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ERIC Number: EJ1248673
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2019
Pages: 20
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1081-4760
EISSN: N/A
Imagination and Actionability: Reflections on the Future of Interdisciplinarity, Inspired by Julie Thompson Klein
Keestra, Machiel
Issues in Interdisciplinary Studies, v37 n2 p110-129 2019
When introduced around 1925, interdisciplinarity, grounded in the notion of the unity of knowledge, was meant to reconnect the fragmented and specialized disciplines of academia. However, interdisciplinary research became more and more challenging as the plurality and heterogeneity of disciplinary perspectives and insights increased. Insisting on this divergence and diversity, Julie Thompson Klein has nevertheless contributed in important ways to convergence in interdisciplinarity with her work on the process of integration as interdisciplinarity's defining feature. Of course Klein is aware that the increasing inclusion of extra-academic stakeholders in "trans"disciplinary research constitutes a fundamental challenge to integrative interdisciplinarity. Along with academic contributions, experiential knowledge, interests, and norms must be recognized as valuable to the process, and stakeholder expectations of applicable results must be met. Exploring the future by extending this crucial development further, this article focuses on the actionability of knowledge as an additional criterion for effective interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity, as it is in Action Research. With action options for stakeholders being an important goal for such research, it is argued that joint deliberation about these options must be part of the process, aiming for reflective equilibrium. At the same time, an important role for imagination is defended, enabling adequate consideration of action options with their ramifications and implications. The future of interdisciplinarity, it is concluded, will entail an important role for the actionability criterion and for the related role of imagination of potential outcomes, much greater roles than these now have.
Association for Interdisciplinary Studies. Oakland University, Macomb County, 44575 Garfield Road Building UC2 Suite 103, Clinton Township, MI 48038. Tel: 586-263-6098; Fax: 586-263-6261; e-mail: aisorg@oakland.edu; Web site: https://interdisciplinarystudies.org/issues/
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A