Guest Blogger: Regina Nelson
Website: www.reginaknelson.com
Email: rknelson63@gmail.com

Interdisciplinarity

Regina Nelson

Union Institute & University

August 18, 2012

INTERDISCIPLINARITY

As a scholar who is not only working towards a Ph.D. in an interdisciplinary program, but one who has pursued and completed previous degrees via interdisciplinary programs, on many occasions I have attempted to describe what interdisciplinarity means.  I find this a difficult task because not only is interdisciplinarity hard to categorize, thus define, it’s hard for me to think in purely disciplinary terms.  For me, interdisciplinarity is intellectual freedom:  no walls or boundaries that stop me from looking at an issue or problem from any perspective, an ability to explore the issue from the inside out, the outside in, or from any variety of perspectives, and an opportunity to seek knowledge about the issue or problem from any person who adds value to the discussion including those who bring adversarial views.  Interdisciplinarity has a wide-variety of definitions much as other terms we use frequently such as leadership or creativity.  It is hard to define—and in my opinion, one simple definition cannot hold the complexity of the term interdisciplinarity.  Adding my definition to the mix, in this paper I argue that interdisciplinarity is a rigorous course of study without disciplinary boundaries that allows one to seek knowledge from all perspectives in order to gain an understanding of the whole.

In my experience, an interdisciplinarian gathers knowledge through the influence of multiple disciplines and from knowledge outside of the academy to create a greater knowledge than any single disciplinary frame can hold.  In this sense, my definition of interdisciplinarity encompasses Fish’s (1989) notion of interdisciplinarity: “[I]nterdisciplinary study is more than a device for prodding students to cross boundaries they would otherwise timidly respect; it is an assault on those boundaries and on the entire edifice of hierarchy and power they reflect and sustain (p. 103).  Taking this a step further towards practice, Morgan Meyer (2007) believes interdisciplinarity allows the researcher to reconcile multiple framings and integrate different approaches that cannot be resolved in purely disciplinary studies (p. 205).  In short, where interdisciplinarity differs from cross or trans-disciplinarity and pure academic disciplines is that it offers a space for partnership betwixt and between disciplines and the ability to explore any perspective in order to see the whole.

In discussing interdisciplinarity as a new mode of knowledge gathering, Meyer provides readers with a list of three developments that support knowledge production through interdisciplinary means:

1. contemporary research is increasingly carried out in the context of application, and problems are formulated from the very beginning within a dialogue among a large number of different actors and their perspectives;
2. there is an emergence of loose organizational structures, flat hierarchies, and open-ended chains of command;
3. And, frameworks of intellectual activity are emerging which may not always be reducible to elements of the disciplinary structure (Meyer, 2007, p. 206).

This new mode of inquiry requires that multiple points of view and multiple frames be brought together in ways that promote interconnectedness, coherence, and unity developing what Tom Atlee (2003) calls “co-intelligence” about the particular issue or problem being studied.  Atlee describes co-intelligence as the ability to generate or evoke creative responses and initiatives that integrate the diverse gifts of all for the benefit of all (Atlee, 2003, p. 3).  Co-intelligence can manifest itself as collaborative intelligence when applied to interdisciplinary study because it requires, “finding and working with all the available allies and cooperative forces around us” (Atlee, 2003, p. 6), regardless of the formal discipline the knowledge may be categorized as.  Using this new mode of interdisciplinary framing knowledge emerges, “from a particular context of application with its own distinct theoretical structures, research  methods and modes of practice but which may not be locatable on the prevailing disciplinary map…[this new mode] is more flexible and socially distributed.  Moreover it is less firmly institutionalized and regroups a wide and heterogeneous set of practitioners” (Meyer, 2007, p. 206).  In this sense, interdisciplinarity is required in order that one may see the whole of the issue or problem they study.

In his article Being interdisciplinary is so very hard to do, Fish elucidates, “knowledge is frozen in a form supportive of the status quo” (Fish, 1989, p. 100).  Personally, I see interdisciplinarity as a means to unfreeze knowledge and challenge the status quo.  For instance, in my own research that I am conducting in the medical marijuana community, I have found that this statement hold true in many instances.  For this example I will discuss how it relates to substantiating the anecdotal knowledge patient’s hold regarding cannabis as medication because this is a critical issue that requires attention.  The requirement from the medical establishment for empirical evidence via evidence-based medicine guidelines, as well as the illegal nature of cannabis research, have frozen the knowledge of cannabis as medication in a form that supports the status quo which states marijuana is illegal therefore it is not medication.  Because of this belief few physicians are educated about cannabis and cannabinoids as medication, if fact, I am, like many patients I know, in the unique position of educating my personal physician about my use of marijuana as medication, as well as the health outcomes I experience from its use.  Some physicians like my current one, express interest and engage with patients, open to learning about the patient’s experience using cannabis and following any changes in their medical condition.  However, in the past year I have found that many doctors are not open to this type of relationship with cannabis patients.  Whether the disconnect lies in the morality of using an illegal substance as medication, failure of the patient to follow standard Western protocols, or any number of other reasons, I myself have had two physicians tell me that they did not want to engage with  me (their patient) about medical marijuana or my use thereof.  With pharmaceutical companies and much of the medical establishment  uninvolved in the medical marijuana movement—and in fact, supporting its demise—a new way of gathering data and publishing medical data is necessary and requires an interdisciplinary approach.  Why?  Because addressing the issues of a “whole” patient, in the sense described by Ken Wilber (2000) requires an integral approach that causes us to see “the ‘made up’ quality of knowledge” as our present institutional categories deliver it to us (p. 101).  Leadership scholar Jonathon Reams (2005) offers a compelling examination of the application of Wilber’s integral theory to leadership.  The AQAL (all quadrants, all levels) model as developed by Wilber represents an interdisciplinary approach; the quadrants call upon multiple disciplines such as psychology, sociology and even the hard sciences as parts of the same whole.  If one accepts the holistic nature of the AQAL model, one must acknowledge the requirement of this model that one look beyond any singular aspect and consider the whole, and thus, employ an interdisciplinary perspective.

In the example provided regarding medical marijuana patients and the need to validate the medical experiences of these patients, we must consider medical knowledge from an interdisciplinary perspective that allows us to see patients not as data but as human beings whose stories can help assess their health issues and healthcare choices and as a source of knowledge for medical providers and researchers.  In my opinion, an interdisciplinary framework that brings together the knowledge patients hold and provides medical validation (or lack thereof) of patient claims is critical to medical marijuana patients and our larger society.  The goal of such a framework would be to build a structure in the space betwixt and between disciplines that explores the whole patient experience and related health outcomes in a way that validly disrupts the requirement for clinical trials.  Certainly, an interdisciplinary frame is required for such an inquiry.

Jeffrey Sammons (1986) points out that American education derives from a German model whose goal is “the cultural formation of the self so that it might teach the fullness of its potentialities” (p. 13).  In the context of this model it is the task of particular disciplines to contribute to that fullness and avoid the temptation to become ends in themselves” (Fish, 1989, p. 101).  I posit that the medical profession and its rigid disciplinary guidelines that suggest medical professionals primarily gain knowledge through empirical evidence based research (i.e. clinical trials) fails to acknowledge the fullness and breadth of knowledge interdisciplinary studies can contribute to society’s medical knowledge, not just in the case of medical marijuana but in nearly all instances.  Persons embracing Sammons notion of “fullness” would be “’full’ in the sense that their intelligences would not be captured by any one point of view bur would, rather, be engaged in exploring points of view other than those authorized by current orthodoxies (Fish, 1989, p. 102).

As mentioned, interdisciplinarity has a wide-variety of definitions; much like other terms we use frequently such as leadership or creativity it is hard to clearly define and may in fact be indefinable in the sense that no one definition can contain the ‘whole’ of the term.  My own definition that interdisciplinarity is a rigorous course of study without disciplinary boundaries that allows one to seek knowledge from all perspectives in order to gain an understanding of the whole is but one among many but I believe it encompasses the gist of interdisciplinarity.  First, although all courses of study as notably rigorous at the doctoral level, exploring an issue or problem from a holonic and interdisciplinary perspective requires attention outside of the typically narrow scope disciplinary scholars rely upon.  An interdisciplinarian gathers knowledge through the influence of multiple disciplines and from knowledge outside of the academy to create a greater knowledge than any single disciplinary frame can hold.  In most instances, this knowledge is created with the intention of enacting change designed to address or remedy a social issue or problem.  Much as Union Institute and University promotes interdisciplinarity for the cause of exploring issues of social justice, Warleigh-Lack and Cini (2009)  remind readers that, “interdisciplinarity must always be for something” (p. 5).  Research that calls for action towards resolving an issue of social justice requires an assault on disciplinary boundaries and on the entire edifice of hierarchy and power they reflect and sustain much as Fish describes.  In my opinion, a course of study of this type requires interdisciplinarity if one is to explore the whole issue and consider potential resolutions from a holistic vantage point.

REFERENCES

• Atlee, T. (2003). The Tao of Democracy. North Charleston, SC: Imprint Books.

• Fish, S. (1989). Being Interdisciplinary Is So Very Hard to Do. Issues in Integrative Studies, 9(9), 99-112.

• Meyer, M. (2007). Increasing the frame: interdisciplinarity, transdisciplinarity and representativity. Interdisciplinary Sciences Reviews, 32(3), 203-215.

• Reams, J. (2005). What’s Integral about Leadership? A Reflection on Leadership and Integral Theory. Integral Review, 118-132.

• Wilber, K. (2000a). A Theory of Everything: An Integral Vision for Business, Politics, Science and Spirituality. Boston: Shambala.