Creating partial understandings: knowing how to speak

Let us continue with the process of the architectonics of interdisciplinarity as depicted by Klein. In the previous Chapter, I deconstructed the first phase: “Interdisciplinary fields detach a category as subject and object from existing disciplinary frameworks, loosening boundaries and stimulating trading zones.” What would happen next is that “they fill gaps in knowledge

from lack of attention to a category, creating new interim pidgin tongues and creole language cultures” (Klein 2008b, 272).

Language is an important mediator in working practices, and practical knowledge presupposes the ability to use language which is appropriate to the specific context (Gherardi 2012, 129). This emphasis on communication, shared meanings and the creation of own

“pidgin” tongues is strongly supported by empirical research into interdisciplinarity. As Star noted, there are often insurmountable differences between disciplines. Stein et al. (2008, 402) emphasize how “Interdisciplinary syntheses are among the most epistemologically complex endeavours that humans can attempt”. This complexity arises from e.g. following factors:

• Deep differences of perspectives that need to be bridged

• Different methods frame research questions differently, thus generating different kinds of knowledge

• Interdisciplinary integration needs to generate something higher-order knowledge that is more than the sum of its parts

• New forms of “quality control” are needed.

Monteiro & Keating (2009) add to the list the differences in communication styles between members. Empirical research has given indications on how to overcome these “in-between”

challenges, and what enables successful interdisciplinary practices. Jeffrey (2003) studied cross-disciplinary research teams, and found that the story-lines, metaphors, common choice of vocabulary, nature of dialogue and the role of mediating agents were crucial in creating the base for collaboration. He concludes that they all require time and contact, and need to create also experiental value in the participants – value which rests on the continuity of experience of the participants. This indicates taking the lived-in experience of the participants seriously – a point I will follow on in the Chapter dealing with embodiment. Likewise, Monteiro &

Keating (2009) in their ethnographic study of an interdisciplinary group, place emphasis on the communication strategies: they find that creating partial understandings is crucial when collaborating across disciplines, as the goal is not to bring everyone to the same level of expertise on all topics, but to arrive at a working set of understanding that allow the team to work together and the project goals to be reached. They also note the important role of

visualizations in highly abstract work that is supported by the research of Ewenstein & Whyte (2007, 2009).

Nicolini et al. (2012) similarly emphasize that – as opposed to the commonly held notion that collaboration requires some form of deep sharing – in interdisciplinary contexts the sharing and understanding can be partial and provisional. Their plural framework introduced in the previous Chapter shows that objects can perform this bridging work, and in this Chapter the importance of “pidgin tongues” as in common communication can be added to being one such enabler. Oborn & Dawson (2010a, 843) conclude that interdisciplinary³¹ collaboration is “not so much to learn from each other’s talk, but to learn to talk in this new arena” (emphasis in the original). They recognize three practices to be especially important in enabling this type of collaboration: organizing discussions: aligning skills and actions; acknowledging other perspectives: interrelating meaning; and challenging assumptions: negotiating and broadening meaning (ibid. 848). In practice-based perspective we can call this the communicative competence of “knowing how to speak” (Gherardi 2012, 27), which is observable in the competence of knowing how to use the required (technical) vocabulary – this communicative competence being increasingly crucial in the symbol-rich knowledge society.³² Thus people work with words and language as much as they do with their whole bodies, and “talk not only enables work but is also work in itself (Gherardi 2012, 104)”. A distinction is also to be made between talking in practice and talking about practice – the former is more unreflective, whereas the talk about practice involves reflection, argumentation and contestation (Geiger 2009).³³

Finally, Olsen (2009) studied the making of nanoreactors and introduced the notion of

“intertwined practice”. In this particular study, the work practices between disciplines were found to be dissolved to the extent that for example biologists “were doing things we would expect physicists to do, physicists are suggesting changes in the biological experiment, which

31 Once again, a note on terminology; Oborn & Dawson use the term ”multidisciplinary work”.

32 Chiapello & Fairclough (2002, 207) argue that language is becoming more central and more visible in the era of “new capitalism”: “the whole concepts of knowledge economy and knowledge-based economy imply that the economy is in fact discourse led. Knowledge, in all its forms and manifestations, relies on language, semiosis and discourses to be produced, circulated and consumed.”

33 Geiger (2009) takes a Habermasian approach to discursive practices, which brings fore the notion of communicative action, distinguising between different modes of communication when engaged in life-world practices and reflecting on them.

we would only expect biologists to do and responsibility for a successful experiment is joint”

(Ibid. 407.) This way of working (or rather, allowing for the contribution of experts to enter each others’ domain), Olsen suggests, may aid in creating the partial understandings as they also develop the respect of each other’s expertise.