Katrine Lindvig (Department of Science Education, University of Copenhagen, IASH Fellow): 'Othering’ interdisciplinarity in research and education
ABSTRACT: In academia, when we increasingly describe interdisciplinarity as something unique, outstanding and completely different from monodisciplinarity, are we then, conversely, impeding the growth and institutionalisation of the very thing we may be trying to promote?
In this seminar, she will argue that through various practices in research and education, interdisciplinarity is continuously created as an ‘other’ – as a binary opposition to monodisciplinarity. The term ‘other’ can serve as both a noun and a verb. As a noun, the ‘other’ is a person or group of people different from oneself. As a verb, ‘other’ means to distinguish, label, categorize, name, identify, place and exclude those who do not fit a societal norm (Gallaher et al. 2009). In this case, the ‘other’ is not so much a person or group of people, as it is a practice and a concept. The fact that interdisciplinarity is seen as an opposition to monodisciplinarity is not strange, if we accept the notion that social groups impose meaning on their world by ordering and organizing things into classification systems. However, it can become a problem, if the binary coupling gives rise to negative feelings and, more importantly, if the coupling prevents the execution and implementation of interdisciplinarity in education and teaching.