[Air-l] re: transdisciplinarity

[Denise N. Rall]

Dear Air'ers -

Naturally I want to weigh in on this topic as it is
the subject of my thesis.

However I have now read hundred's of pages of material
on these and related topics making it difficult to
summarize or even, see a way forward - huh, this is
what they call the 'writing up' part of the thesis -
when things are clear as mud.

However I must say that the answers won't come from
reading a 'few online sources' depending on how far
one is taking the discussion. There are perspectives
from education, knowledgement management, and even the
interdisciplinarians as organized researchers in IDS,
or interdisciplinary studies, such as Jule Thompson
Klein.  Then there's other perspectives in knowledge
productions such as offered by Gibbons et al. Another
substantial perspective derives from Stephen Toulmin's
sociology of knowledge.  And, to my mind, the social
epistemologists have an interesting take on
disciplinary formulations.

I have found those who look at disciplines as
communities of practice to be fairly ordinary, while I
really like the role of disciplines as epistemic
culture as suggested by Knorr Cetina.

My personal view of a discipline (currently, subject
to change) represents a given disciplinary perspective
more like a "Weltanschauung" than a particular set of
rules or axioms, or frameworks or cultures, practices,
or anything like that.

Forthcoming interesting places to look will be Nancy
Bayms (Ed.) Special issue on Internet Studies and
Disciplines.  While my paper (sadly) didn't make the
cut, I have re-worked another paper under a new title:

"Internet protocols and interdisciplinarity"

This paper takes an operational view of the discourses
around disciplines as similar to protocols that govern
certain types of operations, such as internet
protocols.  It is not a sociology of knowledge
approach but reviews the IDS frameworks of JT Klein et
al.

I will stick it up on my website (below) by the end of
the week.  Those who are interested can email me
off-list for a .pdf.

Cheers, Denise





Denise N. Rall, PhD candidate, School of Environ. Science,
Southern Cross University, Lismore NSW 2480 
Sustainable Forestry Mentoring Coordinator & Internet Researcher
Room T2.12, +61 (0)2 6620 3577 Tuesdays or Mobile 0438 233 344
http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/rsm/staff/pages/drall/index.html