Defining Interdisciplinarity

The following letter was written by Professor John Robinson, Institute of Resources, Environment, and Sustainability, to the President and Provost, January 25, 2005, in response to their meeting with FoGS faculty.

“…. There are probably as many different types of interdisciplinarity as there are terms (multi-, cross-, inter-, pluri-, trans- meta-, etc.). But I think it is useful to distinguish between two types of interdisciplinary temperament, which give rise to different styles and practices, as well as potentially quite different forms of knowledge.

“The first is a temperament that is interested in the inter-relationships among disciplines, in the intellectual puzzles and questions that lurk at the margins, and that offer the intriguing possibility of creating new understandings, drawing from established bodies of disciplinary thought. This is a form of interdisciplinarity defined in terms of, and delimited by, disciplinary knowledge. While whole new ideas, methods, approaches and theories may be developed in these borderlands, they are themselves proto-disciplinary in the sense that if they prove to be fruitful, they begin to map out the borders of a new discipline, or at least a sub-discipline, with all the paraphernalia (journals, canons, theoretical foundations, language, etc.) of disciplinary knowledge. People who are drawn to this work engage in creative, challenging and risky work but it occurs in the shadow of a larger disciplinary enterprise and is not itself critical of disciplinarity itself. Indeed, as might be expected, its practitioners are some of the strongest proponents of disciplinarity itself. It is also worth noting that the focus of this form of disciplinarity is primarily academic, in the sense that it is directed toward theoretical and methodological problems that arise within disciplines; it is not necessarily, or perhaps even typically drive by an engagement with problems outside the academy. For lack of a better term, I call this ‘discipline-driven interdisciplinarity’.

“The second type of interdisciplinary temperament I want to posit is one that is driven primarily by a desire to engage with problems in the non-academic world, problems that do not primarily emerge in disciplinary journals, or in academic discourse alone, but often have to do with fundamental dilemmas or problems in society that do not seem to lend themselves to easy solution by traditional approaches or tried and true methods of analysis. Practitioners of this style of interdisciplinarity do not find themselves at the margins between disciplines, but in the uncomfortable borderlands between the academy and the larger world. They tend to start from real world problems and move from there into the arena of scholarly knowledge. This means that the criteria with which they select from among the various forms and types of knowledge differ from those that would be suggested if the starting point was the problems and puzzles emerging from within the academic enterprise itself. Such practitioners, familiar with the fact that the real world problems they are trying to address are not easily expressed in terms of disciplinary knowledge (life tends to present itself as a seamless whole) may be, but are not necessarily, somewhat critical of disciplinarity itself, and are typically more interested in creating forms of knowledge that are inherently integrative, rather than in creating new disciplines. That is, their interest lies more in reaching across disciplines that in filling in the gaps between them. A critical characteristic of this style of interdisciplinarity is a very strong focus on partnerships with the external world, partnerships which go beyond treating such partners primarily as audiences, and involve them as co-producers of new hybrid forms of knowledge. We might call this type of interdisciplinarity ‘problem-driven interdisciplinarity’.

“Of course these are caricatures. At best they describe central tendencies for forms of practice that span a wide range of views and overlap at the margins. But I think it is worthwhile making this kind of distinction for at least three reasons. First, on a first approximation, I think it helpfully distinguishes between the kinds of interdisciplinarity that tends to be found in ‘line’ Faculties like Science, or Arts, and the kind that is found in places like FOGS (the case of professional and applied faculties like Applied Science or Commerce is a more complex issue that I am ignoring here). It is not that interdisciplinarity does not occur in the line Faculties, but that the kind of interdisciplinarity that typically takes place there is quite different from that in FOGS. (As I said, this is a first approximation. I suspect the reality is more complex.) Second, to the extent that this is true, it provides a basis for a recognition that both forms of interdisciplinarity are valuable and are not substitutes for each other. Presumably we don’t want to privilege one kind of interdisciplinarity over another but provide the conditions that will allow both to flourish, since each gives rise to different forms of new knowledge. Third, there are strong practical implications of this distinction in areas like recruitment and retention of both faculty and students, and in terms of reward systems and evaluation procedures. It is my strong impression that the kind of problem-based interdisciplinarity we tend to practice in FOGS attracts a certain kind of graduate student (since it is mostly graduate programs that we are involved with; the question of undergraduate interdisciplinarity is a critical topic beyond this discussion) and a certain kind of faculty member. This further reinforces the desirability of explicitly recognizing, rewarding and encouraging both kinds of interdisciplinarity since what is appealing to these two groups is likely to differ.”

John Robinson, Professor
Sustainable Development Research Initiative (SDRI) in the
Institute of Resources, Environment and Sustainability,
and Department of Geography, UBC

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A Unity of Knowledge at the intersections of knowledge

During his keynote speech, "The Intrinsic Unity of Knowledge," at the Canadian Association of Graduate Studies conference (CAGS) on November 2, 2005, Edward O. Wilson, Pellegrino Research Professor in Entomology for the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University and a Fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, talked about how real-world problems lie at the intersections between disciplines, with each island of knowledge in a sea of ignorance. In order to solve these problems, we need to make connections between the disciplines, between the arts and the sciences, and find a unity of knowledge. Kersti Krug, Assistant Principal of the College for Interdisciplinary Studies, developed the following diagram to visually describe the ideas from his talk:

E.O. Wilson's "Islands of Knowledge", care of Kersti Krug, Assistant Principal, CFIS

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If it's Sloppy: Eat it Over the Sink

Gerry Cradock, a graduate student in the Individual Interdisciplinary Studies Graduate Program, had this to say about interdisciplinarity in his talk, "If it's Sloppy: Eat it Over the Sink".

"Is it possible for scholars engaged in interdisciplinary studies to form a cohesive group identity?  Would they want to. Would such an approach merely invent a discipline of interdisciplinary studies and, thereby, defeat the whole liberating spirit of the interdisciplinary approach?  What , if anything, is the distinction between multi-, inter-, trans-, and post disciplinarity?  Finally, in what sense is an interdisciplinary project "individual?..."

Read the full talk at (scroll down the page half way to find his talk) - http://www.iisgp.ubc.ca/whatsnew/newsletter%20archive/newsletter1-2.htm