The world is facing interconnected socio-ecological crises such as climate change, economic inequality, and industrial pollution. While scientific knowledge is indispensable for addressing these crises, science is also deeply implicated in their production and acceleration. In response, calls for “doing science differently” highlight the need to transform the institutional and methodological status quo in academia. Transdisciplinarity has emerged as a particularly prominent approach promising more inclusive and just forms of knowledge production. Yet, implementing transdisciplinarity in practice proves difficult and is often marked by failure. Based on a long-term collaboration with fishing communities in Bahia, Brazil, this talk examines the complexities involved in attempts to reconfigure scientific practice beyond the status quo.