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Inter-disciplinary research: combining different
perspectives (2)
Desmond
McNeill
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)?
….
Economics
Sociology
Anthropology
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