1st Edition
Practising Interdisciplinarity Convergences and Contestations
This book examines the epistemological, social and political dimensions of practising interdisciplinary approaches to enhance knowledge, pedagogy, and methodological aspects of research in the South Asian context. The volume sets the context by bringing together a range of ideas, questions and reflections on the concept of interdisciplinarity, the numerous waves of interdisciplinarity in contemporary history of knowledge, which were radically different from each other in their epistemological and political orientations. The book revisits the concept of interdisciplinarity and takes into cognizance the importance of the mutual shaping of knowledge and politics in our search for inclusive and sustainable future(s).
The book offers a blend of both conceptual and institutional discourses on interdisciplinarity and the personal experiences of leading practitioners, bringing together critical engagements from different vantage points on practising it. It will be of interest to researchers, scholars and practitioners of social sciences and humanities disciplines as well as interdisciplinary fields such as educational studies, development studies, women’s studies, media studies, cultural studies, urban studies, labour studies, legal studies, public health, disability studies, global/international studies and performing arts. It will also be useful for policy planners, development practitioners, activists and social organizers working in related fields.
1. Interdisciplinarity Matters: Convergences and Contestations of Interdisciplinary Trajectories – Ratheesh Kumar and Babu P. Remesh 2. Interdisciplinarity: Unpredictable Transitions and Uncommon Encounters- George Varghese K. 3. Transitions in the Organisation of Knowledge: Notes on the Politics of Interdisciplinarity- Shiju Sam Varughese 4. Contextualizing Interdisciplinarity: The Possibilities and Challenges of Liberal Arts Spaces in India- Shubha Ranganathan 5. Being Interdisciplinary: The Problem of Method and the Practice of Indian Philosophy- Samuel G. Ngaihte 6. To Translation we all Belong- Sowmya Dechamma C.C. 7. Education as a Discipline in India: Foundations and Histories- Nidhi Gulati and Manish Jain 8. Indispensability of Interdisciplinarity in Studying Society: On Philosophy and Science in Sociology- Vivek Kumar 9. Border crossings between the Legal and the Social: On the interface of Law, Sociology and Anthropology in India- Manisha Sethi 10. Interdisciplinary Concerns in Researching Women's Work- Neetha N. 11. Engaging with Interdisciplinarity through Disability Studies- Shubhangi Vaidya 12. Desires and Fears of Heterodoxies: Notes on Disciplining Media Studies- Vibodh Parthasarathi 13. Media and Cultural Studies: Text, Subject and Perception- Sujith Kumar Parayil 14. ‘Belonging’ to the discipline of International Relations: The Needs, Perils and Limits of Border-Crossings- Aparna Devare 15. A new “discipline” or a “conversational community”: Reflections on doing and building Childhood Studies- Anandini Dar 16. Once upon a time, I was an Economist! Autobiographical Notes of a Researcher in Labour Studies- Babu P. Remesh 17. Positioning Emotions in an Interdisciplinary Perspective- Nita Mathur 18. Researching the ‘Urban Turn’: Interdisciplinary Methods to Study Cities and Regions- Rohit Negi, Rachna Mehra, Pritpal Randhawa 19. Multiple personas of social scientists in public health: Challenges in interdisciplinarity- N. Nakkeeran
Biography
Babu P. Remesh is currently Professor, School of Development Studies; Dean (Research & Development) and Director, Centre for Research Methods at Dr. B.R. Ambedkar University Delhi (AUD). Earlier he worked as Associate Fellow/Fellow at V.V. Giri National Labour Institute, NOIDA; and as Associate Professor and Director, School of Interdisciplinary and Transdisciplinary Studies at the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), New Delhi.
Ratheesh Kumar currently works as Associate Professor at the Centre for the Study of Social Systems, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. He has previously taught at the Department of Anthropology, University of Hyderabad and at the School of Interdisciplinary and Trans-disciplinary Studies, Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), New Delhi. He was a Charles Wallace India Trust Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Research in Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH), University of Cambridge (2021–2022).
