Barry, Andrew Barry;
Born, Georgina;
(2013)
Interdisciplinarity: Reconfigurations of the Social and Natural Sciences.
In: Barry, AB and Born, G, (eds.)
Interdisciplinarity: Reconfigurations of the Social and Natural Sciences.
(pp. 1-56).
Routledge: London, UK.
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Abstract
The idea of discipline opens up a nexus of meaning. Disciplines discipline disciples.1 A commitment to a discipline is a way of ensuring that certain disciplinary methods and concepts are used rigorously and that undisciplined and undisciplinary objects, methods and concepts are ruled out. By contrast, ideas of interdisciplinarity imply a variety of boundary transgressions, in which the disciplinary and disciplining rules, trainings and subjectivities given by existing knowledge corpuses are put aside. In this introduction we interrogate the current preoccupation with interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity, in particular the ascendance in recent years of a particular discourse on interdisciplinarity where it is associated with a more generalised transformation in the relations between science, technology and society. We are therefore less concerned with interdisciplinarity in general than with the contemporary formation of interdisciplinarity: how it has come to be seen as a solution to a series of current problems, in particular the relations between science and society, the development of accountability, and the need to foster innovation in the knowledge economy. The present situation, we will suggest, can be understood as a problematisation: 2 the question of whether a given knowledge practice is too disciplinary, or interdisciplinary, or not disciplinary enough has become an issue and an object of enquiry for governments, funding agencies and researchers.
| Type: | Book chapter |
|---|---|
| Title: | Interdisciplinarity: Reconfigurations of the Social and Natural Sciences |
| ISBN-13: | 9780203584279 |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.4324/9780203584279 |
| Publisher version: | https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.432... |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher's terms and conditions. |
| Keywords: | Environment and Sustainability, Geography, Humanities, Politics & International Relations, Social Sciences |
| UCL classification: | UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10041596 |
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