Using a transdisciplinary approach for environmental crisis research in History
Abstract
Although it is true that each local area or region possesses its own historiography – and for
that matter its own environmental historiography – there should not be much difference in
the research methodology, sources and pitfalls or drawbacks of doing environmental history
research in labelled environmental crisis areas. This article presents a concise historiography
on dealing with environmental crisis in literature is provided. This is followed by a
proposed transdisciplinary (TD)-methodological structure that can serve as a guideline to
specifically to environmental historians, and perhaps other disciplines in the humanities,
that studying local or regional environmental crises. A local environment in South Africa,
namely the Far West Rand, serves as an example for conducting TD research that features
an environmental crisis.
The paper concludes by also, amongst others, suggesting that environmental historians and
other environmental experts in a variety of fields and disciplines in South Africa and Africa
should form an Environmental Studies Association to support one another, particularly in
their efforts to work together in interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary ways with
researchers from a broad range of academic fields. This paper therefore serves merely as a
debate to open up discussions for refining the perspectives and existing methodologies of
research in environmental history.
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