ABSTRACT
The four chapters in this part come at the issue of disciplines and research practices in very different ways and with very different foci. Fiona Cownie looks at the development of research in law departments around the world, and the alternative approaches to that. Angela Brew and Catherine Manathunga question the contemporary salience of disciplines globally as organising structures for knowledge and research, and hence question the continued purchase of the ‘tribes and territories’ metaphor. Nicola Spurling examines the drivers of practices in sociology departments in the UK, while Paul Trowler looks at research as practised in four disciplines in the art and design area in a specialist university also in the UK. The editors wanted to achieve as many different ‘takes’ on the issue as possible within the constraints of these four chapters, and we think we have achieved that. Some key themes, though, emerge from this diversity. There are five.
