Abstract
Transdisciplinary research is becoming increasingly popular in the social sciences due to its unique perspective on tackling complicated problems. Yet, little theorising has been done on how to synthesise distinct, yet also integrable, points of view from different disciplines. I propose ‘generalisation’ and ‘generality’ are two ways of doing this. ‘Generalisation’ is the process by which findings from one discipline are applied to other areas of study. I suggest complexity theory is an example of ‘generalisation’, the same paradigms and rules are applied across the sciences, social sciences and humanities. In this way, complexity can be said to be found in different scenarios and because of this it is possible to use different disciplines to tackle problems in another area (i.e., a complex social system may be compared to a communication system like the internet- they all share reoccurring features). After this, I introduce ‘generality’, which, in contrast to ‘expertise’, is having a breadth of knowledge rather than depth. I suggest this allows integration between different vantage points. To do this, I use complexity theory again and argue different disciplines should be understood as a system of interacting parts which have complex features (such as emergent behaviour, non-linearity and feedback loops). Conceptualising transdisciplinarity like allows us to build a framework to understand the process of synthesis in transdisciplinary research. Overall, then, ‘generalisation’ and ‘generality’ are both seen as vital to transdisciplinary research and that complexity theory provides a way and vocabulary to talk about uniting distinct perspectives.
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Transdisciplinarity, Interdisciplinarity, Complexity Theory, Generalisation, Generality
