Ambivalence, equivocation and the politics of experimental knowledge: A transdisciplinary neuroscience encounter

Abstract

This article is about a transdisciplinary project between the social, human and life sciences, and the felt experiences of the researchers involved. 'Transdisciplinary' and 'interdisciplinary' research-modes have been the subject of much attention lately--especially as they cross boundaries between the social/humanistic and natural sciences. However, there has been less attention, from within science and technology studies, to what it is actually like to participate in such a research-space. This article contributes to that literature through an empirical reflection on the progress of one collaborative and transdisciplinary project: a novel experiment in neuroscientific lie detection, entangling science and technology studies, literary studies, sociology, anthropology, clinical psychology and cognitive neuroscience. Its central argument is twofold: (1) that, in addition to ideal-type tropes of transdisciplinary conciliation or integration, such projects may also be organized around some more subterranean logics of ambivalence, reserve and critique; (2) that an account of the mundane ressentiment of collaboration allows for a more careful attention to the awkward forms of 'experimental politics' that may flow through, and indeed propel, collaborative work more broadly. Building on these claims, the article concludes with a suggestion that such subterranean logics may be indissociable from some forms of collaboration, and it proposes an ethic of 'equivocal speech' as a way to live with and through these kinds of transdisciplinary experiences.

Prospecting for dinosaurs on the mining frontier: The value of information in America’s Gilded Age

“…Without trust, research would quickly descend down a skeptical abyss, requiring scientists to test every assumption and auxiliary hypothesis personally. While the narrative presented here does not challenge this conclusion outright, it shows that deception can play a subtler and more generative role in the knowledge-making enterprise than is often acknowledged (but see Biagioli, 2006;Fitzgerald et al, 2014). While trust was not absent on America's late 19th-century mining frontier, it functioned as something far more complex than a mere condition of possibility for fruitful exchanges to take place.…”

Neuromarketing in the making: Enactment and reflexive entanglement in an emerging field

“…We report our experiences in the field as a narrative of our entanglement with various actors and arguments. We suggest that despite burgeoning research and interest in social studies in neuroscience (see, for instance, Maasen and Sutter, 2007;Ortega and Vidal, 2011;Pickersgill and van Keulen, 2011;Choudhury and Slaby, 2012;Abi--Rached and Rose, 2013), few accounts examine in detail researchers' own experiences of engaging with emerging neurodisciplines or neuropractices (but, see: Cohn, 2008), or, of collaborating in transdisciplinary projects (but, see : Fitzgerald et al, 2014;Fitzgerald and Callard, 2015). We argue that a reflexive account of neuromarketing in the making provides important insights into processes of enactment and entanglement in an emerging field.…”

“…The key difference between Fitzgerald and Callard's account of experimental entanglement and our own entanglement with the object of our study is the terms of collaboration. Fitzgerald and Callard actively sought out collaborations with neuroscientists further to investigate a shared research interest --as in their use of "… neuroimaging to explore the deep and contingent intertwinement of truth, lie, situation, and feeling (Littlefield et al, in preparation;Littlefield et al, 2014;Fitzgerald et al, 2014)" (Fitzgerald and Callard, 2015: 19). We set out to participate in and observe neuromarketing studies in laboratory settings, rather than to collaborate.…”

Examining Interprofessional Education Through the Lens of Interdisciplinarity: Power, Knowledge and New Ontological Subjects

“…A rare example is Hackett and Rhoten's (2009) comparison of the problem-solving capabilities of students trained within an interdisciplinary graduate education programme versus those from disciplinary programmes, which found interdisciplinary students were more successful in the junior years, but disciplinary students were more successful in the senior years. A number of empirical studies documenting the lived experience of interdisciplinary working have also emerged recently, highlighting the tensions and ambivalence that such collaborations can produce (Choi and Shields 2015;Fitzgerald et al 2014;Garforth and Kerr 2011;Hannigan 2014;Panofsky 2011;Rabinow and Bennett 2012). In the vein of these studies, we wish here to unpack some of the ways that IPE actually operates in practice and the forms that it takes.…”