Multidisciplinarity

Commissioned by the network of Canadian Public Arts Funders (CPAF) (see Appendix I), this paper presents some research on multidisciplinarity in the arts through a discussion of 11 contemporary Canadian artists, collectives and organizations engaged in the field.

Overall, multidisciplinarians seem to distinguish their practice by how they think inclusively about what they do. Their thinking may be intuitive or highly intellectualized; their choice-making may be organic or concept-driven – but their approaches to developing and sustaining their work are informed by a perspective that is rigorously multiple in its considerations. The framework is artistic and ecological, artistic and communal, artistic and scientific, and profitable, educational, academic, technological, sociological, cultural, feminist, activist, etc. Within the artistic mode, the thinking is theatre and folk concert and social practice, or sculpture and media arts and community discourse, etc.

This multi-perspective thinking results in actions – practices, activities and structures – that respond simultaneously to multiple purposes, contexts and aims. Space requirements and sources of support are often plural and diverse too. A single project may require multiple types of spaces and involve a variety of partners and possible revenue streams. It also creates or requires multiple abilities to successfully work in this way, be it found in a single individual or through the convening of a cooperative team.

Optimistically, the case studies suggest that 'people get it.' Audiences, communities, followers in the public sphere appreciate the perspectives that these multidisciplinarians enact. The public is excited, engaged and continues to grow. The appetite is there, the need is present, even if the process of attracting audiences and sustaining ties with communities does not always feel effortless.

The challenge of connecting the people to the art, and the challenge of balancing the artistic person with the administration, business and cost of living, suggest opportunities, even priorities, and affirm continued need for cultural partners like public arts funders to furnish support, directly or indirectly.

If there is one theme or image that can be used to link all the case studies, it may be the metaphor of rewilding. These artists, collectives and organizations seek a re-engagement with the wilds of practice and of society. Multidisciplinarians want to connect society with the obscure, forgotten, unusual, rare and unknown. They are uncommonly drawn to the outskirts and outside or unfamiliar elements, and seek engagement without certain outcomes. They appreciate experimentation, value the process of trying, and urge that a worthwhile artistic event can occur in strange locales and at the very small scale – between two people or inside of a petri dish. 

Multidisciplinarians are successfully innovating across society, transforming Canadian life and the cultural landscape, renewing public interest and building relationships with a receptive, in many cases non-traditional arts audience. The conclusion that emerges from the research is an implicit desire for funders, if they are to be partners, to shift focus: Help lift red tape, pull down caution signs and open up pathways. De-emphasize disciplinary distinctions, expand awareness and acceptance of non-traditional, perhaps even unspecified outcomes, and focus more on radical or new ways of supporting cross-sectoral efforts and experimentation. As well, consider further exploring the terrain to detail the scale and types of activities, to reach out to exemplary practitioners who do not fit or engage with existing funding models, and to ultimately support the continued pursuit of multi-purposed artistic excellence in whatever novel forms or configurations it manifests over time.

To rewild the arts is to re-enchant the country with surprising, adventurous possibilities.

Research Associates: Clea Minaker, Soraya Peerbaye, Marjan Verstappen

Interdisciplinarity is without a doubt a contested concept.  It’s much more difficult to say exactly what it is, i.e. to positively define it, than it is to say what it’s not, i.e. to negatively define it.  For instance, we can say with some confidence that it’s not rigid observance of the boundaries of a single discipline.  It’s also not a matter of declaring a single discipline the ideal or supreme model and expecting scholars in other disciplines to model their inquiries after a pattern found in that supreme discipline (as occurred in the 20th century with the rise of positivism and the declaration by some that physics was the “queen of the sciences”).  In this paper, I take up the more difficult question: What is interdisciplinarity, positively-speaking?  My analysis of the concept and recommendations for ways to encourage interdisciplinary collaborations draw heavily on the works of John Dewey, but also rely on ideas introduced by Arthur Fisher Bentley, Max Weber and Colin Koopman.

In original Collatz conjecture, you have no choice, for any given natural number, other than to move from 2x to x or, if x is an odd number, from x to 3x + 1. It is an unsolved problem whether you must eventually reach 1, repeating the move. But I proved autonomous version of the conjecture: if you can choose to move from any x ∈ N to 2x or 3x + 1 or vice versa, you always have a way to reach 1. The counterintuitive example of making certain outcomes of formal rules with uncertain outcomes via introducing freedom of choice shows heuristic and educational value of the multidisciplinary approach, linking mathematics, philosophy, and legal theory.

In this heavily annotated article the provocative thesis is submitted that there is something fundamentally wrong with Western Sinology, or 'Chinakunde', or 'Zhongguoxue' (as distinct from 'Hanxue', which is a kind of old-fashioned philology). 'China experts' either pretend to be knowledgeable about everything related to China, in which case they cannot be taken seriously, or - eventually - admit not to be scientific all-rounders with respect to the country, in which case they cannot be called 'China experts'. The author, who graduated in Sinology from Leyden University and in economics from Erasmus University Rotterdam, not only believes that the study of China has to be taken to a higher level (a belief he expects few tenured professors of Chinese Studies/History will share); he also explains how this long overdue task can be accomplished. Sinologists should take the complexity turn. They should treat China as a 'Ganzheit' (not: 'Gesamtheit'), as a territory-bound, history-moulded and culture-soaked totality of identifiable yet interdependent (f)actors, as a whole intimately interconnected with its numerous parts, as a hypercomplex system of complex, adaptive and non-linear systems of political, military, legal, economic, financial, social, medical, educational, artistic or other nature. Firmly distancing itself from multidisciplinary research (which in practice is a matter of juxta- rather than composition), the new study of China requires a well-thought-out, balanced division of labour. Close collaboration with ICT-driven, China-oriented experts in the natural, social and human sciences willing to co-operate with each other is a sine qua non for comprehending the country that seems to be moving to the centre stage of world politics. The study of China should be mile-wide and mile-deep. The heyday of Sinology is yet to come!
An earlier version of this highly critical but undeniably constructive paper was rejected out of hand by the editors of leading 'Chinese/Asian Studies' journals. The author claims to have reason to suspect them (and other so-called China experts) of being 'bought by China'!

The article argues that a transdisciplinary approach can advance the field of Information Systems (IS). By taking a transdisciplinary approach, researchers reach beyond the bounds of their disciplinary ontology and epistemology in order to address complex phenomena. Such a high level of synthesis is not possible with interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approaches. While these approaches have been deployed in the IS field, transdisciplinarity is still lacking. The article reviews the literature that indicates the relationship between transdisciplinarity and complexity, and posits that the former is a response to the latter. Following a conceptual research approach, it is demonstrated that mainstream IS research is interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary rather than transdisciplinary. Finally, it is argued that the IS field is a promising candidate for ascending up the transdisciplinary path that, in turn, can improve its development prospects.

KROEZE, J.H., TRAVICA, B. and VAN ZYL, I.J. 2019. Information Systems in a Transdisciplinarity Perspective: Leaping to a Larger Stage. Alternation Journal: Interdisciplinary Journal for the Study of the Arts and Humanities in Southern Africa, Special Edition 24, pp. 9 – 47. Print ISSN: 1023-1757; Electronic ISSN: 2519-5476; DOI https://doi.org/10.29086/2519-5476/2019/sp24.2a2

Organizadores: Ligia Gomes Elliot e Ovidio Orlando Filho.

A avaliação de programas de políticas públicas financiados pelo governo brasileiro deve trazer à sociedade respostas sobre a eficiência, efetividade e adequação da execução dos serviços e seu impacto social, com transparência.  Ao meta-avaliar os relatórios, a radiografia de pontos fortes e fragilidades atesta-lhes a fidedignidade, a qualidade, indo além da própria avaliação.

Editora: Pimenta Cultural (2019)

ISBN:
978-85-7221-086-7 (eBook)
978-85-7221-085-0 (brochura)

DOI: 10.31560/pimentacultural/2020.867

Resilience of new and existing buildings to climate change is a key research issue. Climate change-related phenomena can considerably affect buildings mechanical and thermal-energy response by contributing to materials degradation and structural safety. Such an impact is even further exacerbated in historical constructions, more vulnerable to such events due to their ancient structure if compared to recent designs. The purpose of this paper is to propose an innovative, integrated, multidisciplinary methodology for assessing construction materials’ degradation in historic masonry buildings and its potential future evolution, providing a risk mapping accounting for interactions between climate change effects and structural damage. Such a replicable approach consists in (i) preliminary site inspections, (ii) damage and degradation surveys, (iii) development and calibration of numerical models predicting structural-thermal response and (iv) prediction of materials degradation accounting for future climate conditions and potential worsening of structural damage. The final output of the procedure is a hierarchical mapping of regions with different degradation severities, by identifying those where a specific type of degradation or damage insists but are likely stable and those where they are expected to get worse due to changes in future climate conditions or to a negative interaction between degradation and damage. The presented approach is applied to an iconic Italian monumental building, the Consoli Palace in Gubbio, where future climate scenarios up to 2080 are simulated according to the IPCC climate change predictions. Results highlight that thermal-energy and structural aspects need to be jointly considered in the preservation of surface materials of historic buildings exposed to climate change severity.

The unprecedented contemporary expansion of knowledge brought forward a requirement to adopt a new mentality and a sense of urgency in bridging disciplines which, by the middle of twentieth century, gave rise to multidisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity. Mankind has always used intelligence to address problems that life and society have generated. The same planet with the same resources needed to support the life of an exponentially growing population. In response to these requirements, the science and the technology have also grown exponentially, giving rise to cybernetics, mathematical theories that aim to translate the nature at macro and microscopic levels and theories that had the potential of being useful in generating new solutions in architecture. The emergence of computers, of digital technology, of complex graphics and visualization techniques streamlined the approach to architectural solutions and proved useful in satisfying both the pragmatic constraints that make architecture a science and the features that make it an art. This paper investigates the design of digital processes and how they can improve the thinking process at the project concept stage and the rethinking of the relationship between architecture, sciences and, inevitably, a highly technological society. Also present is a sub textual issue as to what extent these current trends are found in Romanian schools of architecture.

In this paper the thesis is submitted that the study of China (indeed of each and every country) is wrongheaded in its methodology and should be fundamentally redesigned. Readers are kindly requested to notice that the author distinguishes between two kinds of 'China experts': 1) Those (tacitly) claiming to be knowledgeable about everything related to China, a - thank God - dying but by no means extinct breed of scholars mainly active in Europe; and 2) Those not CLAIMING to be China experts (that is, those eventually admitting not to be scientific all-rounders with respect to the country) but - and herein lies the crux of the matter -  not shying away from entering, without announcement or permission, a domain outside their own field of expertise, SHOULD THEY HAVE ONE! Many American and other 'China experts' can be blamed for this. 'China expert' is a misnomer, grossly (and dangerously) misleading politicians, captains of industry and the general public, as the author argues at length in the paper, which sums up a great deal of his research over the last few years. Scientists (e.g. demographers, economists, sociologists, psychologists, political scientists, jurists, linguists, literary theorists/critics and 'Kunst- und Kulturwissenschaftler') may have research interest in a particular, their discipline related aspect of China; they can never be justifiably called 'China experts'. Throughout the article, particularly in the text under the subheading Scientific Collaboration, the necessity (and possibility!) of academic teamwork is emphasised, that is to say, the need for interdisciplinary (as distinct from multidisciplinary) research of China. The political, legal, military, economic, financial, social, educational, ecological, religious and other kindred affairs of China are inextricably intertwined, forming together a complex system of complex systems. Consequently, the country should be studied (as it has never been done!) by specialists closely working together and being aware of the historical as well as the geographical dimension of their 'material objects' (explananda). Briefly, the paper pleads for gaining EMPIRICALLY AND THEORETICALLY BASED knowledge of CHINA AS SUCH.

The positive psychology (PP) landscape is changing, and its initial identity is being challenged. Moving beyond the "third wave of PP," two roads for future research and practice in well-being studies are discerned: The first is the state of the art PP trajectory that will (for the near future) continue as a scientific (sub)discipline in/next to psychology (because of its popular brand name). The second trajectory (main focus of this manuscript) links to pointers described as part of the so-called third wave of PP, which will be argued as actually being the beginning of a new domain of inter-or transdisciplinary well-being studies in its own right. It has a broader scope than the state of the art in PP, but is more delineated than in planetary well-being studies. It is in particular suitable to understand the complex nature of bio-psycho-social-ecological well-being, and to promote health and wellness in times of enormous challenges and changes. A unique cohering focus for this post-disciplinary well-being research domain is proposed. In both trajectories, future research will have to increase cognizance of metatheoretical assumptions, develop more encompassing theories to bridge the conceptual fragmentation in the field, and implement methodological reforms, while keeping context and the interwovenness of the various levels of the scientific text in mind. Opportunities are indicated to contribute to the discourse on the identity and development of scientific knowledge in mainstream positive psychology and the evolving post-disciplinary domain of well-being studies.

Many western countries deal with a longstanding division between natural and cultural heritage when it comes to landscape management, which is mainly attributable to the fact that both sectors have developed independently and now operate separately. Such divide is further aggravated by the diversity of national and international regulations and administrative procedures. Over the past years, research carried out in both fields made it clear that this divide is counterproductive for managing future climate and economic challenges and safeguarding natural and cultural values as well as the well-being of inhabitants. This volume contributes to the ongoing discourse regarding the natural and cultural divide with a broad perspective that includes an academic, policy and societal point of view. It has aimed for both conceptual as practical approaches to the topic, as well as the motives for crossovers such as safeguarding and active contributions to broader societal issues. These motivati...

This article outlines major trends in the development of social semiotics during the last four decades of its existence. The starting point was the interface between functional analysis of the semiotic system of language and the structural interpretation of language as a social system. Their convergence provided the basis for further developing an interdisciplinary domain of social semiotics. Michael Halliday’s book “Language as social semiotic: The social interpretation of language and meaning” (1978) gave an initial impetus to exploring the interface of semiotic and social. Ten years later his approach was reinterpreted by Bob Hodge and Gunther Kress in “Social Semiotics” (1988). They suggested that both the social and semiotic nature of language had a broader significance and extends to the entire domain of human activity and existence. Thus, social semiotic (in singular) of language was enhanced into all-embracing social semiotics (in plural). This article further examines linguistic as socio-semiotic, semiotic as social, semiotic as multimodal, socio-semiotic as functional, interpretative as socio-semiotic. The article outlines two frontiers of social semiotics, that of its subject matter and that of its methodological dimension. Finally, the article focuses on current challenges faced by social semiotics, particularly those relevant to sociology.

... At the end of the 1970s, Joseph Kockelmans critiqued these and other formulations and suggested a revised terminology (1979, 123–160). ... blind man and the crippled woman were assisted in their flight by their familiarity with the terrain into which they fled: the halom tano, the ...

La reflexión sobre la investigación cualitativa de la comunicación propone al cientifico social, y más específicamente al antropólogo, algunos desafíos. El primero de ellos se refiere al enfrentamiento directo de una perspectiva teórica y metodológica, que pueda reflejar preocupaciones multi, pluri, inter, o transdiscipl‘inarias. Si así no fuese, cada investigador quedaria en su pr0pio espacio, restringido a su objeto, a sus tradiciones teóricas y a sus resultados competentes, sin embargo parciales.

Algunas indagaciones parecen pertinentes en cuanto a una alternativa multidisciplinaria: ¿Cabría, por ejemplo, al cientifico social la apropiación de elementos que son específicos del campo de la comunicación y la transformación de éstos en objetos de su pr0pia reflexión? O aún más: ¿Es posible la utilización de conceptos y abordajes acumulados a lo largo de la historia de la producción del conocimiento antropológico y su transferencia a la reflexión sobre las comunicacioneS?

Poco a poco el debate medioambiental parece empezar reconocer la importancia de los efectos de nuestra manera de pensar y actuar sobre el entorno y sobre nuestras propias vidas. El estudio esta problemática siempre ha requerido, y particularmente requiere en la actualidad, una perspectiva sociocultural. En este trabajo se realiza un acercamiento a diversas perspectivas teóricas que inciden en la relación dialéctica entre los procesos sociales y el medioambiente, con la intención de hacer hincapié en la necesidad de una interpretación sistémica de los problemas ambientales en la que los criterios de acción y funcionamiento se evalúen a partir de las ventajas e inconvenientes ecológicos, sociales, y culturales. Para resolver esta ecuación se vuelve indispensable un enfoque multidisciplinar que supere las visiones parciales de la realidad.

El periodismo collage desarrollado por Ryszard Kapuściński se ha tornado controversial por su difícil clasificación de género y por combinar distintas técnicas y enfoques pertenecientes a varias disciplinas. En este artículo se analizará la influencia de los principales trozos interdisciplinarios que componen la totalidad de la obra de este autor: la fotografía y la poesía, las ciencias sociales, la politología, el cine y la literatura. Como marco teórico se empleará la fenomenología y se expondrán algunos ejemplos de sus obras cumbres para mostrar cómo se ponen en práctica las técnicas interdisciplinarias del collage. La obra kapuścińskiana, a pesar de ser completamente heterogénea en cuanto a su estructura, comparte una esencia en común: retrata la realidad sociopolítica de algunos de los acontecimientos más relevantes del siglo XX, a la vez que proyecta un recuento muy íntimo de las experiencias del autor en el campo. La responsabilidad epistémica del autor para con sus sujetos de trabajo está siempre presente, dando espacio a sus lectores a juzgar por ellos mismos la credibilidad de su postura y de sus historias.

Palabras claves: Periodismo literario;  Ryszard Kapuściński; interdisciplinariedad; collage

Historical Ecology is a multidisciplinary field that studies long-term relationships between humanity and the environment. There is a missing synthesis effort to organize and present the state of the scholarship in Historical Ecology in Brazil. We aimed to characterize by whom, when, where, what, and how research in Historical Ecology has been conducted in Brazil. We made a systematic mapping of 118 scientific articles published in Portuguese, Spanish, and English that fit our inclusion criteria. The results showed articles from 1998 to May 2021, published in 79 different journals. We found 264 national and international authors (60% men and 40%women); 91% of all investigations were carried out in the Amazon and Atlantic Forest biomes. There are few works about Cerrado, Caatinga, and Pampa, and none for Pantanal. The most mentioned keywords were historical ecology, Amazon, forest, and archaeology. Twenty-three articles focused on a particular species, primarily plants; 37% of all ar...

Interview following Steven Hartman's presentation "Integrated environmental humanities and social sciences as 'transformative cornerstones’ of global change research design" at the UNESCO symposium "Broadening the Application of the Sustainability Science Approach" in Kuala Lumpur 19-21 December 2016. The symposium, hosted by the Scientific Advisor to the Prime Minister of Malaysia and organized by UNESCO Paris and UNESCO Japan/MEXT, explored how regional experiences and inputs can help to develop effective policy guidelines on sustainability science and interdisciplinarity in research and education for all UNESCO member states.

See linked video url under "Files".

La conoscenza profonda di un’architettura è il requisito fondamentale per l’elaborazione di qualsiasi intervento di restauro, favorisce la comprensione piena dei caratteri della fabbrica guidando le scelte progettuali e rendendole concordi alle necessità di quest’ultima. Essa non si presenta mai come un ‘oggetto cristallizzato’ nel tempo, ma è un organismo in continua mutazione, frutto delle diverse fasi di vita dovute a esigenze materiali e spirituali, differenti per ogni periodo storico ed estranee nella loro formazione a regole rigide o cicliche. Questo volume vuole proporre alcuni saggi, in diversi ambiti di ricerca, accomunati dalla particolare attenzione alla ricostruzione delle fasi storico-architettoniche dei beni oggetto di studio, nella consapevolezza che l’identificazione di tale processualità possa contribuire alla formulazione di un progetto rispettoso dei valori testimoniali in loro riconosciuti e da preservare per il futuro.

The most recent Finnish national curriculum for basic education was implemented starting from 2016. The curriculum calls for the development of learners’ transversal competences, which are built on the broader discourse on 21st century skills and challenges. Phenomenon-based learning, as a multidisciplinary approach, was integrated in the new Finnish curriculum in order to help regular subject teaching to tackle the transversal competences.
As an artist, art educator and researcher, my interest was directed towards the understanding of phenomenon-based learning from an art-educational perspective. Therefore, this study brings insights from art education to phenomenon-based learning, in order to open a discussion on the following questions: where do art education and phenomenon-based learning meet? And following, how could teachers and learners benefit from this encounter?
A post-structuralist view on art education forms the researcher’s perspective within the study. Methodologically, a post-structural positioning was also taken, relying on the a/r/tographical approach. A/r/tography is a performative arts-based research methodology that recognizes the complexity of situations and articulates in-between them.
An arts-based workshop worked as a platform for exploration. Framed within a phenomenon-based project, the workshop was conducted in collaboration with a class of 6th graders and their teacher, in the City of Espoo, Finland. The a/r/tographical toolkit, built on visual and performative ethnography, worked alongside workshopping as methods of data collection and being with the material. The collected data include: visual and written field notes, video recordings, audio recordings, a written questionnaire and a semi-structured interview. Performing the material through theory revealed that art education and phenomenon-based learning meet in the concepts of multidisciplinarity and engagement, through different entanglements.
The study suggests that the encounter between art education and phenomenon-based learning could benefit teachers and learners in different ways. The situation experienced in this study holds some interesting challenges that leave space for further developments

Kielentutkimusta eli lingvistiikkaa on perinteisesti kutsuttu myös filologiaksi. Tämä näkyy yhä sellaisten akateemisten oppiaineiden nimissä, kuten pohjoismainen, germaaninen, englantilainen tai slaavilainen filologia. Tosin useimmissa suomalaisissa yliopistoissa filologia tieteenä ja professiona on enää muisto vain, vaikka moni kielten opiskelija saattaakin vielä kutsua itseään filologiksi erottautuakseen esimerkiksi käännöstieteen opiskelijoista. Tämä artikkeli käsittelee kielentutkimuksen filologista ulottuvuutta. Lähestyn aihetta erityisesti oman alani nordistiikan eli pohjoismaisen kielentutkimuksen näkökulmasta.

The need to develop experimental tools for a responsible research and innovation (RRI) framework is relevant for managing research agendas and policy making that seriously take into account the complex conditions of innovation development (linked to multidisciplinarity and interaction processes) between the researchers and their fieldwork activities. The adoption of an RRI framework is even more important for multidisciplinary and complex issues, such as the agri-food system. In this context, the SASS (Sustainable Agri-food Systems for Sustainable Development (SASS) project represents a good example for verifying the application of the RRI strategy in a varied research group committed to the development of sustainable agri-food systems in Sub-Saharan Africa. The project, which involves more than 50 researchers from different fields of knowledge and theoretical backgrounds, showed the importance of the processes of reflection, re-driving, and convergence in the definition of research objectives and strategies. This process started by experimenting with new dedicated RRI tools in order to allow interactions between the researchers, including exchanging their experience in data collection and theoretical reflection development. With respect to this analysis, it was interesting to analyze how the RRI tools and strategies have been activated between researchers and different stakeholders, generating reflections capable of re- adapting the results towards shared and accessible innovation for the extended society. Following the discussion based on the description of the SASS-RRI agenda tools and following an internal verification given from an RRI-based web survey, this contribution provides new insights, in terms of tools and strategies, to promote and refine RRI approaches. This work underlines how RRI methods have promoted internal and external interactions to connect the research objectives towards a model of open innovation.

This book of collected papers, published by the DFG-Sonderforschungsbereich Erinnerungskulturen ("Memory Cultures") at the Justus Liebig University of Gießen, gives a broad overview of approaches and results of memory research within various disciplines. Despite many interesting insights, the book offers no general framework by which the different aspects analyzed by the authors could be classified and related to one another. Thus, the shortcomings of memory studies, from a cultural perspective and understood as an interdisciplinary, multidimensional research program, become visible. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0703259

Many western countries deal with a longstanding division between natural and cultural heritage when it comes to landscape management, which is mainly attributable to the fact that both sectors have developed independently and now operate separately. Such divide is further aggravated by the diversity of national and international regulations and administrative procedures. Over the past years, research carried out in both fields made it clear that this divide is counterproductive for managing future climate and economic challenges and safeguarding natural and cultural values as well as the well-being of inhabitants.
This volume contributes to the ongoing discourse regarding the natural and cultural divide with a broad perspective that includes an academic, policy and societal point of view. It has aimed for both conceptual as practical approaches to the topic, as well as the motives for crossovers such as safeguarding and active contributions to broader societal issues. These motivations resonate with current paradigms in heritage management.

For some time now we have been working both individually and together on a new approach to political economy that does not fit neatly into the standard ways of thinking about political economy as a discipline. Instead, we describe our shared approach as pre-disciplinary in its historical inspiration and post-disciplinary in its current intellectual implications. Of course, we are not alone in refusing disciplinary boundaries and decrying some of their effects. Indeed, there are many signs of increasing commitment among social scientists to transcending such boundaries to better understand the complex interconnections within and across the natural and social worlds. We advocate the idea of a 'cultural political economy' and suggest how it might transform understandings of recent developments in political economy. Before doing so, however, we will situate our proposals for cultural political economy in the broader context of exciting recent developments in political economy.

This paper offers a concentrated introduction to relationships between method, theory, research questions, argumentation and methodology.  It comments on the relationship of methodology to knowledge production and also offers perspectives on problems and possible solutions in opening cross-disciplinary discussion and the development of truly multidisciplinary research.
It introduces a 'virtual workshop' method for developing the research and papers of scholars using electronic technologies. This method was designed especially for coordinating articles in the development of international, multidisciplinary publications.