How do we produce knowledge together and learn from each other? How do we allow for encounters and address vulnerabilities as well as power imbalances? How do relationships co-create research outcomes, and whose outcomes are they anyway?

The course invites PhD students to discuss the ethical challenges of transdisciplinary research that arise in co-creative settings throughout various stages of the PhD - from planning collaborations to everyday conversations and the dissemination of co-produced knowledge.

Moving between theory and practicalities in cyclical processes and in response to the individual PhD projects of the participants, relational ethics and the following fields will guide our exchange:

• Intersectional feminist ethics of collaboration
• More-than-human and posthuman ethics
• Decolonial ethics
• Ethics of visual and digital practices

These fields raise questions of accountability, positionality, transferability, materiality, translatability, accessibility, and more. We will also reflect our role as interacting researchers by considering practical aspects such as consent, citational practices, the work with ethics committees, authorship, among others (applied ethics).

The course aims to strengthen the reflective faculty of PhD students to re-think and argue for ethical decisions throughout the process of transdisciplinary projects, where researchers, practitioners, and partners collaborate to address complex problems.

Participants contribute to formulating and refining the core questions of the course and engage in discussions of literature and ethical challenges. Proposing literature is welcome. During the final session of our monthly gatherings, participants introduce an ethical statement about their individual PhD projects. They offer and receive peer feedback.

The course primarily addresses PhD students in the first half of their PhD projects, in any case, enrolment in a doctoral program is required to participate in the course.  

To ensure everyone can participate in the discussions, the course is limited to 20 participants.

The first dates are decided and further dates are currently discussed with the registered participants. 

Please contact the course teacher with any questions at any time: karin.reisinger@uni-ak.ac.at

LOCATIONS: Please find us at the School for Transformation, either in Lecture Room 1 or 2.