Inter-disciplinary research: combining different

perspectives (2)

DesmondMcNeill

Lecture 1

• Disciplines differ – both with regard to what they study and how they study it; and the two are linked, but not inextricably.

  • Many phenomena (and all phenomena in the social

sciences) cannot be regarded merely as ‘natural’/ ‘material’ (existing independently of people’s beliefs and values) nor merely as ‘social’/ ‘ideal’ (existing solely by virtue of people’s beliefs and values).

How Disciplines Interact (1)

Field

Of

Study

Perspective

NATURE

ECONOMY

SOCIETY

ECOLOGY

ecology

ecological economics

socio-biology

ECONOMICS

environmental

economics

Economics

sociological

(institutional) economics

ANTHROPOLOGY/

SOCIOLOGY

environmental anthropology

economic sociology

anthropology/

sociology

Source: «On Interdisciplinary Research: with particular reference to the field of environment and development». Higher Education Quarterly, vol 53, no 4, October 1999. Desmond McNeill

•  Within social sciences and humanities there is a major division between perspectives: with economics and anthropology marking the extremes.

 • Combining disciplines, through interdisciplinary research,

is very challenging. • Approaches such as environmental economics, and

medical anthropology, are more accurately seen as sub-disciplines not ‘inter-disciplines’.

 • Perhaps the best way to undertake interdisciplinary

research is to work as a team, drawing on two or more different disciplines in order to cast light on a common phenomenon or problem.

Lecture 2

A ‘perspective’ is a combination of method and theory.

Method and theory are closely associated: compareeconomics and sociology.

Disciplines can become introverted – applying their methods and theories uncritically.

Having an interdisciplinary training can encourage one to select a perspective which is best suited for studying a particular phenomenon.

… and may even encourage more radical challenges to existing disciplines.

Lecture 3. Interdisciplinary research by individual researchers

Advice re masters thesis

Start from the phenomenon/ problem, not the theory or hypothesis.

Draw on those disciplines, methods and theories which best relate to the problem.

Be ‘reflexive’, critical.

Be rigorous with regard to both the collection and use of empirical data and the analysis.

Avoid normative statements.

Academic quality and Interdisciplinary Research

Academic quality is normally assessed by peer review.

The primary criteria of quality are that research should be original and rigorous.

Originality

At masters level the demand for originality is not very strenuous.

Some interdisciplinary research is very original because it draws inspiration from one discipline and uses it in another.

 But whether or not this is original may depend on whether it is

viewed from one or the other perspective.

Rigour

What constitutes rigour is decided by those who practice the discipline. Within a discipline, there is generally strong agreement as to what constitutes rigour.

Between disciplines, there is often strong disagreement.

This can therefore be a problem for researchers who work in the interfaces between disciplines.

• The aesthetic qualities of the writing also matter.

• Different disciplines, and even sometimes different journals, develop their own styles.

• This may even relate to such things as use of footnotes and acknowledgements.

• Building blocks: empirical facts, evidence.

 • Connections: logical or causal links.

Rigour: building up an argument.

Evidence: authoritative sources of information

Official statistics

Data from ‘recognised’ researchers, institutions

Newspapers?

Interviews

Observation

Friends, family?

What is the case: facts and evidence

How to test the claim that:

This is water.This is a tree.This person is in pain.This person is a Norwegian.

What is the case – what one person says is the case – what people say is the case.

Logical argument/ causal explanation

Logical argument:

A is contained in B; B is contained in C.

Therefore: A is contained in C.

This man is a bachelor.

(Therefore), this man is unmarried.

Causal relations

How to test the claim that:

Water causes soil erosion.

Trees reduce global warming.

Tobacco induces addiction in humans

Democracies reduce the likelihood of armed conflict.

Why do people migrate to cities?Are migrants poorer than residents? What are the attitudes of migrants (and non-migrants)?….

EconomicsSociologyAnthropology

Example: rural-urban migration in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

Methods (within social science/humanities)

Economics:Statistics: correlations based on cross-sectional data and time series.

Sociology:Surveys and questionnaires.Interviews

Anthropology:Participant observation.

Comparative case studies: compare a small number of e.g. villages which are very similar in some respects but very different in others.

Often based on fieldwork: though only brief.

Maybe comparative case studies.

Interviews as one major source of information.

Think critically about the reliability of these sources of information: e.g. how representative are the cases chosen, the people interviewed, and the quotations from the interviews ?

Masters thesis: some observations on method

The theory (or theories) chosen should be that which best contributes to explaining/ enlightening the phenomenon being studied.

Openness to different theories, and even different disciplines, is key to an interdisciplinary approach.

The process of critically assessing different methods, different theories, and even different disciplines, is extremely demanding.

Within the scope of a masters thesis, however, expectations should not be too high.

Some observations on theory

:

Some (non-random) examples of journal articles:

Anthropology

Loving and forgetting: moments of inarticulacy in tribal India*(p 243-261)Piers Vitebsky

Ultima Thule: anthropology and the call of the unknown (p 789-804)Kirsten Hastrup

Rights violations, rumour, and rhetoric: making sense of cannibalism in Mambasa, Ituri (Democratic Republic of Congo) (p 825-843)Johan Pottier

Spirit possession, power, and the absent presence of Islam: re-viewing Les maîtres fous* (p 731-761)Paul Henley

Economics

Competition and Price Variation When Consumers Are Loss AverseBotond Koszegi and Paul Heidhues

Does Innovation Cause Stock Market Runups? Evidence from the Great CrashTom Nicholas

The Power of Focal Points Is Limited: Even Minute Payoff Asymmetry May Yield Large Coordination Failures Vincent P. Crawford, Uri Gneezy and Yuval Rottenstreich

Explaining Changes in Female Labor Supply in a Life-Cycle ModelOrazio Attanasio, Hamish Low and Virginia Sanchez-Marcos

Political science

Global Distributive Justice and the State (p 487-518)Simon Caney

Do Mayoral Elections Work? Evidence from London (p 653-678)John Curtice, Ben Seyd, Katarina Thomson

Towards the End of a Long Transition? Bipolarity and Instability in Italy's Changing Political System (p 138-149)Maurizio Carbone, James L. Newell

The Grimly Comic Riddle of Hegemony in IPE: Where is Class Struggle?*Adam David Morton

Some Masters topics 2008

Eco- tourism, wind power production and sustainable development in Møre and Romsdal

Rhetoric and realities of local people involvement in conserving the biodiversity of Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, Uganda

Consuming the Wilderness - Competing for Access to the Last Frontier

People and cod: un/sustainability in the making

Perspectives on Poverty: The Poor as Human Waste of Modernity