Tamsin Haggis

This was originally intended as a paper for Warwick, but is now a starter collection of thoughts on interdisciplinarity and the project (it’s not possible to get a full paper properly thought out by the 1^st of April).

Introduction

Something general about interdisciplinarity….. Sustainability as an example of the kind of problem that lends itself to interdisciplinary exploration…. The paper will first consider some of the challenges of interdisciplinary research, before discussing ways in which theories of complex adaptive systems might be useful for thinking differently about these challenges. It will then introduce an EPSRC-funded, interdisciplinary research project, Emerging Sustainability, which is attempting to create the conditions for the emergence of new knowledge about sustainability by implementing principles of complexity on multiple levels. The paper will review the conditions, interaction history and emergent effects which characterise the progress of the project so far.

Interdisciplinarity, cross-disciplinarity, transdisciplinarity…

Preliminary notes setting general context. This takes the two websites as a starting point for one particular kind of overview – is not any kind of systematic overview of the literature.

One effect of the explosion of internet activity that has been witnessed in recent years is the emergence of websites designed to facilitate interdisciplinary interaction. These include ‘Interdisciplines’ (‘a website for interdisciplinary research in philosophy, cognitive science and social science’) (www.interdisciplines.org ) and InterDisciplinarity.Net (‘a forum for the exchange and interaction of ideas, research and points of view that bear on a wide range of issues of concern and interest in the contemporary world’) (www.inter-disciplinarity.net).

In April 2003, Interdisciplines organised an internet-based conference called ‘Rethinking Interdisciplinary’, which aimed to bring social scientists, philosophers, historians, anthropologists, and cognitive scientists together to ‘share their experience’ of interdisciplinarity and ‘focus on the impact of new forms of communication on interdisciplinary research’ (www.interdisciplines.org/interdisciplinarity). Eight discussion texts were posted on the site in English and French, eliciting 281 commentaries posted by 65 different discussants. A summary of these discussions resulted in the following themes:

·         Definitions of interdisciplinarity: interdisciplinarity, transdisciplinarity, multidisciplinarity, pros and cons of disciplines

·         Interdisciplinarity and science and society: the‘applied’ nature of interdisciplinary research, involving negotiation with multiple stakeholders, and the observation that ‘the language game of science’ may be too narrow; complex negotiations between different actors, tensions between the need of autonomous scientific standards and the involvement of science in society. How can science be ‘democratically’ assessed by citizens? Etc.

·         Interdisciplinarity and innovation: the challenge to disciplinary boundaries, the relationship between innovation and interdisciplinarity

·         Practical difficulties of doing interdisciplinary work: I think we could respond to some of the things discussed here in relation to the project

o       Language (jargon, communication problems)

o       Methods (disciplines often devoted to own methods of investigation. Misunderstanding and opposition)

o       Institutional constraints (impediment or necessity?)

o       Cognitive constraints (need deep knowledge of different disciplines to do genuine interdisciplinary research. Is it possible to develop a truly interdisciplinary methodology? What is the impact of these on education, and on institutionalisation of interdisciplinary training programes?)

·         Assessment of interdisciplinary research: of research, problems of disciplinary boundaries reflected in peer review, new norms, the possibility of interdisciplinary epistemology

·         Autobiographical experience as ‘practical epistemology’: sharing of researcher experience

·         Interdisciplinarity in the information society: effects of ‘soft-assembled’ online research communities, effect on quality of research, effect of search engines on the classification of knowledge domains [keywords do not respect disciplinary boundaries]

The Emerging Sustainability research project, discussed below, aims to address a number of the issues raised in this summary paper. These include:

·         The use of a specific, web-based tool designed to create and facilitate cross-disciplinary interaction in relation to the specific theme of sustainability

·         Ideas and principles relating to the dynamics of complex adaptive systems (regardless of difference in discipline or situation) the basis of both analysis and methodological approach

·         The use of emergence as a key principle in relation to examining the conditions for and appearance of novelty (‘innovation’)

·         A deliberate attempt to move beyond the academic context to facilitate interactions between academics, activists and practitioners, in relation to the specificity of concrete cases

·         An explicit methodology and methods based on the principles of complex adaptive systems

Before discussing the project itself, it is necessary to briefly consider the rationale for the use of theories of complex adaptive systems in relation to the aim of trans- inter-disciplinarity.

Complexity and interdisciplinarity

In a paper, some of this general stuff about ‘why interdisciplinarity, and why now’? should probably go in the section above.

At the first international conference on interdisciplinary research in the 1970s, Jantsch called for ‘a new approach capable of fostering judgement in “complex and dynamically changing situations” (1972:102 in Klein, 2004:2). Interdisciplinary research, Klein suggests, was seen as necessary ‘to address questions, problems and topics too broad or complex for a single discipline’ (2004:4). At this early stage, there seems to have been a view not only that interdisciplinary research was necessary, but also that the kinds of problem for which interdisciplinary work seemed appropriate involved complexities of judgement, practice, and dynamic contingency.

Klein argues that these early insights are even more relevant today, in a situation where modern societies are increasingly having to deal with ‘the unwanted side effects of… differentiated sub-systems, such as the economy, politics, law, media and science’ (4). She suggests that such differentiation produces effects which cannot be managed within the codes of each system; that the current problems of society are emergent phenomena which cannot be isolated within disciplines or sectors (ibid), and thus that new approaches to complex problems are more needed than ever.

Something here about what/how/why theories of complex adaptive systems – how complexity offers as different ontological starting point; different principles and assumptions; and also focuses on different aspects of phenomena (processes, interconnectednessetc) which previous approaches cannot accommodate. Sufficiently plastic/non-specific to offer potential to facilitate interaction across disciplines? (this is expressed better in the next section.

Complexity offers more than simply ‘a new approach’. Klein suggests that the structuring of knowledge itself will occur differently within a framework of what she calls ‘complex systems thinking’:

Klein singles out environmental problems as an example of what she calls ‘the new relationship of complexity and interdisciplinarity’ (5), and further suggests that:

                                                                                                (ibid, 6)

The Emerging Sustainability research project (discussed below) could be seen as a testing ground for some of these ideas.

Interdisciplinary interactions

An interdisciplinary research team is, by definition, characterised by diversity. From a complexity perspective, this should mean that, as a dynamic entity, it is potentially both more resilient and more creative than a comparatively homogenous (and arguably more closed) discipline-based grouping. On the other hand, a collection of diverse disciplinary specialists may find themselves hampered by inherent differences in disciplinary norms and practices; in particular, difficulties relating to language, theoretical perspective, and method. The situation may then be characterised by problems of miscommunication, the clashing of unexamined assumptions, and research activities which represent various forms of retreat into familiar bounded areas. Borrowing from Piaget’s notions of assimilation and accommodation, researchers may be more inclined to assimilate new or challenging ideas from other disciplines into their existing frames of reference, rather than to allow new insights and experiences to change the structure of such frames (Piaget’s ‘accommodation’).

Interdisciplinary groupings may be created on the often tacit assumption that researchers will effect change in each other’s understanding. However, as X (ref) has pointed out, interdisciplinary researchers may often tend more towards the assumption that they will contribute to change in others, rather than expecting any particular change in their own ways of working. Interdisciplinary rhetoric often stresses ‘innovation’ as an expected outcome of the bringing together of different disciplines (ref). Both the nature of, and the path towards, such innovation may be vague, however, consisting of little more than the assumption that ‘something different’ will come out of each researcher bringing their own perspective to the table.

Theories of complex adaptive systems potentially offer both theoretical and practical resources with which to address some of the problems of understanding and carrying out interdisciplinary work. For example, the perhaps often unexamined assumption that a discipline-based researcher will help to solve a problem (or change the thinking of other disciplinary researchers) by acting upon the focus of the research is changed by the idea of emergence. From a complexity perspective, the researchers will neither ‘contribute their expertise’ to the problem nor even ‘learn from each other’ (both of which are individualistic forms of conceptualisation). Instead, it is the interactions between the researchers which are important, as they have the potential to create the conditions for the emergence of something which really is entirely new. What could emerge is neither the product of a particular contribution, nor a change of individual perspective, but something which arises in the space between the different researchers.

The production of novelty is important partly because the disciplines are ‘culture-blind’, unable to see their own shortcomings. Methodological approaches, theoretical frameworks and methods within each discipline are always specific to particular disciplinary contexts. Though the discipline may contain a wide range of different and apparently competing approaches, these are nonetheless contained within a set of limits which the discipline, by definition, has an interest in policing and maintaining. The specific and historically-produced shapes and pathways of the discipline constrain disciplinary interactions in particular ways. Some of these constraints are highly productive; others lead to various forms of short-circuit and stalemate, in terms of knowledge production. For example, whilst there may currently be considerable developments in stem-cell or genome research, there is still relatively little progress in appreciating either the environmental significance or the causal factors involved in the declining bee population, or the effects of cocktails of pesticides. Similarly, after decades of educational research, failure rates in schools remain relatively unchanged, and teachers still find it difficult to know how to ‘apply’ the results of research to the dynamic and material particularities of their own teaching contexts. Interdisciplinary research could potentially breathe fresh life into the stalemates and blockages created by the (culturally-specific) limits which the disciplines set in relation to the possible.

Theories of complex adaptive systems potentially offer a way of anticipating and changing the potential shortcomings of interdisciplinary groupings. Whilst the diversity within an interdisciplinary group is a potential strength, in the sense that members can help each other out of their respective culture-sinks, it is also a potential weakness because members may just continue to operate in their established disciplinary ways within the group. One problem here is simply being unable to hear each other. This may be partly attitudinal (as above; the researcher is at worst only expecting to contribute expertise, or at best simply to learn something for themselves) but is likely also to be a problem of language. Both attitude and language contribute to the nature and quality of the interactions which take place.

Complexity may have something to offer in relation to both focussing attention upon and also facilitating productive, generative forms of interaction. As a theoretical framework, theories of complex adaptive systems are non-canonical, providing space for adjustment and interpretation. In response to a question raised at the Liverpool Complexity Conference in 2005 about whether complexity was ‘a blurred picture of a sharp object’, or ‘a sharp picture of a blurred object’, it was decided that it was ‘a blurred picture of a blurred object’, and that this was a good thing. Complexity researchers often seem to exhibit caution and tentativeness in the expression and application of their ideas, in contrast to perhaps more commonly expressed patterns of disciplinary confidence and certainty. Complexity puts uncertainty and unpredictability on the table in a way that many other methods and approaches are often at pains to deliberately avoid. This approach is the antithesis of those which privilege (and demand) the certainty of specific outcomes and discussion of ‘impact’ before a research project has even begun. The conceptual openness and provisionality provided by complexity could potentially facilitate more tentative, more explorative, and more risky types of engagement, which could open things out in genuinely new ways. As a knowledge-creating system, an interdisciplinary complex adaptive system may be better able to create genuinely novel answers to multi-faceted problems, and, perhaps more importantly, to find new kinds of questions to ask.

At the same time as providing a conceptual framework that allows for space and interpretation, complexity nonetheless also offers both structure and productive constraints in the form of key principles. Its blurriness and openness is not a relativist, shapeless, ‘anything goes’ kind of provisionality. Complexity principles of dynamic structure and response through time only offer new possibilities for epistemology. They also work to restructure conventional ontologies, offering a different way of understanding both certain types of phenomena, and also how such phenomena come into being. As long as the focus of interest/unit of analysis meets the criteria of dynamic, open systems, principles and concepts of complexity can be enacted within a huge range of diverse contexts. Complexity thus provides both a language and a conceptual framework which can be used to talk about flows and materialities in areas as far apart as engineering and politics, architecture and economics, or geography and literature.

Rather than attempting the (largely impossible) feat of learning each other’s languages, disciplinary specialists from different domains can use principles of complexity to discuss both their own, and other, disciplinary perspective or contexts, without losing the particularity of their own perspectives and situations. In principle, rather than being lost as diverse perspectives attempt to communicate with each other, meaning has the potential to emerge uniquely as the different settings and contexts are discussed. Complexity provides an open and malleable framework which all the researchers have in common, rather than interdisciplinary interactions being dominated first by one disciplinary perspective, then another, as different disciplinary experts take the floor, and attempt to explain their discipline to ‘outsiders’. Shared ideas and principles provide a language that makes interaction possible, and also a set of principles which provide a starting point for the planning of research actions.

Theory/practice

Openness

Key to a complexity approach is the notion of openness. Openness challenges discipline-specific certainty and boundaries, which in turn produce researcher and disciplinary vulnerability. RAE, peer review, judgements about quality (Gardner). Careers, cultures of certainty, long history of combative rhetorical practices; battle metaphors and analysis rather than caution, synthesis.

Openness is risky because it embodies change, uncertainty and unpredictability, all of which disciplines traditionally attempt to limit and control. Challenge to ways that academics are used to working. Unpopular in current tightly managed research environments.

Control

Long history of trying to deal with risk and uncertainty by imposing top down grids of regulation and control. Results repeatedly suggest that these types of control act as forms of constraint from which various differential results emerge, many of which bear little relationship to plans and intentions. Researchers and policy-makers create coherent stories retrospectively, often simply ignoring both changes through time and the unintended consequences which result from the specific and particular interactions which take place in local contexts. By contrast, complexity reframes the idea of the global, implying both a movement away from traditional research attempts to articulate underlying principles, and away from the top-down grids of centralised control which may be constructed as applications of such research. Focussing upon the productive capacities of the local, control/structure in complex adaptive systems is distributed, responsive, emergent, and characterised by processes of self-organisation.

The Emerging Sustainability Project

Description. Initial conditions (sandpit, sandpit selection process, sandpit activities and intentions [based on principles of complexity]; sandpit constraints and influences [influence of Snowden] disciplines in ES group, interests).

History of interactions (throughout sandpit [social process, character of interactions], in relation to points discussed in previous section. Attitude. Language and shared theoretical framework. Character of interactions. Openness, provisionality, risk, vulnerability. Distributed control, changing composition of group and member availability. Methodology. Plan to create a network which would facilitate interactions rather than conventional approach to gathering and processing data, researcher-created knowledge from this data (of course we will still analyse and process our data, but I think there is a point to made here – there is something different).

Activism. Desire for connection with diverse communities. Case studies of community projects etc. Community groups are not ‘partners’ or ‘collaborators’; what they are doing is the raw material of the project, and their interactions contribute equally to emergent outcomes.

Knowledge-generation; knowledge is not produced by the researchers, but by the interactions (in theory…).

Grounded, practical, material, concrete. Recursive, active; because of the connections between diverse communities, if the answers or questions that the research group produces in relation to what is happening on the site are not relevant/don’t lead to useful effects, the openness and connectedness will allow for, or even force, new patterns of engagement (see Eden notes).