Ch 2: Interdisciplinarity (redux)
i can't figure out how to edit the other posting, and i didn't get that far in the chapter yesterday, so here i am starting over...
seminal early reference book on interdisc: Interdisciplinarity: Problems of teaching and research in universities (CERI 1972)--result of first international seminar on interdisciplinarity.
in 80s and 90s, increased demand for interdisc research outside university: "This work was asked to address local and global problems whose solutions could be seen to lie in the hands of all segments of society." p.28
-endogenous interdisc: concern with producing new knowledge
-exogenous interdisc: demands university fulfills social mission, challenges the demarcations of disciplines as apply to 'real life'
INSTRUMENTAL VS CONCEPTUAL INTERDISC
-instrumental interdisc: completely pragmatic bringing together/borrowing of methods and tools across disciplines to solve a particular, often real-world problem. no interest in creating new knowledge, synthesizing new theory/concepts/analyses.
-conceptual interdisc:
a) interdisc as dependent upon disciplines
b) interdisc as an epistemological critique of disciplinarity
i) search for unity of knowledge (transdisciplinarity)
ii) critical interdisciplinarity: politicized transformative knowledge (critical of disc and the ideal of unity)
let's look at each...
a) interdisc as dependent on disciplines: Donald Campbell (1969) a proponent (social psych)--embraces fissioning knowledge into little subspecialties--no single scholar can capture competence in an entire discipline; that comes from collections of scholars in a community of a discipline from overlapping little subspecialties. doesn't argue against epistemological assumptions of disciplinarity, but critical of administation/structure of disciplinarity. wants to reorganize to support disciplines and foster "the flourishing of narrow interdisciplinary specialties" p.32 (p.348 in his book).
disciplines are ok, specialization is ok, disciplines need to recognize they are interdependent re checks and balances on their findings (a kind of triangulation concept)
Klein (1990) suggests that until interdisc becomes a disc, it isn't respected in academy. but in process of becoming a disc, it lookses flexibility and malleability. what's good about a discipline: "stable epistemic community and agreement upon what constitutes excellence in a field" (p.33 here, p.107 in Klein), what's bad about a disc: "exclusivity, self-containment, and the setting of strict paradigm controls"--threatening development of knowledge p.33. but interdisc can easily be 'undisciplined'-superficial, lack of rigour or process for establishing validity. Klein proposes "multimodality": interdisc uses different modes of inquiry: theory, history, empirical work... to address complexity
b) interdisc as challenge to disciplines: criticisms of disciplines: "fragmenting and dislocating knowledge, for creating, through specialization, useless units of knowledge having no bearing or application to real social concerns or to the evolution of human thought." p.34 leads to exclusivity & rigidity. related to scientization of knowledge, notions of 'objectivity'. administration of knowledge linked to politics and power, serves interest of status quo. prevents evolution and politicization of knowledge. works to suppress potential of public scholarship: "non-hierarchical, publicly oriented, and historically conscious" p.35
i) transdisciplinarity: new unified theory of knowledge. people have different ideas about what that transdisciplinary unity of knowledge looks like. some say will come from philosophy (beginnings and foundations). trans as a "specific attitude in regards to the sciences, an attitude oriented toward comprehending the contributions of each discipline from the perspective of man's search for meaning, which is itself suprascientific because inherently human" p.35 (from Kockelmans 1979a, p.153-4).
ii) critical interdisciplinarity: quest for critical and transformative knowledge. ideal of transdisc is one aspect of the ideal of science--not achieved. notion of unity of knowledge: objectivist epistemology and pedagogy: consequences (Kavaloski 1979):
-human knoweldge reduced to body of material to consume
-students become intellectual consumers
-teachers are privileged agents of knowledge
must take account not just of content but form and processes of knowledge and education. return education to dialogue between students and teachers, university as place of collective production of learning. interdisc education as a process of becoming more human, realizing human nature.
potential to create critical discourse (Kroker), responsive to social and political needs.
"for the purposes of identifying and resolving problems of conducting interdisciplinary research, interdisciplinarity is best understood not as one thing but as a variety of diggerent ways of examining - and perhaps confronting - the establishment, content, parameters and powers of disciplines and the prevailing approaches to research they engender. In this context, interdisciplinarity means taking issue with the registeres of one or more disciplines and with whatever is implied in the development, substance, and maintenance of these registers." p.38-9.
interdisc can arise when...
-researchers argue a topic has been neglected (eg, canadian studies). doesn't require challenge to prevailing perspectives & methodologies of disciplines
-the constellation of topics, methods, perspectives that's dominant in a discipline is challenged (eg, cultural studies)
-people from a discipline come to appreciate similarities in perspective or intrests between theirs and other disciplines (eg, political economy, environmental studies). doesn't necessarily reject discipline of origin
-researchers question value of institutional factors that support divisions between disciplines
-researchers raise issues about relationship between disciplinarity and systems of institutional and social power (eg, poststructuralism). conceptual interdisc
-some researchers feel too constrained by boundaries of the discipline or restrictions of its register (eg, communication)
in this book, chose to view interdisc as: "any challenge to the limitations of premisses of the prevailing organization of knowledge or its representation in an institutionally recognized form." p.43
seminal early reference book on interdisc: Interdisciplinarity: Problems of teaching and research in universities (CERI 1972)--result of first international seminar on interdisciplinarity.
in 80s and 90s, increased demand for interdisc research outside university: "This work was asked to address local and global problems whose solutions could be seen to lie in the hands of all segments of society." p.28
-endogenous interdisc: concern with producing new knowledge
-exogenous interdisc: demands university fulfills social mission, challenges the demarcations of disciplines as apply to 'real life'
INSTRUMENTAL VS CONCEPTUAL INTERDISC
-instrumental interdisc: completely pragmatic bringing together/borrowing of methods and tools across disciplines to solve a particular, often real-world problem. no interest in creating new knowledge, synthesizing new theory/concepts/analyses.
-conceptual interdisc:
a) interdisc as dependent upon disciplines
b) interdisc as an epistemological critique of disciplinarity
i) search for unity of knowledge (transdisciplinarity)
ii) critical interdisciplinarity: politicized transformative knowledge (critical of disc and the ideal of unity)
let's look at each...
a) interdisc as dependent on disciplines: Donald Campbell (1969) a proponent (social psych)--embraces fissioning knowledge into little subspecialties--no single scholar can capture competence in an entire discipline; that comes from collections of scholars in a community of a discipline from overlapping little subspecialties. doesn't argue against epistemological assumptions of disciplinarity, but critical of administation/structure of disciplinarity. wants to reorganize to support disciplines and foster "the flourishing of narrow interdisciplinary specialties" p.32 (p.348 in his book).
disciplines are ok, specialization is ok, disciplines need to recognize they are interdependent re checks and balances on their findings (a kind of triangulation concept)
Klein (1990) suggests that until interdisc becomes a disc, it isn't respected in academy. but in process of becoming a disc, it lookses flexibility and malleability. what's good about a discipline: "stable epistemic community and agreement upon what constitutes excellence in a field" (p.33 here, p.107 in Klein), what's bad about a disc: "exclusivity, self-containment, and the setting of strict paradigm controls"--threatening development of knowledge p.33. but interdisc can easily be 'undisciplined'-superficial, lack of rigour or process for establishing validity. Klein proposes "multimodality": interdisc uses different modes of inquiry: theory, history, empirical work... to address complexity
b) interdisc as challenge to disciplines: criticisms of disciplines: "fragmenting and dislocating knowledge, for creating, through specialization, useless units of knowledge having no bearing or application to real social concerns or to the evolution of human thought." p.34 leads to exclusivity & rigidity. related to scientization of knowledge, notions of 'objectivity'. administration of knowledge linked to politics and power, serves interest of status quo. prevents evolution and politicization of knowledge. works to suppress potential of public scholarship: "non-hierarchical, publicly oriented, and historically conscious" p.35
i) transdisciplinarity: new unified theory of knowledge. people have different ideas about what that transdisciplinary unity of knowledge looks like. some say will come from philosophy (beginnings and foundations). trans as a "specific attitude in regards to the sciences, an attitude oriented toward comprehending the contributions of each discipline from the perspective of man's search for meaning, which is itself suprascientific because inherently human" p.35 (from Kockelmans 1979a, p.153-4).
ii) critical interdisciplinarity: quest for critical and transformative knowledge. ideal of transdisc is one aspect of the ideal of science--not achieved. notion of unity of knowledge: objectivist epistemology and pedagogy: consequences (Kavaloski 1979):
-human knoweldge reduced to body of material to consume
-students become intellectual consumers
-teachers are privileged agents of knowledge
must take account not just of content but form and processes of knowledge and education. return education to dialogue between students and teachers, university as place of collective production of learning. interdisc education as a process of becoming more human, realizing human nature.
potential to create critical discourse (Kroker), responsive to social and political needs.
"for the purposes of identifying and resolving problems of conducting interdisciplinary research, interdisciplinarity is best understood not as one thing but as a variety of diggerent ways of examining - and perhaps confronting - the establishment, content, parameters and powers of disciplines and the prevailing approaches to research they engender. In this context, interdisciplinarity means taking issue with the registeres of one or more disciplines and with whatever is implied in the development, substance, and maintenance of these registers." p.38-9.
interdisc can arise when...
-researchers argue a topic has been neglected (eg, canadian studies). doesn't require challenge to prevailing perspectives & methodologies of disciplines
-the constellation of topics, methods, perspectives that's dominant in a discipline is challenged (eg, cultural studies)
-people from a discipline come to appreciate similarities in perspective or intrests between theirs and other disciplines (eg, political economy, environmental studies). doesn't necessarily reject discipline of origin
-researchers question value of institutional factors that support divisions between disciplines
-researchers raise issues about relationship between disciplinarity and systems of institutional and social power (eg, poststructuralism). conceptual interdisc
-some researchers feel too constrained by boundaries of the discipline or restrictions of its register (eg, communication)
in this book, chose to view interdisc as: "any challenge to the limitations of premisses of the prevailing organization of knowledge or its representation in an institutionally recognized form." p.43