ABSTRACT

At present, for instance, there is considerable debate around the benefits and hyperbole of interdisciplinarity. To adherents to disciplines, the investment in interdisciplinarity as a superior approach to problem-solving often seems overstated – and overfunded. Of the things that give rise to interdisciplinarity, collaborations form an important point of methodological emergence. While interdisciplinarity does not have to take place between people – reader can be an interdisciplinary researcher by drawing on resources from different disciplines – exchange between researchers remains the most visible basis. Interdisciplinarity is often placed within a narrative that can be framed in terms of 'global challenges' and 'global competitiveness'. The reality is that the uptake of interdisciplinarity, while seemingly universally desirable, is uneven. Nina Lykke stresses the importance of the history of interdisciplinarity in the social sciences and charts the concept's recent trajectory from radical intervention to institutional convention.