Resumen:
This Dissertation set out to understand the role of interpersonal organisational
communication processes in making sense of transdisciplinarity in inter-university
cooperation programs for development. The study focused on a Bolivian university -
Universidad Católica Boliviana- implementing an academic cooperation program (IUC
for short) with the Flemish University Cooperation for development (VLIR-UOS) from
Belgium. This program encouraged the co-creation of "Transdisciplinary Learning
Communities" (TLC for short) to produce knowledge and practices among academic and
non-academic stakeholders to answer to local development complex issues. However, the
novelty and the challenging nature of this approach to existing structures and ways of
functioning within a university context triggered considerable ambiguity that prompted
endless discussions about the definition and roll-out of the TLC. Therefore, a
sensemaking analysis was conducted to reveal (1) the role of interpersonal organisational
communication in co-creating Transdisciplinary Learning Communities that challenge
existing structures and ways of functioning within a university context; (2) the role of
interpersonal organisational communication in connecting frames of academic and nonacademic stakeholders in order to co-create transdisciplinary answers to complex issues
of local development. The research was conducted between 2017 and 2022 through the
case study of the Bolivian IUC. It combined first-person action research with an
ethnographic approach and applied an abductive strategy of data collection and analysis.
Different methods (group discussions, individual semi-structured interviews,
participative observation and document analysis) contributed to triangulating the data
analysed through the coding and categorizing process. The study was developed in three
main stages in different locations in Bolivia followed by a self-reflective analysis.
Grounded in this research, interpersonal organisational communication was revealed to
be a cornerstone in making sense of transdisciplinarity in inter-university cooperation for
development, because of the continuity and the quality of interactions
(symmetrical/asymmetrical); the shared experiences conducted by the actors, which not
only enhanced the symmetrical interactions but also the sense of becoming more
collaborative and trans-passing boundaries; and the dialogical communication, where the
diversity of actors and perspectives could be respected and encouraged in order to build
shared understandings and collaborative initiatives.
Against this backdrop, this work expects to contribute to the reflection and practice of
communication to successfully appropriate and co-create a transdisciplinary initiative in
future university cooperation programs for development.
