Case Studies in Interdisciplinary Research

Allen F. Repko, William H. Newell, Rick Szostak

• Publisher: SAGE Publications, Inc
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9781412982481
• eBook ISBN: 9781452235981
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Science Research & Methodology
• Index: Social Sciences

Self-contained case studies teach students best practices in interdisciplinary research

Interdisciplinary research is a burgeoning field, largely due to its ability to tackle complex problems facing humanity that extend beyond a single disciplinary perspective and require interdisciplinary thinking and research for their resolution.

Case Studies in Interdisciplinary Research successfully applies the model of the interdisciplinary research process outlined by author Allen F. Repko in Interdisciplinary Research, (SAGE ©2008) to a wide spectrum of challenging research questions. Self-contained case studies, written by leaders in interdisciplinary research, and utilizing best-practice techniques in conducting interdisciplinary research shows students how to apply the interdisciplinary research process to a variety of problems.

PART I

Introduction

1	The Interdisciplinary Research Process

Rick Szostak

Introduction

This book provides case studies of the performance of interdisciplinary research. It is hoped that these case studies will prove instructive both to students and other scholars as they perform interdisciplinary research. This introductory chapter does not provide a detailed overview of these case studies: Brief descriptions of each chapter are provided in the Preface, and a discussion of lessons learned and questions raised is provided in the concluding chapter. Rather, this chapter engages some broad questions regarding the very possibility of identifying superior strategies for performing interdisciplinary research. In doing so, it provides the rationale for the case studies that follow: It is both feasible and desirable to identify interdisciplinary best practices.

Is there a best way of doing interdisciplinary research? If so, what is it? Do practicing interdisciplinarians across different fields seem to follow some set of universal practices or strategies? These broad questions drive this chapter. The first section addresses a set of epistemological and practical questions regarding the possibility and advisability of an “interdisciplinary research process.” The second reviews efforts to develop such a process. In particular, it discusses the process outlined in Repko (2008)—in which the chapters in this book are grounded—and how this relates to other suggestions in the scholarly literature regarding an interdisciplinary research process. As various characteristics of the interdisciplinary research process are identified, later chapters that particularly exemplify them are noted.

Should Interdisciplinarians Identify Such a Process?

This section opens with a set of epistemological queries that have been raised regarding the feasibility and desirability of an interdisciplinary research process: Does the structure inherent in such a process interfere with the freedom of interdisciplinarians to follow their curiosity? Should interdisciplinarians mimic disciplinary research practice? And is interdisciplinary research inherently revolutionary? It then moves toward more practical concerns: Would an interdisciplinary research process improve the practice of interdisciplinarity (in teaching as well as research) and perhaps even enhance the pursuit of quality interdisciplinarity within the academy?

Structure Versus Freedom

One of the main attractions of interdisciplinary research is that it allows researchers freedom from disciplinary constraints. Disciplines take their strength from a shared perspective that includes many elements: a shared set of topics that are addressed, a shared but limited set of theories and methods that are applied to them (and often a shared set of assumptions about how they are to be applied), a shared set of epistemological assumptions regarding what can be known and how, often shared ethical assumptions about what is “good,” and often shared ideological attitudes. It is these areas of agreement that allow specialized research to proceed so easily: Writers need not explain their theory or method or subject matter unless they deviate in some way from what is expected. These expectations are institutionalized in the discipline’s publication, hiring, and promotion decisions. Interdisciplinarians may (or may not) respect the power of specialized research but are always conscious that it has powerful disadvantages. The strong incentive to obey disciplinary preferences regarding theory, method, and subject matter means that disciplinarians necessarily ignore competing theories or methods, and they also ignore related phenomena that might cast an important light on the issues addressed by the discipline. Likewise, the very set of issues that are addressed may be arbitrarily curtailed due to theoretical or methodological preferences—as when economists turned away from the study of economic growth for decades because they lacked a compelling mathematical model of growth.

Interdisciplinarity, then, must embrace a freedom to explore any theory or method or phenomenon that the researcher(s) think appropriate to the question being asked. This might be proclaimed to be the basic nonnegotiable principle of interdisciplinary research. Because the best-known research methodologies in the Academy are those disciplinary methodologies that succeed only by limiting freedom, some interdisciplinarians naturally fear that any proposed “interdisciplinary research process” would inevitably also limit the freedom of interdisciplinarians. If so, interdisciplinarity could not fulfill its function as the antidote to restrictive disciplinary perspectives.

In the second section, then, it is important to hold any proposed interdisciplinary process to very high standards of academic freedom. A process that would limit interdisciplinarians in the same way that disciplinary methodologies limit disciplinarians would defeat the very purpose of interdisciplinarity.

The Role of Shared Methodologies

The idea of an interdisciplinary research process naturally reminds one of disciplinary methodologies. It would be undesirable to discipline interdisciplinarity in this way. Yet it can, at the same time, be appreciated that much of the strength of disciplines comes from these shared methodologies (and much of the rest comes from the way these are instantiated in disciplinary reward structures).

Do shared methodologies enhance the productivity of research? As noted above, they enhance communication within disciplines (while unfortunately limiting communication across disciplines). Researchers can easily explain to another member of their discipline what minor novelty they are attempting to introduce into the shared research agenda. Many scholars will find it both comforting and straightforward to follow a recommended research trajectory. It may be thought that those attracted to the academic life will be those who are determined to chart their own path. However, the scholarly requirement to add something new to the body of human understanding is not easily achieved, and many scholars find it professionally rewarding to follow what others do.

Disciplinary standards are closely allied to disciplinary methodologies. Economists are expected to use mathematical models and/or statistical analysis. Naturally, economists are then judged on their mastery and application of sophisticated mathematical techniques (which is easier to evaluate than their understanding of the economy itself). Should interdisciplinarians aspire to interdisciplinary standards? One of the problems faced by interdisciplinary teaching programs is a claim that interdisciplinarity infuses the Academy, and thus special interdisciplinary programs are no longer needed (Augsburg & Henry, 2009). Interdisciplinary research programs could face a similar critique. The best rejoinder would be to claim that one is doing a better form of interdisciplinarity. It is all too easy, after all, to do superficial “interdisciplinarity”: to read one book in sociology and repeat its insights with no understanding of how that book rests within the wider discipline. Disciplinarians, with their formalized (but disciplining) standards, can all too readily identify examples of superficial interdisciplinarity and then claim that interdisciplinarity is inherently inferior. Still, some interdisciplinarians may hesitate to proclaim standards precisely because they do not wish to limit freedom. A question to ask in the second section of this chapter is whether an interdisciplinary research process can support both standards and freedom.

Revolutionary Versus Normal Science

Thomas Kuhn famously argued in the 1960s that scientific understanding does not advance entirely through a gradual process of accretion of new bits of understanding, but rather that the history of science is punctuated by occasional revolutions during which some of the previous understandings are replaced by quite novel understandings. The Kuhnian distinction between revolutionary and normal science was undoubtedly overdrawn and has now been supplanted in the study of science by more recent debates. These decades of discussion will not be reviewed here. However, the Kuhnian distinction has useful implications for the present discussion. Scholars closely following disciplinary methodologies would clearly fall within the “normal science” category. Interdisciplinarians are more likely to celebrate grand new syntheses that set scholars on entirely new research trajectories: These would qualify as “revolutionary science.” And scholars of scientific discovery note that such revolutionary insights tend to come from connecting ideas from different disciplines (Root-Bernstein, 1989). Is interdisciplinary research inherently revolutionary (as suggested by Pohl, van Kerkhoff, Hirsch Hadorn, & Bammer, 2008, p. 413)? If so, then an interdisciplinary research process might be less useful. Of course, even revolutionary insights come only to the prepared mind, and thus there may well be strategies scholars can follow in order to increase their chances of achieving revolutionary insights. If, though, inter-disciplinarity can proceed as normal science, then some sort of shared process may be much more important.

For Kuhn, revolutionary science was exceptional; the vast bulk of scholars produced normal science. Scholars in the humanities might imagine that revolution is more likely in their realm. Still, unless the phrase is stripped of its intended meaning, revolutionary scholarship—that which truly breaks free from preceding theories and methodologies—must be rare. To identify inter-disciplinarity with revolution is then to suggest that only a very small minority of scholars can be interdisciplinarians. If interdisciplinary scholarship is to be established within the Academy, then it is necessary either to identify some third form of scholarship between normal and revolutionary or to identify how interdisciplinarians can slowly and gradually build upon the work of other interdisciplinarians.

Disciplines concur in having a guiding methodology but differ in the precise nature of that guiding methodology. Perhaps the answer for interdisciplinarity is likewise for different groups of interdisciplinarians to coalesce around quite different research agendas. There need be no common elements among these. Yet, it is noteworthy that there are common elements of disciplinary methodologies: Disciplines (among other things) accept only a minority of the theories and methods they might embrace and apply these to a subset of the (relationships among) phenomena that they might study. Should there also be common elements among interdisciplinary methodologies? And should these, then, be quite different from the common elements of disciplinary methodologies? In particular, should interdisciplinary methodologies be more open in terms of theory, method, and phenomena than are disciplinary methodologies? If so, is it possible to structure normal science around such openness? Many interdisciplinarians, especially in natural science, have argued that this is possible. This set of related questions should inform much of what is done in the second section of this chapter.

The case studies performed in this book can be seen as normal science. Authors follow a logical research strategy. Yet, this process does not at all restrain them from displaying creativity, nor from reaching novel conclusions. As Newell discusses in the concluding chapter, the authors of these case studies clearly saw themselves as contributing to an ongoing conversation.

Interdisciplinarity and Training

At this moment in the history of the Academy, most scholars who would define themselves as interdisciplinary simply “do” interdisciplinarity. They have not taken courses on how to do interdisciplinarity. They may not have ever read an article or book focused on how to do interdisciplinarity. Importantly, they may never have reflected very much on what it means to be interdisciplinary.

The analogy with university teaching is too tempting. Most scholars were never taught how to teach. They just go out and do it. And most do it very well. Or at least most appear to do it very well, given that the standards by which university teaching is judged have evolved in a world where university teachers are not expected to reflect much on the nature of their teaching. Even at that, most universities in the developed world have established some sort of bureaucracy designed to help scholars teach. Increasingly, scholars do take courses on how to teach. At many universities, graduate students are now expected, even required, to take such courses. The age of the untrained university teacher may thus be slowly drawing to a close. Should the age of the untrained interdisciplinarian be far behind?

Disciplinarians are not generally taught their disciplinary perspective explicitly. Yet, the fact that they are taught just one or two types of theory and one or two methods provides a solid introduction to that disciplinary perspective. Interdisciplinarians lack even this introduction. Most practicing interdisciplinarians received disciplinary PhDs. Even those with PhDs from interdisciplinary programs will rarely have experienced course material about interdisciplinarity: maybe about the nature of some interdisciplinary theme (such as environmental studies, gender studies, or cognitive science) but not about interdisciplinarity itself. As with university teaching, one can look at the glass half full and say “this works” or look at the glass half empty and wonder whether it might work much better if interdisciplinarians reflected on the nature and purpose of interdisciplinarity and asked how interdisciplinary analysis might best be performed.

Strategic Interdisciplinarity

The place of interdisciplinarity within the Academy is still contested. To be sure, almost every university president extols the value of interdisciplinarity—at least as long as granting agencies continue to do so. However, longstanding interdisciplinary programs have been cut at several institutions. As noted above, these cuts are often justified by claiming that interdisciplinarity now infuses the Academy. Among the many lessons drawn in Augsburg and Henry (2009) are that interdisciplinarians need to integrate their efforts with those of disciplinarians, and interdisciplinarians need to distinguish quality inter-disciplinarity from superficial interdisciplinarity. An interdisciplinary research process might support quality interdisciplinarity within the Academy if it had two characteristics: standards such that superficial interdisciplinarity could be distinguished from quality interdisciplinarity, and a symbiotic relationship between interdisciplinary research and specialized research.

The last point—and the careful way it was worded—deserves further treatment. Interdisciplinarians differ in the way they view disciplines. Some see disciplines as the strong base from which interdisciplinary analysis proceeds. Others see disciplines as a problem to be overcome. Few, though, would doubt that specialized research—in which some group of scholars collectively applies a particular theory and method to a particular problem—will and should always have a place in the Academy. Interdisciplinarians can debate (or not) the ideal institutional structure for both specialized and interdisciplinary research. The point here is that a process for interdisciplinary research should specify how it draws upon (and, ideally, informs) specialized research.

It is sometimes suggested that students can only master interdisciplinarity after obtaining a solid grounding in one or two disciplines. The sense that interdisciplinarity is an optional add-on to a disciplinary education poses an obvious threat to at least undergraduate interdisciplinary programs. If it were accepted that there is an interdisciplinary research process, and that this is complementary to disciplinary methodologies, then it would make sense for students—perhaps disciplinary students as well as interdisciplinary students—to learn simultaneously about disciplines and interdisciplinarity. Interdisciplinary undergraduate programs (and general education courses) would have an obvious place alongside specialized (disciplinary) programs.

What Would an Interdisciplinary
Research Process Look Like?

This section begins with a brief review of Repko (2008) and then discusses a few other recent efforts to identify interdisciplinary best practices. It will be argued that these efforts are complementary and point toward a consensus approach to interdisciplinary research.

Interdisciplinary Research: Process and Theory

Repko (2008) wrote the first book-length treatment of the interdisciplinary research process. Repko draws in turn on a variety of works by scholars of interdisciplinarity: Klein (especially 1990), Newell (especially 2007), Szostak (2002, 2004), and Bal (especially 2002). He also draw...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Brief Contents
• Detailed Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• About the Editors
• About the Contributors
• PART I INTRODUCTION
• PART II DRAWING ON DISCIPLINARY INSIGHTS
• PART III APPROACHES TO INTEGRATION
• Conclusion
• Author Index
• Subject Index