Abstract: The theme for the chair’s plenaries at the 2017 Royal Geographical Society (RGS) with the Institute of British Geographers (IBG) Annual Conference is ‘Decolonising geographical knowledges: opening geography out to the world’. This commentary explains why this pursuit of critical consciousness via decolonial thinking could do more harm than good. We show how the emphasis on decolonising geographical knowledges rather than structures, institutions and praxis reproduces coloniality, because it recenteres non-Indigenous, white and otherwise privileged groups in the global architecture of knowledge production. It is argued that an effective decolonial movement within geography must recognise the intersectionality of indigeneity and race, and necessitates that the terms on which the discipline starts debates about decolonisation and decoloniality are determined by those racialized as Indigenous and non-white by coloniality.

Abstract: In recent years, a number of academic analyses have emerged which reflect critically on why most artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) activities–low tech, labour-intensive, mineral extraction and processing– occur in informal ‘spaces’. This body of scholarship, however, is heavily disconnected from work being carried out by policymakers and donors who, recognizing the growing economic importance of ASM in numerous rural sections of the developing world, are now working to identify ways in which to facilitate the formalization of its activities. It has rather drawn mostly on theories of informality that have been developed around radically different, and in many cases, incomparable, experiences, as well as largely redundant ideas, to contextualize phenomena in the sector. This paper reflects critically on the implications of this widening gulf, with the aim of facilitating a better alignment of scholarly debates on ASM’s informality with overarching policy/donor objectives. The divide must be reconciled if the case for formalizing ASM is to be strengthened, and policy is to be reformulated to reflect more accurately the many dimensions of the sector’s operations.

Abstract: A short and direct introduction sets out the context for this special section. After a brief sketch of each of the commentary pieces and how they fit together, the key question will then be posed: how are geographers now inserting themselves into these ongoing dynamics, and which particular aspects of the present moment are geography academics well-placed to address?

Abstract: While traditional academic accounts of activism emphasise vocal, antagonistic and demonstrative forms of protest, geographers have begun to expand the category of activism to include modest, quotidian acts of kindness, connection and creativity. This paper outlines ‘quiet activism’ as small, everyday, embodied acts, often of making and creating, that can be either implicitly or explicitly political in nature. This concept is explored with seed savers, gardeners who cultivate fruits and vegetables and then select and save seed to provide future generations of plants for themselves and others. It draws on ethnographic research with individuals involved in a national seed conservation network (The Heritage Seed Library) and a local seed swap event (Seedy Sunday, Brighton) in the UK. These organisations connect individual seed savers and frame their quiet acts of growing and sharing as part of a broad movement to conserve biodiversity and challenge the corporate control of food and seed systems. The paper unpicks the implications of embodied activisms performed at varying volumes, and it highlights the need for scholars to attend to the differing embodiments called for by various modes of activism in order to trace their particular impacts, emotions and affects. The experiences of seed savers elucidate the particular power of small and quiet acts of making and doing to critique, subvert and rework dominant modes of production and consumption.

Abstract: Small islands worldwide are increasingly turning to conspicuous sustainability as a development strategy Island spatiality encourages renewable energy and sustainability initiatives that emphasise iconicity and are undertaken in order to gain competitive advantage, strengthen sustainable tourism or ecotourism, claim undue credit, distract from failures of governance or obviate the need for more comprehensive policy action Without necessarily contributing significantly to climate change mitigation, the pursuit of eco-island status can raise costs without raising income, distract from more pressing social and environmental problems, lead to competitive sustainability and provide green cover behind which communities can maintain unsustainable practices We argue that eco-islands do not successfully encourage wider sustainable development and climate change mitigation Instead, island communities may place themselves in eco-island traps Islands may invest in inefficient or ineffective renewable energy and sustainability initiatives in order to maintain illusory eco-island status for the benefit of ecotourism, thereby becoming trapped by the eco-label Islands may also chase the diminishing returns of ever-more comprehensive and difficult to achieve sustainability, becoming trapped into serving as eco-island exemplars We conclude by arguing that island communities should pursue locally contextualised development, potentially focused on climate change adaptation, rather than focus on an eco-island status that is oriented toward place branding and ecotourism

Abstract: In response to record levels of youth worklessness and socio-economic inequalities, the UK Coalition government has sought to scale back public spending through welfare cuts, emphasising self-reliance for financial provision. Education, as a tool for both personal progression and national economic competitiveness has risen up the political agenda, as the Government champions an ‘aspiration nation’ which rewards ‘hard-working’ people. Young people are increasingly tasked with looking toward the future, taking responsibility and ‘raising’ their aspirations in order to contribute through economic production as active citizen-workers. The power to achieve is placed firmly at the feet of individuals; yet broader inequalities which characterise the contemporary climate and powerfully shape the life chances of young people are overlooked. This paper explores the hopes and expectations of young people living in the north west of England as they think about their own future school-to-employment ambitions. Firstly, the paper reflects on the structural changes which have occurred within the local economy over the last generation before secondly, examining how the task of responding to changing labour market conditions is internalised by the young people, with ‘success’ (or lack thereof) framed as an individual enterprise. Young people are negotiating a set of contradictory beliefs. They acknowledge their own responsibility as future adult citizens whilst also reflecting on the role of government in addressing inequalities, as contemporary economic restructuring and fiscal policies are reducing opportunities. The paper makes visible the emotional burdens young people anticipate as they endeavour to achieve a successful future in the context of economic uncertainty and an individualising political milieu of aspiration.

Abstract: Since 2010, UK social policy has been dominated by austerity and welfare reform. These policy platforms sit on a wider set of shifts in policy framings, in terms of both understanding the issue of poverty and the most effective solutions to it. The resulting strategies employed have had significant impacts on children and their household incomes. Within the context of the changing nature of state welfare and the drive for more privatised (non-state) provision, this paper focuses on the effects of this on assistance to children in particular, employing charitable food banks as a case study. Empirical data from the UK's largest food bank organisation (the Trussell Trust Foodbank Network) are explored to chart the rise of this provision as an example of the increasingly important role charitable organisations are playing in caring for children in the face of a reduced welfare state. The results show that both in mean and absolute terms, provision of food parcels to children by charitable foodbanks has grown considerably since the impacts of austerity, welfare reform and rising costs of living kicked in (2012/13). The results indicate that foodbanks are playing a bigger role in the provision of care to children generally in this context, but particularly where childhood deprivation is high. This paper furthers geographical discussions about the changing nature of care for those in or at risk of poverty, focusing on the increased vulnerability of children that has resulted from recent social policy shifts. Food banks form a particularly high-profile example of the rising prominence of charitable care in the context of an increasingly reduced welfare state. By discussing some of the key challenges of this provision, the paper also facilitates critical thinking about the issues that the contemporary shift away from universal social security and public care services might raise.

Abstract: Within the past two decades, scholars of migration are beginning to understand the importance of incorporating cultural dimensions into research concerning migration decision-making practices. While it is recognised that economic, social and political factors are central in the formation of the desire to migrate, these factors alone are unable to explain the migratory decisions of many. However, although cultures of migration has emerged as the dominant approach for incorporating cultural facets of migration decision-making, I suggest this approach does not offer a holistic exploration into the impacts of ‘culture’ due to its reluctance to fully engage with the importance of place. This paper outlines a geographical imaginations approach that is able to account for the complexities of culture and place on migration decision-making, based on insights developed from interviews undertaken with Filipino nurses in the UK and in the Philippines. The approach is able to account for the impacts of culture and place on migration decision-making in four main, interlinking ways. It is sensitive to the influence of geographical scales, to ideas of culture and place, to understandings of both home and away, and is able to account for non-migration.

Abstract: Third places, such as business incubators, co-working spaces and work collectives, represent a new ecosystem of collaborative working practices in the creative economy that alters significantly the spatial distribution of work and the notion of ‘workplace’. Collaborative workplaces emerged after the gradual collapse of the stable employment paradigm that was one of the main features of the Keynesian welfare state and as a response to precarious working conditions that were augmented during the recent economic crisis and the subsequent recession. The paper contributes to the critical understanding of these new geographies of workplace and working conditions that third places manifest. Using data from a large survey about the economics and the working conditions of Greek designers and from four interviews with freelancers in work collectives and facilitators of co-working spaces, the paper sheds light on the socio-economic profile and the working conditions of Greek freelance designers that use co-working spaces and work collectives as means of reducing precarious working conditions and personal–professional risks. The results show that designers in third places, in contrast to freelancers who use formal workplaces or work from home, work long hours with poor pay and a large proportion have no safety net with regard to social security. Third places can be enclaves of the shadow economy and of very specific precarious working conditions. On the other hand, third places help freelance designers become more embedded to business networks, both local and foreign, rather than working in isolation. Networking effects between freelancers and self-employed who choose to work in third places usually result in greater opportunities for outsourcing and subcontracting and in more exports.

Abstract: Drawing on fieldwork conducted in Egypt between 2011 and 2015, this paper brings together recent discussions of over-research in refugee communities with theorisations of the ‘humanitarian infrastructure’, defined as the ensemble of technologies and spaces through which refugee migration and its governance are mediated and reproduced. It argues that engagements with the question of over-research in geography need to focus on the material conditions that make ‘access to the field’ possible, leading to some places and people being far more researched than others. In the case of refugee research in the Global South, these conditions are often linked to the infrastructures of international humanitarianism, from international hotels to translation services. In increasingly unstable and ‘closed’ research settings, such as refugee settlements in North Africa and the Middle East, researchers’ presence, it is shown, often both relies on and feeds into the local infrastructures and economies associated with the humanitarian enterprise. Implications of the analysis for debates on access and ‘closure’ in dangerous field contexts are discussed.

Abstract: This piece is a narrative representation of the experience of being black and female in the discipline of Geography in the UK and beyond. The aim is to share an ethnographic research on race in Geography, based on day-to-day experience in the academy. The piece expresses some of the morphologies of black geographical life in everyday academia. The material has originally been shared in coaching and mentoring relationships with me. The quotes included have been sanctioned for use in this particular piece and were sent to me in individual emails in January 2017.

Abstract: The impacts of austerity have permeated many aspects of everyday life in the UK, making this an important context in which to carry out social research. In this paper I consider some of the challenges that austerity poses to how we carry out research into everyday austerities and the ethical implications of researching in austere conditions. Drawing on debates from feminist and moral geographies on ethics, care and responsibility, and on first-hand experiences of researching families in the current economic climate, I argue that the everyday mechanics of research – such as recompensing participants, and the place of the researcher – acquire particular resonance in austerity. In doing so, I also reflect on the significance of social proximity and personal biography, and the ways in which researchers may become enveloped in participants' personal narratives in addition to providing support and care. In the conclusion I identify contributions made to understandings of care and responsibility in fieldwork, the ethics of researching in and about austerity, and the relational space of the field.

Abstract: There is growing emphasis in the UK on promoting research that creates a positive impact on society. Research Councils UK, the major national research funding agencies, have recently defined a framework for promoting and measuring this impact. This paper contributes to current debates about this developing agenda and, particularly, the problematic intersection of the impact agenda and co-production research approaches. I argue that processes of negotiating values, aims and power relations are essential to creating relevant, ethical impacts with research participants. In contrast to the emphasis placed on linear and top-down change by the impact agenda, my experience doing participatory action research with a UK community group shows that co-produced research produces different kinds of impacts: co-produced impacts are emergent and non-linear; responsive and relational; and empowering when rooted in reciprocal collaboration with research partners. This paper questions the implicit values the impact framework imposes on academic researchers and community partners, calling for continued critical engagement with the impact agenda to encourage the value-rational reflection, deliberation and collaboration needed for creating socially transformative research.

Abstract: Insider/outsider status has been recognised in geographical literature as an important aspect of positionality on which researchers should reflect critically. Based on my fieldwork experience in Dali, southwest China, this paper articulates an account of the co-existence of ‘insiderness’ and ‘outsiderness’ during the research process in a way that adds nuance to scholarly challenges to conceptions of insider/outsider status as an oppositional binary. I touch on several dilemmas that arose over the course of my fieldwork in my home town, such as working with local research assistants, ‘encountering’ a Western supervisor in the field and interviewing local people. I argue that interacting in the field with people from different ethnic, professional or socioeconomic characteristics dynamises a researcher's insider/outsider position, bringing his or her in-between position to the fore. In this paper, I highlight the tensions and negotiations arising from my experience of in-betweenness in Dali. I also point out several particularities of doing fieldwork in China by referring to Chinese ways of thinking and communication, and analyse how insiderness complicates the research process with particular regard to China. Finally, I conclude that working in the field is not only a process of data collection, but also a process of learning ‘who I am’.

Abstract: Emotions are increasingly being recognised and integrated into human geography and it has been highlighted that focusing on the ‘interrelatedness’ of the research process is crucial. By contextualising fieldwork within the life course of the researcher, greater acknowledgement of the ‘emotional labour’ involved in fieldwork can be highlighted. The author reflects on the ‘emotional geographies’ of conducting PhD research into significant health issues with participants who had recently suffered a heart attack in Fife, Scotland. This paper reveals emotions involved in this kind of research, drawing on perspectives from participants as well as the researcher. The author also draws attention to, and reflects on, the lack of engagement with researcher's emotional labour within formal academic structures, such as research training and ethics application processes. Reflecting on fieldwork experiences from a distance, the author discusses the influence and impact of her emotional experiences of fieldwork. This paper contributes to work concerned with emotions and fieldwork in geography and asserts that greater importance and value needs to be given to this type of emotion work as embedded and situated within researchers’ life courses.

Abstract: Families in the UK have played a key role within the ‘third way’ policy regimes of the past two decades, promising to act as arenas of citizenship between the individual and the market. Such a framing has always posed questions about which families are imagined to be capable of this role, with competing constructions of ‘risky’ and ‘resourceful’ families within social policy discourses. Over the past five years UK families have been hit with an array of cuts and reforms to state benefits and other forms of government support. This paper argues that, within this context of austerity, problematic binary constructions in policy discourses are increasing. Certain families and households are relied on to deliver aspects of care, while others are vilified as unstable and ‘troubled’, in ways that view families as individualised and removed from their wider geographies. Against this background it is argued that detailed geographical research into the everyday lives of disadvantaged families can talk back to these powerful representations. This means paying attention to the ways that families navigate everyday landscapes of care, both material and emotional, which are in turn shaped by the unequal resources available, including increasingly unevenly distributed state services.

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to meet a repeated challenge that comes from within postcolonial writing: to turn postcolonial theory and strategies ‘inward’, and to examine our postcoloniality. Specifically I use social class to interrogate the idea of western privilege in a postcolonial context, examining whether postcolonialism can enable the politics of class to intersect with the politics of ‘Otherness’ in such a way to open up ethnography to a more ethical geographical praxis. The paper first presents a genealogy of the figure of the privileged western researcher, drawing attention to the historical contingency within subsequent issues of positionality in the South. Taking this figure, the discussion is then guided by two ‘heteros’ of postcolonial writing – heterogeneity and heterotemporality – to disrupt the assumption of historical contingency. I use my own class history as a heterotemporality to insist on a more heterogeneous conceptualisation of western postcoloniality that accounts for the varied experiences of the British working classes. The paper closes with the crucial question of what this largely theoretical work might offer the empirical business of ethnography in (especially) poor areas of the South, asking explicitly: can class, like gender and ethnicity, qualify western privilege in a way that reduces researcher–researched power imbalance? The main argument made is that geography's imperial past is an elite historiography that cannot draw the contours of western researcher relations with postcolonial ‘Others’. Consequently, I propose social class as an aspect of subjectivity that moves hyper self-reflexivity towards a more ethical praxis across difference.

Abstract: Activities utilising online tools are an increasingly visible part of our everyday lives, providing new subjects, objects and relationships - essentially new landscapes - for research, as well as new conceptual and methodological challenges for researchers. In parallel, calls for collaborative interdisciplinary, even transdisciplinary, research are increasing. Yet practical guidance and critical reflection on the challenges and opportunities of conducting collaborative research online, particularly in emergent areas, is limited. In response, this paper details what we term the 'creative construction' involved in a collaborative project building an exploratory database of more than 4000 food sharing activities in 100 cities that utilise internet and digital technologies in some way (ICT mediated for brevity) to pursue their goals. The research was undertaken by an international team of researchers, including geographers, which utilised a combination of reflexive coding and online collaboration to develop a system for exploring the practice and performance of ICT-mediated food sharing in cities. This paper will unpack the black box of using the internet as a source of data about emergent practices and provide critical reflection on that highly negotiated and essentially handcrafted process. While the substance of the paper focuses on the under-determined realm of food sharing, a site where it is claimed that ICT is transforming practices, the issues raised have resonance far beyond the specificities of this particular endeavour. While challenging, we argue that handcrafting systems for navigating emergent online data is vital, not least to render visible the complexities and contestations around definition, categorisation and translation.

Abstract: What is the difference between the terms ‘Roma’, ‘gypsies’, ‘nomads’ and ‘Travellers’? These are a few of the names that are used to refer to the Roma minority in scholarly research, political speeches and the media. Most of the Romani studies literature on Roma labels and the state's categorisation underscores how these often derogatory denominations reflect the widespread stigmatisation of these people and, in turn, perpetuate regimes of exclusion and segregation. However, this literature implicitly conceives of language as purely functional to exclusion, overlooking the ways in which the construction and use of these labels have also created the conditions for the emergence of practices of resistance. This limitation is mainly due to the fact that these works follow a Foucauldian approach, which tends to overemphasise the importance of dominant discourses subjecting the individual, and to downplay the presence of generative and creative practices. I suggest integrating this approach with the notion of ‘assemblage’ as developed by Deleuze and Guattari, which entails both ordering and territorialising dynamics together with destabilising moves. By adopting this lens, the paper discusses the effects of two different Roma naming assemblages: on the one hand, the glossary published by the Council of Europe (CoE) that carefully defines and differentiates all the terms used for the Roma, and, on the other, the French and Italian governments' discourses that ambiguously lump together all these different denominations. Although at first sight it may appear that the latter bolsters discriminatory and segregating policies, while the former supports more inclusionary measures, by drawing on policy-documents analysis and in-depth interviews with pro-Roma advocacy group members, I show that both these naming assemblages actually produce exclusionary as well as resisting effects.

Abstract: Like many universities across South Africa, in 2015 Rhodes University students occupied campus buildings, marched on management meetings and struggled in solidarity with university staff. Earlier that year, RhodesMustFall, a University of Cape Town (UCT) campaign against a statue of the British colonialist, turned into a movement against the imperialism he represented. For the first time since the anti-apartheid movement, South African students were grabbing international headlines, as they struggled for universal access to an education which does not reproduce the imperial logic their parents’ generation fought to dismantle. This chapter looks at the South African origins of this decolonising movement in higher education as it spread to campuses in the UK and USA.

Abstract: This commentary examines gendered and spatial inequalities that are increasing under a regime of austerity in the United Kingdom. It is concerned with how inequalities intersect and interact across space and populations. A sense of urgency is vital when discussing the effects of austerity on regions and local communities; five years of cuts have had devastating effects on many deprived areas. An examination of the specific risks to women under austerity is essential. The commentary will be of interest to geographers concerned with the intersections of gender, economy and place. This paper proposes a feminist political economy perspective for the analysis of austerity and place, to acknowledge the centrality of gendered political economy, absent from many geographical studies of austerity.

Abstract: In this paper, we discuss the politics of fieldwork in urban Pakistan and in doing so draw attention to the role of research assistants (RAs) in the production of knowledge. The discussion explores how the roles, reflexivity and positionality of our three Muslim female RAs adds depth to our understanding of fieldwork in a culturally and politically charged urban setting where everyday violence combined with wealth asymmetries and anxieties over religious identity add layers of complexity in researcher–respondent working relationships. This generates a process of negotiation over ethical dilemmas that are not easily surmounted and complicates how we think about transformations in the production of knowledge. We use the notion of the ‘triple subjectivity’ of fieldwork to problematise the positionality of researchers and the people they seek to represent through translations of language, contexts and encounters. Moreover, we underscore that the positionality of our RAs was strongly influenced by religion, ethnicity and class. Notably, state directives have played an important role in the way relationships are forged in the field, whereby ethnic–religious minorities have been categorised and treated in distinct ways. Our RAs’ knowledge of marginalised communities increased significantly with time spent in the field, but they still retained specific understandings of difference. This awareness was a crucial learning experience and prompted our RAs to become mindful of their own investment and contribution to the process of ethnographic engagements. Our objective in this paper is to reveal the tensions and possibilities generated by the triple subjectivities involved in our fieldwork in terms of their implications for transformations of research. Above all, our RAs’ reflections demonstrate that we as researchers must remain sensitive to the emotions and anxieties of those we work alongside.

Abstract: In this paper, we argue for repositioning geographies of children, youth and families at the centre rather than at the periphery of discussions about the economy. This not only reveals what contemporary and lived experiences of economic change feel and look like, but also exposes deeper problematics about the geographically and socially uneven nature of neoliberalism and the austere state. This editorial also introduces a collection which, when taken together, explores intersections between everyday life and austerity, with children, youth and families as the focus of inquiry. Adopting a multi-scalar approach, the collected papers ‘zoom in’ to explore the everyday realities of austere life in the UK in order to refract our understanding of the broader condition of economic change and concomitant austerity measures. Simultaneously, and speaking to a wider political agenda, the collection can be scaled up, or the framing ‘zoomed out’, to question and actively address the injustices of austerity and neoliberal retrenchment.

Abstract: The Arctic ice edge highlights deliberations over the region's futures, either as explicit policy and research problems, or as implicit controls and innovations. This exploratory paper proposes a narrative approach to examine ontological security, identifying a common epistemic structure of knowing the ice edge in multiple ways, and of devising associated policy. These epistemic narratives weave discourse (ideas, concepts and knowledge) and scale (as relationships, networks and timelines) to provide coordinate systems of purpose and identity that unfold as the material world. Surreptitious, un-narrated or interfering changes can produce ontological insecurities, often leading to closed decisions in authoritarian forums. Research and policy designed for complexity anticipate ontological insecurities through democratic and deliberative narratives of earth system processes.

Abstract: Climate action is increasingly marked by the responsibilisation of individuals. In this context, carbon footprints have gained traction as a means of both quantifying individual responsibility for climate change and for motivating individual action through changes in behaviour. However, these mechanisms raise questions for climate justice in terms of how such moral and political responsibility is configured and distributed within the city. Drawing on a case study of Hong Kong, this paper explores the ways in which carbon footprinting configures responsibility for climate action by juxtaposing carbon footprints and the associated techniques of quantification alongside a discussion of the everyday practices of residents in a low-income neighbourhood. It argues that carbon footprints offer important opportunities for measuring the impacts of carbon-intensive activities and generating discussions about the allocation of responsibility for addressing climate change. However, it also demonstrates that individual carbon footprints ignore the uneven nature of carbon emissions in cities as well as obscuring important questions about the roles and responsibilities of other actors. In conclusion, the paper calls for an approach centred on common but differentiated responsibilities for carbon production and consumption to enable a more nuanced configuration of climate justice in the city.

Abstract: Varieties of sound-based research methods have been used for exploring participants’ relations with environment, space and place. For example, soundwalking, field recording and audio guides have all been employed to help research participants become attuned to the sonic environment. Some of these have been used as participant-led approaches, enabling participants to devise walking routes and produce their own soundscape compositions. This paper explores these various uses and reports on two primary research collaborations that adopt mobile, participant-led approaches, in which participants negotiate the precise nature of the research collaboration. Furthermore, it examines diverse methods for disseminating soundscape recordings that emerge from such projects. The examples presented here reveal that sound-based research can be employed to do more than attune participants to sonic environments. This research highlights instances of productive, participant led research that reveal diverse strategies for disseminating this work. There are many channels and media through which sound work can be made available to a wider audience, across disciplines and beyond academia. Reflexively adopted, dissemination through web and social media, exhibition spaces and other public events offer researchers and their participants a performative complement to the publication of work via journal articles.

Abstract: The medium by which ethnographic notes are taken within the field is changing. Increasingly researchers are turning to jotting short notes using smartphone notation apps, leaving pen and paper behind. While this has practical benefits, there is a need to recognise explicitly how the medium by which notes are taken can influence the content, style and practice of contemporaneous ethnographic note-taking. There is a place-based contingency to the acceptability of the smartphone as a research tool; phones carry different social connotations to paper notebooks, and can act to reinforce difference, making statements of privilege, power and culture. The medium by which fieldnotes are taken actively impacts the field and is capable of influencing relationships with participants and altering the power dynamic of research. The changing tools of note-taking also result in a changing visibility of the act of writing, bringing additional challenges to managing consent and ensuring the ethicality of research.

Abstract: Transdisciplinary research has increasingly been emphasised as desirable, particularly for managing complex issues that exist within socio-political environmental systems. However, achieving true transdisciplinarity, both in academia and practice, has proved challenging. In the case of natural disasters, the risk of not acknowledging the inherent complexity has the potential to increase the risk of fatalities, damage to property and perpetuate poor disaster management. The example of flooding in Atlasville, Ekurhuleni (South Africa) is used to make a case for the usefulness of transdisciplinary approaches. Understanding and responding to local flooding episodes is explored through comparing two hypothetical methodological frameworks – a divided and a united approach. The divided (disciplinary) approach, based on typical disaster response patterns, separated investigations into environmental, government and social factors. In contrast, the united approach, based on a transdisciplinary model, investigated the flooding context along non-traditional lines including: drivers; absorptive and adaptive capacity; and mitigation and preparation. The research highlights that reframing the flooding problem along transdisciplinary lines forces researchers to analyse the context more comprehensively as isolated analyses are unable to determine or consider the cumulative impacts of individual phenomena. The transformative potential of the transdisciplinary findings indicates that means of translating this hypothetical analysis into reality are urgently required because of the important implications transdisciplinary approaches have for disaster risk reduction, and for managing other complex issues.