Interdisciplinary Research: Some
Practical, Methodological and
Philosophical Reflections
Dr Justin Greaves
University of Warwick
• ‘We are not students of some subject
matter, but students of problems. And
problems may cut right across the
borders of any subject matter or
discipline’ (Popper, 1963)
• ‘Thinking means connecting things, and
stops if they cannot be connected’ (G K
Chesterton)
RELU Programme
• RELU is committed to pursue interdisciplinary
working across the natural and social
sciences
• This helps to avoid the trap of approaching
problems from a purely technological or
sociological perspective (and social science
simply being included at end of project)
• It moves away from simplistic assumptions
about ‘technology push’ or ‘society pull’
• A commitment to engaging stakeholders
throughout the research process
RELU at Warwick
• Involvement with two RELU projects at the
University of Warwick
The Regulatory and Environmental
Sustainability of Biopesticides
The Governance of Livestock Diseases
(GOLD)
• Experience of working with (applied)
biologists, biological scientists, economist,
academic lawyer etc
What is a discipline?
• A distinctive subject matter?
• A distinctive methodology?
• An area of expertise that needs
specialised training in order to become a
practitioner?
• A professional association which manages
the profession and to which most
practitioners belong?
• A mission?
Is Politics a discipline?
• ‘We cannot talk about political science as
a discipline if those who call themselves
political scientists and pretend to teach it
are unable to agree on its basic substance
and methodology’ (EPSNet, 2003).
• ‘I see “the discipline” as a group of people
rather than as a set of principles, as a
continuing debate rather than as an
enquiry in the style of natural science’
(Mackenzie, 1975)
Politics: a junction subject?
• In many ways politics is the junction
subject of the social sciences, born out of
history and philosophy, but drawing of the
insights of economics and sociology and,
to a lesser extent, the study of law,
psychology and geography
• This openness can be seen as a strength
allowing interdisciplinary work to flourish
What is interdisciplinarity?
• ‘Interdisciplinarity differs from
disciplinarity and multidisciplinarity in
the emphasis it places on interaction
and joint working, which brings the
knowledge claims and conventions of
different disciplines into a dialogue with
each other, yielding new framings of
research questions’ (Lowe and
Phillipson, 2006)
Politics and interdisciplinarity
• Writers such as Moran (2006) and
McKenzie (2007) take a rather pessimistic
view of interdisciplinary collaboration
• Nicola Phillips (at Manchester) takes an
interdisciplinary approach to political
economy, drawing in subjects such as
Sociology and Geography
• The focus here however is with
collaboration within the social sciences
Political science and natural
science
• The biological sciences have long enjoyed
various affinities with political science
• The first chapter of Mackenzie’s survey of
political science is ‘The Biological Context’
• To the positivist natural science and social
science are broadly analogous
• Interpretivists believe that the natural and
social world are different and require
different methods of enquiry
Scientific realism
• Scientific realism accepts that there is a
reality independent of our existence, but also
that our access to that world is complicated
and our understanding of it is influenced by
the webs of meaning that we construct
• Such an approach ‘can straddle the natural
and social sciences’ and is compatible with
the interdisciplinary ‘turn’ opening up
collaboration between natural and social
scientists
Some benefits of interdisciplinarity
• Many scientists hold to the ‘deficit model’
of turning science into policy
• Incorporating politics (and other
disciplines) will allow more sophisticated
models of animal disease occurrence and
transmission
• It has allowed the political scientists a
more technical understanding of
biopesticides (and the scientists to
became more theoretical and ‘deductive’)
Practical challenges
• Writing journal articles together (political
scientists more ‘discursive’)
• Difference of emphasis between the
research councils and the RAE
• Department appointment panels need to
show greater flexibility and recognise the
interdisciplinary agenda
• Multi-authored papers in the sciences
versus single and joint authored papers in
the social sciences
Controlled eclecticism
• Phillips (2004) advances ‘controlled eclecticism’,
as opposed to a ‘kitchen sink’ kind of eclecticism
that rides roughshod over the limits of theoretical
or conceptual commensurability
• An openness to relevant approaches from the
other sides of imposed boundaries, but also care
in selecting appropriate and fruitful terrains
• Used in context of IPE and CPE. Could it be
applied to interdisciplinary research more widely?
Ontology/epistemology
• Might interdisciplinary methods be capable of
development to a transdisciplinary state,
involving unification of the involved disciplines
at the metaphysical level? (Harvey, 2006)
• Here the philosophical foundations of the
underlying disciplines become fundamental
• Quarrels about the meaning, significance and
importance of research findings are
fundamentally quarrels of ontology and
epistemology
Please visit out websites
• http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/pais/
biopesticides
• http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fa
c/gld
• Thanks to all members of the RELU 1
and RELU 3 project teams (principal
investigators Wyn Grant and Graham
Medley)