Transdisciplinary research: Exploring environmental craft-based participatory methods for co-creative historical reimagining

Although craft and design scholarship has long recognized making as a mode of inquiry and the craftsperson as an epistemic agent, such approaches remain largely absent from transdisciplinary research (TDR). This article addresses that gap by examining how traditional rural craft can operate as a method of inquiry within TDR, drawing on a collaborative project at the Hafod/Morfa Copperworks in South Wales (United Kingdom). In this project, university researchers, a professional basket maker and community participants co-created a split hazel coal basket, using the practice of making to bring archival fragments, ecological knowledge and local memories into dialogue. Rather than treating craft as a tool for engagement, the study shows how embodied skill, material responsiveness and collaborative experimentation generate knowledge across academic, ecological and community domains.