Interdisciplinary experiences: reaching across subjects, reaching another doctoral researcher
“ The world has problems while universities have disciplines”
By Louise Elali, SAGE/Sussex Hive Scholar
Interdisciplinarity is often applied in subjects where the traditional disciplinary structure of research institutions is not the most complete way to answer their questions – for example, women’s studies or ethnic studies. It can also be applied to complex subjects that can only be understood by combining the perspectives of two or more fields – think of globalization issues or climate change.
Lately, academia has been increasingly moving towards recognising the merits of interdisciplinary study, and more and more research projects aim to combine two or more academic disciplines. The goal then is to think across boundaries, and to draw in knowledge from other fields of study.
As doctoral researchers, we are constantly having interdisciplinary experiences: often it’s consciously, when we seek support from disciplines beyond our own in order to view our research more holistically; but sometimes we don’t even notice it’s happening, for instance, when we have conversations about our research with people from different educational/socio-political backgrounds who have some deeply useful insights to offer. And while the second type of encounters can be more intriguing and mind-opening, they are far rarer, as PhD students tend to meet and socialize within their schools.
It was with this in mind that we set out to create a space for PhD students at the University of Sussex where it would be possible to meet people from other schools, but also those who are working on similar research topics. The Doctoral Interdisciplinary Unconference, which happened in November 2019, offered an opportunity for such interaction to happen.
We asked doctoral researchers to think about their research in a ‘zoomed out’ fashion, so they could envision their research and interests in larger terms and see its scope beyond their discipline. Consequently, it was easier to make connections with peers from other schools who might be working with similar concepts.
For instance, someone working on trauma literature in the School of English could have a fruitful conversation with someone working with trauma or mental health in the School of Psychology or with someone working on women in trauma during the Second World War in the School of History. The Unconference encouraged groups such as this to engage with each other. Moreover, we hope that our newly formed bonds will stretch well beyond the unconference and take the shape of something fruitful – one group is planning a series a blog posts, while another is thinking about organizing a symposium – and we are looking forward to both!
The event was so successful that we are already organizing a second edition for next term, with a new twist, of course – more on that on a later blog post! As for now, we want to know – what are your experiences with interdisciplinarity?