Transdisciplinarity as a Nonimperial Encounter: for an Open Sociology

Abstract

In this article I argue for a transdisciplinary approach to the human or social sciences. There is little ontological or epistemological justification for a division among these disciplines. I recommend that sociology stop worrying about policing its disciplinary boundaries and begin to encourage various forms of intellectual transculturation. I then analyze barriers to transdisciplinarity by comparing disciplines to states and comparing the relations among disciplines to different sorts of imperial practice, or interstate relations. The most common interdisciplinary strategies are analogous to the informal, nonterritorial imperialism practiced globally by the United States. Three other forms of interdisciplinarity are discussed: the annexation of one discipline by another — a situation that is analogous to colonialism; nonhegemonized systems of equal disciplines (analogous to the Westphalian state system); and nonimperial `traveling' and transculturation among disciplines (analogous to the practices of members of weak or declining imperial states).

For interdisciplinarityanda disciplined, professional sociology

“…Through my own academic biography I hope to demonstrate some of the difficulties and advantages of interdisciplinary work, but above all to show that, unlike Steinmetz (2007), there are many implicit ontological and epistemological differences between sociology and other (even cognate) disciplines. I do not pretend to be unique.…”

“…C. Wright Mills acknowledged the wider application of the term ''sociological imagination'' and noted the interdisciplinary links to history, politics and biography (Brewer 2007a). Simmel's doctoral thesis and early publications were philosophical in character (Steinmetz 2007). Talcott Parsons made serious efforts to bring discussions about the boundaries between sociology and psychology and cultural anthropology to American sociology at Harvard (see Scott 2005b).…”

Ideas in Exile: Refugees from Nazi Germany and the Failure to Transplant Historical Sociology into the United States

“…The existence of a heteronomous pole of the historical sociology subfield which emulates the dominant research protocols and epistemologies of the discipline may paradoxically shield the subfield's autonomous pole from epistemological policing, allowing its members to engage in cross-disciplinary and transdisciplinary "travelling" and communication with external fields (Steinmetz 2007c).…”

“…Paired with this is an interest in tracking and explaining variations in epistemological and methodological orientations and preferences among disciplines (Steinmetz 2005c;Lamont 2009), national and political contexts (Wagner et al 1999;Barth et al 2005;Schweber 2006;Heilbron 2008;Fourcade 2009), and historical periods (Steinmetz 2007a;Calhoun and VanAntwerpen 2007). A third interest is transdisciplinarity (Steinmetz 2007c), and a fourth is the sociological history or historical sociology of sociology (Calhoun 2007). The present article brings together all of these foci insofar as the scholars in question circulated transnationally as refugees among different political systems, switched disciplines or worked in interdisciplinary spaces, and lived through the massive reconfiguration of American and German social science marked by World War II and Nazism (Herman 1996;Klingemann 1996;Szöllösi-Janze 2001).…”

As possibilidades quanto à sociologia global: uma perspectiva pós-colonial

“…O "tradicional" -do qual se distinguiu o moderno -foi visto como sendo da competência da antropologia, ou de estudos da área à época (cf. Steinmetz, 2007).…”