Ethnography and interdisciplinary work: experiences from the US and Brazil

Abstract

This paper reflects on previous ethnographic research with multidisciplinary scientific teams in order to consider the place of STS-inspired ethnographies in thinking about and doing such larger scale, collaborative work. The practice of ethnography of/in multidisciplinary projects is both productive in terms of enabling knowledge about "interdisciplinary science in the making," and disruptive, as it becomes a part of said knowledge processes in ways we have yet to fully consider. Through looking back at results from research conducted in the US (with a group involved in building a model of heat transfer in tissues) and in Brazil (with remote sensing scientists and work around deforestation monitoring), the paper explores two interrelated facets: (a) misunderstandings in interdisciplinary work are not reduceable to communication gaps, but pertain to differences in epistemic cultures, backgrounds, understandings of truth, and method; (b) participating in such interdisciplinary interactions places the ethnographer in an unstable but potentially productive position in terms of his own expertise. The article concludes by reflecting on how the exploration of these gaps and frictions can help construct a more active place for ethnography in such multidisciplinary efforts. By making explicit the disruptions involving such interactions (which include the ethnographer), they can be explored productively as tools for knowledge production.