GMW PLC lecture: Cross-disciplinary meanings, (un)doings and beings, by Dr. Audrey Verma

This lecture engages reflexively with the spectrum of interdisciplinary concepts and practices through a series of ethnographic vignettes. These accounts draw on i) four years as a social scientist working toward a biological science PhD in Scotland involving ecologists, conservation practitioners and human- computer interaction researchers, and ii) a two-year study as an ethnographer studying knowledge production, interdisciplinarity and innovation on the cross-institutional and multi-sector Creative Fuse North East project based in northeast UK. In addition to specific observations and extrapolations (on e.g. translation, brokerage, inter/disciplinary identities, value, temporality), the lecture will make three abstract points. First, mess, uncertainty and sustained critique need to be re-centred and embraced, while nonetheless navigating the rationales of accountability, access and innovation underpinning cross-disciplinary projects. Second and related to the first, cross-disciplinary encounters may best be understood relationally and processually rather than through static schema. Third, interdisciplinarity’s recent status and visibility must be read against – but not simply reduced to - the context and impacts of fundamental changes that increasingly configure the processes and institutions that produce knowledge, i.e. shifts from Mode 1 to Mode 2 research, and the pervasive adoption of managerial approaches in UK universities.

Dr. Audrey Verma is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, scribing online responses and resistance to environmental loss and extinction. This work builds on her doctoral research examining the sociocultural implications of new technologies for wildlife conservation. In her previous post, Audrey was the lead ethnographer studying interdisciplinary knowledge production and university business collaborations on the Creative Fuse North East project.

For more info contact: Dr Geetha Reddy geetha.reddy@rug.nl

PLC Lecture Series, organised by Professional Learning Communities (PLC), Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences