This paper reflects critically on challenges and opportunities associated with developing a theoretical framework for an interdisciplinary Framework Programme 7 research project funded by the European Commission in the area of digital ecosystems. The paper first provides a description of the interdisciplinary structure of the research agenda of the project and the areas of digital ecosystem research prioritised by each discipline. Second, it discusses the challenging questions of epistemology that arose in the context of theorising interdisciplinary research and provides a summary of how these were dealt with in order to outline a theoretical framework for digital ecosystems research by the end of the project. Finally, it discusses the lessons that can be extrapolated from the project experience, arguing that it is impossible to develop a unified interdisciplinary theoretical framework due to irreconcilable epistemological differences, yet it is possible and very worthwhile for those adhering to various disciplinary perspectives to collaborate towards the achievement of a practical joint endeavour. These lessons, which are considered valuable to the broader research community, are summarised in a model of the (im)possibility of interdisciplinarity.
This article presents a qualitative discussion about the ways in which English-language media in South Africa labelled the Black middle class ‘new’ during the first decade of political freedom (the 1990s). The empirical approach is discursive, drawing on a corpus of archival media material in which the ‘new Black middle class’ is discussed and debated. The article argues that three key discursive trends are evident therein: the first claiming the new Black middle class as full of socio-economic potential (but also as immature and not capable of delivering on that potential), the second attempting to rehistoricize the Black middle class and the third accusing the class of materialism, greed and being ‘sell-outs’. These discursive themes are discussed in relation to relevant scholarly literature about ‘new’ middle classes. This article concludes that media narratives about the newness of the Black middle class were the site of the symbolic contestation and discursive construction of the consuming class in South Africa.
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