Towards a Relational Ethics Protocol for Transdisciplinary Research in the Anthropocene

An international group of about 20 visual artists and socio-legal activist-scholars are developing in a collaborative journey a Relational Ethics Protocol for Transdisciplinary Research in the Anthropocene. This initiative, hosted as part of Dr. Lieselotte Viaene’s Klaus Töpfer Sustainability Fellowship at RIFS seeks to rethink how artists and academics work together ethically across academia, artistic practice, and social movements. A four-day Living Lab in the mountains above Kathmandu, Nepal, will be the central element in this research process. Artists and academics bring essential ways of knowing, sensing, listening, and communicating that are often absent from conventional research ethics.

In the context of the Anthropocene, transdisciplinary research engaging with climate change, extractive economies, and socio-environmental conflicts increasingly calls for new ethical frameworks. While participatory and co-creative approaches are now widely encouraged, they often remain insufficiently grounded in practices of relational responsibility, accountability, and critical care, particularly in collaborations involving Indigenous peoples, Afro-descendant communities, Dalit communities, and other historically marginalized groups.

At the same time, innovative forms of audiovisual and artistic research communication are expanding the ways in which knowledge about the more-than-human world is produced and shared.  These practices raise urgent ethical questions: How to engage ethically with more-than-human entities as subjects rather than objects of research? How to navigate long-term responsibilities and relationships beyond project cycles? How to address power asymmetries embedded in funding schemes, academic structures, and authorship practices?

Attendance is by invitation only. 

The living lab will be held in Nargakot, Nepal.