ABSTRACT
This chapter attempts to situate 'valuing' and 'validating' in relation to the complex practicalities of doing interdisciplinary work. Specifically, the nouns that attach to the verbs valuing and validating can be presented as contrasting pairs which connote rather different practices, interests and arrangements. Thus, for Valuing researchers can compare value and valuation, and for Validating they can compare validity and validation. As social scientific studies of audit culture and standardization have often noted, external criteria are mobilized in the process of locally negotiated valuing, and the 'fruitful' application of external criteria often entails their situated negotiation. Valuing and validating range across a number of concerns: data, participants, project, case, research question, methods, profession and institution. The chapter illustrates the complex interweaving of valuing and validating within a range of interdisciplinary practices and projects, rather than to provide a systematized approach.
