introduced by Gregory Bateson-this paper elaborates a systemic-constructivist proposal of observation and contextual intervention, aimed at fostering reflexivity within dialogical-participatory instances by inducing their participants to perform a second-order observation of the distinctions mobilized within the interaction. Building upon this reflexivity, the metalogue pursues the co-construction of documents able to coordinate the perspectives of the participants and the expectations of the structural and organizational arrangements in which they operate. In addition to justifying and describing the technique of the metalogue, the paper highlights some lessons learned, good practices and proposals derived from its application in various transdisciplinary experiences in Chile.

An Integrated Framework to Streamline Resilience in the Context of Urban Climate Risk Assessment

“…For instance, referring to the example introduced above, the resilience of electrical supply may be higher when the system counts with significantly more installed capacity than peak demand as well as with multiple and networked distribution pathways when it is able to shift quickly and seamlessly from one source to the other or from one distribution pathway to another and so on. This kind of shortterm focus on resilience, hereafter dubbed 'flexibility' (or 'persistence'), can be contrasted with a longer-term view, observing the ability of the system of maintaining the level of service in the face of a changing environment by ways of evolving its structures, which we will subsequently call 'learning' (Desouza & Flanery, 2013;Urquiza & Billi, 2018;Walker et al, 2004). The latter is particularly important in a context of uncertainty with respect to the possible nature and outcome of risks facing a system, and particularly for proactive management of potential but unknown risks of the future (Linkov & Trump, 2019).…”

“…Phase 3 constitutes the actual resilience analysis, which can be performed from two different perspectives: 'expressive' and 'predictive' (Urquiza & Billi, 2018). In the former case, the analysis focuses on the system's proven ability to maintain its degree of service during past situations.…”

Universidad transdisciplinaria en el marco de la sociedad del conocimiento. Tensiones discursivas en la Universidad de Chile

“…Por el otro, propician una oportunidad para hacer emerger, contrastar y reflexionar distintas perspectivas, imaginarios y narrativas sobre un tema de gran contingencia para la actualidad del país, como la reforma de los sistemas de educación superior. En este punto, la técnica del metálogo ha mostrado ser una metodología particularmente adecuada, tanto para promover el diálogo y la construcción de acuerdos como en su calidad técnica de investigación dirigida a visibilizar e investigar narrativas y meta-narrativas alrededor de objetos sociales disputados (Urquiza et al, 2018).…”

Innovación social: fortalezas y limitaciones estructurales, una observación desde la teoría de sistemas sociales

“…De lo anterior, se desprende que hay una situación de desigualdad inicial entre los participantes de iniciativas de innovación social, la que puede ser equilibrada a través de la mediación o la participación de este agente articulador. Sin embargo, siguiendo las palabras de Urquiza et al (2018) la participación de un agente articulador puede traer tanto beneficios como problemas. Esto, porque en el contexto de prácticas transdisciplinarias, en ocasiones este tipo de personajes orientan el camino de las acciones hacia intereses propios, a partir de la influencia en la toma de decisiones o definiendo unilateralmente los conceptos que sustentan las acciones.…”