Section outline

  • Session outline
    You have encountered questions concerning the politics of research in earlier sessions, whether in terms of decolonizing (week 1, week 4), the personal politics adopted in the production of research (week 3), or wider debates around the politics that underpin the ontological and epistemological perspectives that we adopt. In this session, we will focus on other forms of the 'political' that operate in research as we turn attention to the interrelated questions of interdisciplinarity and the politics of research involving North-South/South-North partnerships. To provide empirical support to the focus for this session, I will draw on my experiences of engaging in multi-disciplinary research projects e.g., on urban mobilities in African cities and youth as development actors.

    General preparation for the session 
    Please read the following
    • Petts, J., Owens, S., & Bulkeley, H., 2008. Crossing boundaries: Interdisciplinarity in the context of urban environments. Geoforum, 39(2), 593-601.
    As you read, think about the following questions:

    1) What does the paper tell us about the nature of interdisciplinarity and research contexts that are deemed appropriate for interdisciplinary research? How is interdisciplinarity defined and why is such an approach argued to be useful for particular kinds of 'problems'?

    2) What are the challenges of working on interdisciplinary research projects? What issues do the authors raise and how do these relate to questions of politics and power-relations? What forms of knowledge tend to get privileged over others?

    Background reading

    The following papers will form part of the discussion, so try to familiarise yourself with their aims and key arguments (you do not need to memorise them). 

    Esson, J., Amankwaa, E. F., & Mensah, P. (2021). Boys are tired! Youth, urban struggles, and retaliatory patriarchy. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 46(1), 193-207. 

    https://rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/tran.12411
     

    Esson, J., Gough, K. V., Simon, D., Amankwaa, E. F., Ninot, O., & Yankson, P. W. (2016). Livelihoods in motion: Linking transport, mobility and income-generating activities. Journal of Transport Geography, 55, 182-188.

    https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2016.06.020

    Elliott, D., & Thomas, T. K. (2017). Lost in translation?: On collaboration between anthropology and epidemiology. Medicine Anthropology Theory, 4(2), 1-17. (An insightful conversation between an anthropologist and epidemiologist). 

    http://www.medanthrotheory.org/article/view/4730/6523

    Further reading: 

    Further reading on geography and interdisciplinarity:
    • Bracken, L.J. and Oughton, E.A., 2009. Interdisciplinarity within and beyond geography: introduction to special section. Area, 41(4), pp.371-373.
    • Ferretti, F., 2021. History and philosophy of geography II: Rediscovering individuals, fostering interdisciplinarity and renegotiating the ‘margins’. Progress in Human Geography, 45(4), pp.890-901.
    • Fitzgerald, D., Callard, F., 2015. Social science and neuroscience beyond interdisciplinarity: experimental entanglements. Theory, Culture & Society 32, 3-32.
    • Lau, L. and Pasquini, M.W., 2004. Meeting grounds: perceiving and defining interdisciplinarity across the arts, social sciences and sciences. Interdisciplinary science reviews, 29(1), pp.49-64.
    • Lau, L. and Pasquini, M., 2008. ‘Jack of all trades’? The negotiation of interdisciplinarity within geography. Geoforum, 39(2), pp.552-560.
    • Schoenberger, E., 2001. Interdisciplinarity and social power. Progress in human geography, 25(3), pp.365-382.