ABSTRACT The very beginning of collaborative research endeavors often lies in politically difficult and practically challenging entanglements. The purpose of this paper is to empirically capture and theoretically conceptualize these entanglements. I trace the power-driven prefiguration of my own role in a transdisciplinary project and argue that the early moments (the ‘phase zero’) of collaborative research are entwined with a tacit, tactical, and relational form of control. In a process that I call ‘scripting control,’ actors seek to co-determine what a project may become, without being able to forecast or backcast a pathway to get there. Collaborators mutually launch counter-scripts and tacitly shape the possibility space that constrains or enables subsequent interactions. My own transdisciplinary involvement illustrates, however, that counter-scripts proposed by latecomers can fail if the project has passed the phase zero. This argument extends the current use of scripts in Science and Technology Studies to also involve temporal power dynamics. Moreover, in sustainability studies, my argument contributes to a growing critique against the imaginary of co-design, which promotes a managerial idea of ordering collaborative processes in a socially and epistemically inclusive way.

中文翻译：

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合作研究之前的控制——为什么零阶段不是共同设计而是脚本化的

摘要 合作研究努力的开始往往在于政治上的困难和实际具有挑战性的纠葛。本文的目的是从经验上捕捉这些纠缠并在理论上对其进行概念化。我追溯了我自己在跨学科项目中的角色的权力驱动预兆，并认为合作研究的早期时刻（“零阶段”）与一种默契的、战术性的和关系性的控制形式交织在一起。在我称之为“脚本控制”的过程中，参与者寻求共同确定项目可能会变成什么样，但无法预测或回溯到达那里的途径。合作者相互发起反脚本，并默认塑造限制或启用后续交互的可能性空间。然而，我自己的跨学科参与表明，如果项目已经通过了零阶段，后来者提出的反方案可能会失败。这个论点将当前在科学和技术研究中使用的脚本扩展到还涉及时间权力动态。此外，在可持续性研究中，我的论点引发了对协同设计想象的越来越多的批评，协同设计促进了以社会和认知包容的方式对协作过程进行排序的管理理念。