Beyond Interdisciplinarity examines the broadening meaning, heterogeneity, and boundary work of interdisciplinarity. It includes both crossdisciplinary work (encompassing multi-, inter-, and trans-disciplinary forms) as well as cross-sector work (spanning disciplines, fields, professions, government and industry, and communities in the North and South). Part I defines boundary work, discourses of interdisciplinarity, and the nature of interdisciplinary fields and interdisciplines. Part II examines dynamics of working across boundaries, including communicating, collaborating, and learning in research projects and programs, with a closing chapter on failing and succeeding along with gateways to literature and other resources. The conceptual framework is based on an ecology of spatializing practices in transaction spaces, including trading zones and communities of practice. Boundary objects, boundary agents, and boundary organizations play a vital role in brokering differences for platforming change in contexts ranging from small projects to new fields to international initiatives. Translation, interlanguage, and a communication boundary space are vital to achieving intersubjectivity and collective identity, fostering not only pragmatics of negotiation and integration but also reflexivity, transactivity, and co-production of knowledge with stakeholders beyond the academy. Rhetorics of holism and synthesis compete with instrumentalities of problem solving and innovation as well as transgressive critique. Yet typical warrants today include complexity, contextualization, collaboration, and socially robust knowledge. The book also emphasizes the roles of contextualization and historical change while accounting for the shifting relationship of disciplinarity and interdisciplinarity, the ascendancy of transdisciplinarity, and intersections with other constructs, including Mode 2 knowledge production, convergence, team science, and postdisciplinarity.
