Interdisciplinarity in Development Studies: Myths and Realities

Molteberg, Elisabeth; Bergstrøm, Cassandra; Haug, Ruth

doi:10.1080/08039410.2000.9666144

Cited by 9 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…The natural and social sciences are often seen as two different worlds of practice with different paradigms and methods [9]. A common perspective is that the natural sciences use quantitative approaches and the social sciences use qualitative approaches, which by nature cannot be integrated [10].…”

Section: Various Views On Integrating Natural and Social Science Discmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The natural and social sciences, and quantitative and qualitative methods, are not tightly linked to paradigms and epistemological preferences [9,14,16]. As to agriculture broadly two dominant scientific paradigms can be identified [17,18].…”

Section: Various Views On Integrating Natural and Social Science Discmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, the idea that the natural and social sciences cannot be integrated is based on prejudice rather than on facts [9]. The natural and social sciences, and quantitative and qualitative methods, are not tightly linked to paradigms and epistemological preferences [9,14,16].…”

Section: Various Views On Integrating Natural and Social Science Discmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A question not well answered yet is how research methods of the natural and social sciences can actually be integrated in a research project [9], and how this can be done in a scientifically rigorous way. Answering this question is important to enable more scientists to engage in interdisciplinary research, and to facilitate communication of the results during conferences and through the publishing of interdisciplinary research papers.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Combining research styles of the natural and social sciences in agricultural research

Nuijten

2011

NJAS: Wageningen Journal of Life Sciences

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a b s t r a c tThe need for interdisciplinarity in agricultural and development-oriented research has become widely recognized. In this paper a framework is suggested to integrate research methods of the social and natural sciences. It is argued that the context-mechanism-outcome configuration, based on critical realism, allows a more comprehensive understanding of all candidate mechanisms that have a social, technical or socio-technical basis, related to a particular question. Candidate mechanisms are all possible mechanisms postulated to explain a particular phenomenon. Four research styles can be recognized in both the social and the natural sciences. These research styles help choosing the appropriate methods to test the various candidate mechanisms related to a single research question. Combining the context-mechanism-outcome configuration with the four research styles may reduce the chances of missing out important candidate mechanisms. In this way the proposed framework may help optimize the research set-up and methodology of an interdisciplinary research project. Understanding which disciplines and research styles to combine can also allow interdisciplinary research to go beyond triangulation, as it provides more clarity about the possibilities for tightly integrating research methods and/or different data sets. It is suggested that the absence of a clear methodology for interdisciplinary research holds the advantage that it helps building bridges and developing alternative paths in science.

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Section: Various Views On Integrating Natural and Social Science Discmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Various Views On Integrating Natural and Social Science Discmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Various Views On Integrating Natural and Social Science Discmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Combining research styles of the natural and social sciences in agricultural research

Nuijten

2011

NJAS: Wageningen Journal of Life Sciences

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“…In contrast, interdisciplinarity is far more integrative (see also the discussion in Molteberg et al, 2000). There are, of course, many different ways of mixing and combining multiand interdisciplinary work in development studies, many of which can be found in the pages of this book.…”

Section: History and Expansionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Introduction: Development Studies in the Twenty-First Century

2006

The Elgar Companion to Development Studies

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Collective and individual interdisciplinarity in a sustainability research group: A social network analysis

et al. 2020

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In sustainability science, interdisciplinarity, i.e. the integration of perspectives from different disciplines, is built collectively from interactions among researchers of various disciplines ("collective interdisciplinarity") but also results from the fact that researchers have backgrounds in multiple disciplines ("individual interdisciplinarity"). We applied social network analysis tools to analyze how individual interdisciplinarity influences collective interdisciplinarity, using the case of a forest sustainability science group. We hypothesized that researchers with higher individual interdisciplinarity had more interdisciplinary interactions and were interdisciplinary brokers within the group. We first analyzed individual interdisciplinarity using a bipartite network of researchers and disciplines. We then analyzed networks of management, research, and publication interactions among researchers in the research group. This showed how disciplines influenced interactions and how researchers contributed to interdisciplinary interactions and brokerage. Results of the first analysis identified large disciplinary communities in the center of the bipartite network, whereas smaller ones were more distant. The second analysis highlighted disciplinary homophily in interaction networks, as two researchers interacted more if they were from the same disciplinary community. Results also showed that the interactions among researchers were not only structured by disciplinary homophily, but also by other forms of homophily related to location or region of work. The key brokers of interactions across disciplinary communities were distributed across several communities, showing that brokerage was not controlled by the large, dominant communities. Analysis of correlations between individual interdisciplinarity and contributions to collective interdisciplinarity did not support our hypothesis but rather hinted at the alternative hypothesis that researchers with high individual interdisciplinarity interacted less with other disciplinary communities.

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Interdisciplinarity in Development Studies: Myths and Realities

Cited by 9 publications

References 2 publications

Combining research styles of the natural and social sciences in agricultural research

Combining research styles of the natural and social sciences in agricultural research

Introduction: Development Studies in the Twenty-First Century

Collective and individual interdisciplinarity in a sustainability research group: A social network analysis

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