im941 - Adventures in Interdisciplinarity
IM941
Adventures in Interdisciplinary Research: Knowledge, Practice, Values
15/20/30 (CORE) CATS - (7.5/10/15 ECTS)
Optional module for all CIM taught PG students
TERM 1
In an increasingly complex and changing world, researchers inside and outside the academy are constantly facing challenges that require collaborating and thinking across and beyond disciplinary boundaries. Interdisciplinary skills are said to improve not only creativity and critical thinking but also academic performance and employability.
But what is interdisciplinarity?
The module will combine an introduction to a range of theoretical and practical approaches to interdisciplinary research with a critical evaluation of the challenges and advantages of developing methods and approaches to work across and in-between disciplines. The discussion of cases and examples will play a core role.
Module Convenor - Professor Celia Lury and Dr Carla Washbourne
Assessment
For 15 CATS: Portfolio submission with interdisciplinary artefact and presentation, written submission (2000 words) (100%)
For 20 CATS: Reflective diary (30%), portfolio submission with interdisciplinary artefact and presentation, written submission (2000 words) (70%)
For 30 CATS: Reflective diary (30%), portfolio submission with interdisciplinary artefact and presentation, written submission (3000 words) (70%)
Indicative Syllabus
Week One: What is a discipline? What is interdisciplinarity? How do disciplines divide the world? Is there a hierarchy of disciplines? A critical consideration of problem spaces, wicked problems, the politics of openness, and the politics of collaborative research. Histories of interdisciplinarity.
Week Two: Who does interdisciplinary research - where and how? Changing knowledge infrastructures, the knowledge economy and the internalization of science by society. Inter-, multi-, cross-, trans–interdisciplinary research.
Week Three: The politics of interdisciplinarity , the university today and the geo-politics of methodology
Week Four: Questions of methodology and ethics Questions of methodology, epistemology, ethics and practice
Week Five: Workshop - the challenges of doing interdisciplinarity Exploring the concepts, methods and approaches you are using in your studies from a variety of interdisciplinary perspectives
Week Six: Reading Week
Week Seven: Workshop - the challenges of doing interdisciplinarity
Week Eight: Workshop - the challenges of doing interdisciplinarity
Week Nine: Workshop - the challenges of doing interdisciplinarity
Week Ten: What are the values of interdisciplinarity? What is interdisciplinarity good for and why does it matter?
Illustrative Bibliography
Barry, A., Born, G. and Weszkalnys, G. (2008) Logics of interdisciplinarity, Economy and Society, 37(1): 20-49.
Barry, A and Born G (eds) (2013) Interdisciplinarity: Reconfigurations of the Social and Natural Sciences, Abingdon: Routledge.
Bhabdar, B. (2016) The Stern Review. LRB Blog: URL:
Boix Mansilla, V., Lamont, M. and Sato, K. (2016) Shared cognitive-emotional-interactional platforms: markers and conditions for successful interdisciplinary collaborations鈥�, Science, Technology & Human Values, 41(4): 571-612.
Cazeaux, C. (2008). Inherently interdisciplinary: four perspectives on practice-based research鈥�, Journal of Visual Arts Practice 7(2), 107-32
Cooke, B., Kothari, U. (2001) Participation – the new tyranny? London: Zed Books.
Gad, C. and Bruun Jensen, C. (2016) Lateral concepts, Engaging Science, Technology, and Society 2: 3-12.
Kelly, A. H. and McGoey, L. (2018) 'Facts, power and global evidence: a new empire of truth' Economy and Society, 47:1, 1-26.
Kimbell, L. (2015) Rethinking design thinking, Part I, Design and Culture, 3(3): 285-306.
Kukutai, T., Taylor, J. (2016) Indigenous Data Sovereignty: Toward an Agenda. Canberra: Australian National University Press.
Ledford, H. (2015) How to solve the world鈥檚 biggest problems. Nature 525 (7569)
Lury, C. and Wakeford, N. (eds.) (2012) Inventive Methods: The Happening of the Social, London: Routledge.
Lury, C. et al eds. (2018) Routledge International Handbook of Interdisciplinary Methods, Routledge, London
Marres, N. et al. eds (2018) Inventing the Social, Mattering Press, Manchester.
Nowotny, H., Scott, P. and Gibbons, M. (2001) Re-thinking Science: Knowledge and the Public in an Age of Uncertainty. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Parker, M. and Kingori, P. (2016) Good and Bad Research Collaborations: Researchers鈥� Views on Science and Ethics
in Global Health Research. PLoS ONE 11(10): e0163579.
Puig de la Bellacasa, M. (2017) Matters of Care: Speculative Ethics in More Than Human Worlds, University of Minnesota Press.
Ricuarte, P. (2019) Data epistemologies, the coloniality of power, and resistance, Television & Society, 18 (4): 435-455.
Smith, L. T. (2012) Decolonising Methodologies. London: Zed Books.
Tejaswini, N. (2013) Introduction to Genealogies of the Asian Present: Situating Inter-Asia Cultural Studies,
Verran, H. (2014) Working with those who think otherwise. Common Knowledge 20(3): 527-539.
Won Yin Wong, W. (2017) Speculative authorship in the city of fakes, Current Anthropology, 58: S15, S103-S112
Woods, A. (2015) 鈥業nterdisciplinary Authorship鈥� in Working Knowledge - Transferable Methodology for Interdisciplinary Research
Learning Outcomes
By the end of the module, students should be able to:
鈥� Describe and identify the value of interdisciplinarity for contemporary research
鈥� Demonstrate an understanding of the history of inter-disciplinarity
鈥� Distinguish interdisciplinarity from trans- and multi-disciplinarity
鈥� Demonstrate knowledge of a range of creative and innovative approaches to interdisciplinary research
鈥� Critically reflect upon the relevance of interdisciplinary skills to implement collaborations in professional, practitioner and academic contexts.