Powerful disciplinary boundary crossing: Bernsteinian explorations of the problem of knowledge in interdisciplinarity

Abstract

This paper makes a theoretical contribution to the discussion of interdisciplinary knowledge in curriculum and research. As a challenge to much of the Mode 2 thesis concerned only with the importance of knowledge being socially relevant, this paper demonstrates how a Bernsteinian approach to interdisciplinarity relates to the internal configurations underpinning interdisciplinary knowledge. Inspired by explorations of Bernsteinian communities, this paper sets out to conceptualize the socio-epistemic constraints under which powerful disciplinary boundary crossing occurs. The major claim is that the boundaries between disciplines and between them and the field of practice, are essential for boundary crossing. The interdisciplinary efforts do not necessarily involve diminishing disciplinary boundaries, but they are vulnerable to external weakening when there is little connection to the disciplinary core that provides stable internal norms. This paper adds to the discussion by suggesting alternatives to interdisciplinary integration, which do not require a background intellectual consilience between disciplines. It presents an appeal for a form of interdisciplinarity that is pursued to a practical end within refining disciplinary conceptual models, without invoking exaggerated claims for 'relevance', and with no need for a more complex edifice for crossing the established borders between disciplines.

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