Abstract
This article describes and analyzes challenges and opportunities for social science research based on a transdisciplinary research and development project on climate change adaptation in the agriculture sector in Zimbabwe and Zambia. The project incorporated a social science component based on the finding that research on climate change has mainly focused on biophysical and hydrological issues, while little attention has been paid to socio-economic issues. We present the role of the social sciences in transdisciplinary research, the successes and constraints of the research process and activities, as well as the emerging local socio-economic issues and how they are linked to findings from other research types conducted in the context of this project. The article concludes that employing a social science lens in understanding risk perceptions and subsequent adaptations is important for strengthening innovations and innovation systems that improve farmer livelihoods. We thus recommend considering social sciences as an approach that examines horizontal phenomena and explores the challenges of environmental change and innovative research dimensions.
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Notes
- 1.
Mother-baby trials aim to improve the flow of information between farmers and researchers about technology performance and appropriateness under specific farm conditions (Snapp 1999). Specifically, this design is used to quantify farmer evaluation of technologies (Snapp 2002; Snapp et al. 2002). The trial design consists of two types of trials: mother and baby trials. “The ‘mother’ trial is replicated within-site to test a range of technologies and research hypotheses under researcher management … The ‘baby’ trial comprises a number of satellite trials (each trial is one replicate of large plots under farmer management and farm resources” (Snapp 2002).
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Acknowledgements
The authors thank the following institutions, which provided funding for this project: International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Department for International Development (DFID), Climate Change Adaptation in Africa (CCAA), and technical support from collaborators and researchers in the field work: researchers from Zambia Agricultural Research Institute (ZARI), Zambia Agro-Met, and researchers and students from Midlands State University (MSU), Zimbabwe, and ICRISAT Zimbabwe.
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Mubaya, C.P., Mugabe, F.T., Walker, S. (2015). Carving a Niche for the Social Sciences in Transdisciplinary Research on Climate Change Adaptation in Southern African Agriculture. In: Werlen, B. (eds) Global Sustainability. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16477-9_6
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