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Rangelands and the people who live and work in them confront growing complex and "wicked" challenges in the face of interacting environmental, demographic, socio-cultural, economic and political changes. To address these challenges, rangeland scientists increasingly turn to transdisciplinary research approaches —those that span multiple disciplines and engage diverse social actors in the research process —to co-produce actionable knowledge for living with complexity and managing wicked problems. We use a collaborative auto-ethnographic approach to tell stories of our 30-year journey of studying, collaborating and co-producing knowledge with pastoralists and ranchers across three continents. As we reflect on our learnings through the lenses of feminist, decolonial, and Indigenous research theories, methodologies, knowledges, and ethics, we ask how these approaches can be meaningfully applied to pastoral and ranching systems. We celebrate the inherent strengths of rangeland research as an applied and place-based science. Yet, both the literature and our experiences reveal limitations in current applications of transdisciplinary knowledge co-production, largely attributable to inequitable power relations and inadequate ethical frameworks. Such limitations appear rooted in the colonial and productivist paradigms and practices that continue to dominate mainstream academic and research institutions. To achieve more effective and enduring rangeland outcomes, mainstream institutions could transform in ways that enable rather than constrain boundary-spanning research partnerships that center genuine (not transactional) reciprocal relationships with pastoralist communities and Tribal Nations. We envision a future where such partnerships take root in ethical frameworks that respect pastoralists' rights and knowledge sovereignty, consider multi-generational implications of research practices and outcomes, and call for care-full research guided by a critical decolonial approach that considers Indigenous and community concepts o f relevance, time, reciprocity, respect, appropriate communication and power relations.