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Interdisciplinary Collaborations as Trading Zones

@MaxKemman

University of Luxembourg | March 21, 2017

Groningen University

Today

About me

• What is an academic discipline
• What is interdisciplinarity
• Trading zones
• Practicing trading zones
• Conclusions

About me

Twitter: @MaxKemman Blog: www.maxkemman.nl

BSc Cognitive Artificial Intelligence (Utrecht University 2006-2009)

• MSc Information Science (Utrecht University 2009-2011)
• Junior researcher History department (Erasmus University Rotterdam 2011-2014)
• PhD Candidate History department/Centre for Contemporary and Digital History

(University of Luxembourg 2014-present)

About my PhD

Digital History as methodological interdisciplinarity: using tools, methods, and concepts from other disciplines to the benefit of historical research (Klein 2014) Alignment of scholarly values with digital technology as two-way street:

The tool needs to fit the practices (social shaping)

• The practices need to fit the tools (technological determinism)

Other interests

Google Scholar

• Open access, open data
• Digital libraries: linked data
• Artificial Intelligence

What is an academic discipline?

What makes your discipline a discipline? How is it different from Computer Science? Why did you choose this discipline?

Becher & Parry (2005) The Endurance of the Disciplines

Disciplines can be described according to 2 aspects: cognitive & social

Cognitive aspect

Subject - 'a particular, restricted aspect of reality' (Whitley 1974)

• Techniques of enquiry
• Methods
• Resources
• "Sustain an active and reasonably well-organised research frontier or pattern of

conceptual development"

Social aspect

Incorporation within a typical academic organisation

• Shared set of cultural values
• Recognition by the Academy at large
• Journals, conferences, associations

Sugimoto & Weingart (2015) The kaleidoscope of disciplinarity

Cognitive

• Social
• Communicative (discourse)
• Separatedness (boundary work)
• Tradition
• Institutional

Communicative Technical terminology per field:

Hermeneutics

• Annotation
• Query
• Event

Communicative Becher (1987) Disciplinary discourse Praising peers Criticising peers

History: scholarly, original, rigorous, stimulating, well-written

• Sociology: rigorous, stimulating, persuasive, powerful, perceptive
• Physics: elegant, economical, productive
• History: thin, 'sound', sloppy, jargon-ridden
• Sociology: Anecdotal, contentious
• Physics: sloppy, 'accurate', 'rigorous'

Separatedness Gieryn (1983) Boundary-Work and the Demarcation of Science from Non- Science Boundary work: defining a disciplinary field by contrasting it with other fields Just as readers come to know Holmes better through contrasts to his foil Watson, so does the public better learn about "science" through contrasts to "non-science."

• P. 791

Limitations of concept of 'discipline'

Is Digital History a disciplinary activity?

No room for different practices within a single department

• No room for people from outside university

Communities of Practice

(Wenger, 1998)

Limitations:

Mutual engagement (involving regular interaction).

• Joint negotiated enterprise (mutual goal and accountability).
• Shared repertoire of negotiable resources (such as jargon and practices).
• No room for non-human engagement

Epistemic Cultures

[T]hose sets of practices, arrangements and mechanisms bound together by necessity, affinity and historical coincidence which, in a given area of professional expertise, make up how we know what we know

Knorr Cetina (2007)

Conclusions

Disciplines demarcate a group of peers, concerned with specific techniques, and subjects More flexible concepts are "community of practice" or "epistemic culture" Why would we want to be interdisciplinary? Wanneer er reden is om verschillende disciplines te onderscheiden ... is er tevens reden ze niet met elkaar te vermengen

Ankersmit (1983)

What is interdisciplinarity?

Did any of you follow courses from other disciplines? Why? What are limitations of your discipline?

Multi, Inter, Trans

Choi & Pak (2006) Multidisciplinarity, interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity in health research, services, education and policy

Multi-: "draws on knowledge from different disciplines but stays within the boundaries of those fields" (additive)

• Inter-: "analyzes, synthesizes and harmonizes links between disciplines into a

coordinated and coherent whole" (interactive)

• Trans-: "integrates the natural, social, and health sciences in a humanities context, and in

so doing transcends each of their traditional boundaries" (holistic)

A case for transdisciplinarity

Gibbons (1994) The New Production of Knowledge Mode 1: complex of ideas, methods, values, norms, and ensure "compliance with what is considered sound scientific practice"

Mode 1 Mode 2

Problems are solved within academic context and interests of the community

• Disciplinary
• Homogeneous
• Hierarchical, tends to preserve its form
• Problems are solved within

context of application

• Transdisciplinary
• Heterogeneous
• Heterarchical and transient
• + More socially accountable

and reflexive

Challenges to practicing interdisciplinarity

Let's view interdisciplinary per the typology of Becher & Parry (2005)

Cognitive challenges

Subject - 'a particular, restricted aspect of reality' (Whitley 1974)

• Techniques of enquiry
• Methods
• Resources
• "Sustain an active and reasonably well-organised research frontier or pattern of

conceptual development"

Social challenges

Incorporation within a typical academic organisation

• Shared set of cultural values
• Recognition by the Academy at large
• Journals, conferences, associations

"What do you call a grad student without a supervisor: Interdisciplinary." - @ChadGaffield

(via @AcademicsSay)

Conclusions

Interdisciplinarity is interesting, but not the easiest route to take To be truly interdisciplinary, need coordination

Trading Zones

[A]n arena in which radically different activities could be locally, but not globally, coordinated

Galison (1996)

Local vs global?

The assumption is that the different communities in this 'arena' cannot coordinate actions on a global scale Why not? For example, why can't history and computer science do that?

Ideas of what is interesting

• Values of what is important
• Jargon
• Communication (e.g., publications)

Global incommensurability

Cannot judge one discipline in the terminology of another No neutral ground on which to compare the two

Local coordination

Define common goals Create a shared language: pidgin/creole Establish shared practices?

Acculturation & Dimensions

[T]he process by which the beliefs and practices of one community diffuse across the boundaries of another and subsequently alter the second community's practices and interpretations

Barley (1988)

Contact & Participation

• Cultural maintenance
• Coercion

Collins et al (2007) Trading zones and interactional expertise

What kind of trading zones do we see with Digital History?

Homogeneous Heterogeneous Collaboration Coercion Digital History as inter-language

• A new discipline?
• McCarty (2005)

Digital History as fractioned trading zone

• A dual citizenship for practioners and research
• bjects?
• Svensson, Klein, Hunter, Rieder & Röhle

Digital History as subversive

• Historians assuming the practice
• f Computer Science, but not the expertise (or

vice versa)? Digital History as enforced

• A power struggle of who decides what the digital

technology will do?

• Mounier (2015)

Problem: DH discussed as a homogeneous phenomenon, a single trading zone

Fractioned trading zones Commonly assumed the category of digital humanities TZ Two different types: boundary objects and interactional expertise

Boundary objects [O]bjects which are both plastic enough to adapt to local needs and the constraints of the several parties employing them, yet robust enough to maintain a common identity across sites. They are weakly structured in common use, and become strongly structured in individual site use.

Star & Griesemer (1989)

Related to the earlier mentioned pidgin

Interactional expertise Evans & Collins (2010) describe 3 forms of expertise: Both types of experts share the same social environment Interactional experts can share the discussion, but not add in practice Imitation Game

No expertise

1.

Interactional expertise

2.

Contributory expertise

3.

Contact & Participation

Digital History as collaboration with (a.o.) computer scientists

• Digital History as end-users of tools
• Digital History as building tools independently
• Project
• Lab
• International network
• THATCamp

Different forms of interdisciplinarity Interdisciplinarity can then occur on several levels:

Contact between different disciplines

• Individuals taking methods, concepts, tools from other disciplines
• Within a discipline focused around a subject, with different methods/concepts around it

When is a discipline?

Conclusions

Global incommensurability between disciplines Within trading zones: local coordination Acculturation: what happens when you are long enough in a TZ?

Practicing Trading Zones

Sit in groups of 4, with people from different backgrounds Discuss the following questions

What do you understand by data?

• What is evidence?
• Can research be objective?
• What are questions you can ask to distinguish an expert from non-expert in your

discipline?

Conclusions (last time)

Academia structured into disciplines Interdisciplinary research promising for engaging with a subject from different perspectives, but not easy Within interdisciplinary contact, trading zones form to coordinate language and practices Trading zones can either take the form of:

A new field/discipline

• A fractioned zone with people from different disciplines collaborating
• One disciplines assuming the practices of another
• A power struggle of who gets to decide what to do

References

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• Barley, S. R., Gordon, W. M., & Gash, D. C. (1988). Cultures of Culture: Academics, Practitioners and the Pragmatics of Normative Control. Administrative

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• Becher, T. (1987). Disciplinary discourse. Studies in Higher Education, 12(March 2015), 261–274.
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