BROADENING KNOWLEDGE? INTERDISCIPLINARITY, NOT MULTIDISCIPLINARITY

 

 

By

F.C. OWEYEGHA- AFUNADUULA

Website: http://www.afuna.org or http://www.afuna.o-f.com

Email:afunaduula2000@yahoo.co.uk or afunaduula@afuna.org

Tel: +256 78 555 222 or +256 71 845461

 

4 th April 2005

 

The article by environmental health journalist Paul Kimumwe “ Only a multidisciplinary approach will lead us to a safe motherhood” , which appeared in The Monitor of May 3 2005 would have skipped my attention if the term “multidisciplinary” was not explicitly advanced as the singlemost approach to safe motherhood, and if it did not appear at a time when there is debate as to the most fruitful knowledge culture in 21 Century education towards solving real world and life problems and producing more citizens of wisdom than knowledge.

 

Kimumwe's article, no doubt, makes good reading. It indeed points to the challenge we face in the 21 st century of enhancing the quality of knowledge production, dissemination and application to the solution of real world and life problems such as safe motherhood.

 

The only problem I have with it is the overconfidence depicted in the capacity of multidisciplinarity to ensure safe motherhood. I think the overconfidence is overstretched. That aside, I think this is the first time I see the knowledge culture of multidisciplinarity advocated that explicitly in a newspaper article in Uganda since I came back to this country in 1991 after 20 years of absence.

 

What has been advocated for decades but, which really needs neither advocacy nor introducing, is the knowledge culture of disciplinarity. We come from different disciplinary, intellectual and, of course, employment backgrounds. We are not strangers to the territoriality that comes with specialisation and “expertise” that are associated with disciplinarity. Neither are we unaware of the human waste and the violation of human rights that takes place in different disciplines in the academia. We know that in attempting to produce a little professor out of every student, the disciplines end up producing people who must forget virtually everything they learnt and begin learning anew nondisciplinary knowledge to fit in society, if they succeed.

 

Citizens, however, need to know that there are other knowledge cultures, which are actually considered to be superior to disciplinarity and multidisciplinarity in the process of knowledge production, dissemination and application, and which take us nearer to reality. They include: transdisciplinarity, crossdisciplinarity, pluridisciplinarity, interdisciplinarity and nondisciplinarity. Unfortunately I cannot deal with all of them in this article. I will only deal with interdisciplinarity as a superior form of knowledge to both the disciplinary and interdisciplinary cultures.

But first, let me make it known that I came across the value of the multidisciplinary approach to knowledge production, dissemination and application way back in 1980 when I embarked on my Masters programme in (Environmental) conservation biology at the University of Nairobi. My “liberated” professors (nondisciplinary ones) were at pains to convince me that broadness of knowledge was more critical to development in general and conservation in particular than deepness of knowledge and that, therefore, the multidisciplinary approach was superior to disciplinary approach in this respect.

 

This was indeed news to me. I was learning that being deeply buried into a disciplinary enterprise was inferior to being broadly dispersed among or interspersed between disciplines. And as you probably know anything new in one's environment (in this case knowledge environment) is a pollutant. My mind had been properly indoctrinated at the University of Dar-es-Salaam (1972-1976) into believing that getting deep knowledge about something (that is knowing more and more about less and less) was more honorable than having a broad knowledge base.

 

It was, therefore, not easy to believe that anything could be superior to disciplinarity. In any case, while multidisciplinarity was being advocated, the knowledge structure of Nairobi University remained rigidly disciplinary, just as the one of Dar-es-Salaam University . In fact, as is the case at Makerere University , newer policies were being innovated at the time to underlie the supposed superiority of disciplinarity in knowledge production, dissemination and application.

 

It was clear, however, that it was becoming increasingly realised that most real world and life problems could not be solved in disciplinary pockets of knowledge and practice. In fact it was clear that when disciplinary solutions were prescribed they more often than not became the new problems. The multidisciplinary approach was seen as a way out of this dilemma. This was the dilemma in the environmental (conservation) era in which I was being submerged as a new professional conservation biologist. Therefore, I was being instructed then that multidisciplinary exploration, explanation and action was the way forward for conservation, very much the same way Kimumwe says it is for safe motherhood.

 

Let me tell you the truth. I was agitated to think. I was not convinced that multidisciplinarity was significantly different from disciplinarity. To me multidisciplinarity seemed to be no more or less than a mere reduction in the separation of the disciplines, without allowing them to interact to produce new knowledge. It was simply an adding of disciplinary knowledge one by one to allow for a more complete knowledge map without getting anywhere near getting the whole map.

 

No real integration or cooperation of knowledge (areas) was forthcoming. Just research and practice networks, programmes and projects simply coexisting but not interacting. The only new thing absent in a disciplinary enterprise one could detect was that of comparing and contrasting the different results from the disciplinary projects involved.

The question that perturbed me was why was a method, which failed to integrate knowledge, being institutionalised? I wondered why a method that was shy to challenge the sovereignty of disciplines was being advocated. I thought it was more or less to protect rather than challenge them, but from what? I concluded that it must have been to protect them from the more superior cultures of knowledge production, dissemination and application I have mentioned above. In the spirit of the devil you know is better than the angel you don't know?

 

I did not see either how a non-disciplinary scholar or practitioner who was multidisciplinary could easily fit in the academia and public arena, which was rigidly disciplinary. More serious, I did not think at the time that non-disciplinary geniuses or professionals would ever get recognition. In reality, what I was being taught was that there is no knowledge, theory or methodology outside the scope of the disciplines involved in the multidisciplinary enterprise. I thought this was not correct.

 

These contradictions and questionings drove me to delve more and more into the interdisciplinary technique of knowledge culture. Nonetheless it was being evoked and written about then, even by workers in the area of conservation. Sometimes my professors shyly evoked it and often said conservation biology was more of an interdisciplinary than multidisciplinary field. However, in the literature it was sometimes being referred to as a nondisciplinary field because of the interplay between the natural sciences, social sciences and human sciences in making it what it is and to achieve what it does.

 

I think that the way forward for Uganda towards solving nondisciplinary problems such as safe motherhood, health, education, poverty, corruption, environmental conservation and security is not multidisciplinarity but interdisciplinarity. Therefore, the way forward is to instituionalise interdisciplinary, not multidisciplinary, education. We can instituionalise interdisciplinarity or interdisciplinary education by following the issues and problems that are evolving and emerging as a consequence of social, political and environmental change. This means that our research, teaching, learning, thinking, critique, reflection and writing must change as fast to reflect the complexity that is emerging.

Simplifications and overspecialization, which characterise our current research systems, cannot solve complex problems. They tend to discourage reflexive critique and reflection. Critical reflexive use of knowledge is a capacity of increasing importance in the context of the “knowledge explosion and extreme specialisation occurring in present science”. Interdisciplinarity is then a way to respond to the overspecialization that research has produced . Overspecialization has had an unintended effect in that the capacities of trained scientists to solve problems or to handle their knowledge through application have been reduced .

What I give you below is based on the work of Hans Egneus, Karl Bruckmeir and Merritt Polk (2000) summerised in their paper “The Nature of Interdisciplinarity”. I hope by the time you finish reading the article, you will be able to judge for yourself as to where we should be moving in terms of knowledge production, dissemination and application.

 

Interdisciplinarity, unlike multidisciplinarity, which is loose integration and can be compared to the arithmetic procedure of “addition” of knowledge, is stronger integration and may be said to consist of “multiplication” or the “aggregation” of knowledge. This is what makes it true cooperation between the disciplines. There are really three types of interdisciplinary cooperation: shared interdisciplinarity, in which different aspects of a complex problem are tackled by different groups with complementary skills, results are communicated and overall progress is monitored but there is no day-to-day cooperation; generating interdisciplinarity, which entails the application of a single theoretical perspective to a wide range of distinct disciplines -an example of what is called unifying integration; and integrated interdisciplinarity, which occurs when some concepts and insights of one or more discipline (s) contribute to the problems and theories of another -what is called true interdisciplinarity.

 

If you have developed interest in interdisciplinarity as you read this article, you may benefit from the knowledge that there are three variants (forms) of interdisciplinary

integration: generalising integration, diversifying integration and synthesising integration.

 

Concept transfer, redefinition and extension to other domains fall within this type of generalizing integration. Klein (1996) has said that the “rhetoric of interpenetration” gives an idea of integration as a process of constructing new criteria for knowledge by replacing former ones.

 

It is under the category of diversifying integration that bridge-building processes of interdisciplinary research fall. Diversifying integration is the true interdisciplinarity. Knowledge bridges represent “diversifying integration”, which are research areas with several complementary theories tat are integrated through “interconnecting theories” such as building of knowledge platforms (where several types of knowledge, scientific and non-scientific, can be applied).

 

It is, however, in the mode of integration called synthesis that a core role of interdisciplinary research is described. Synthesis is neither routine nor formulaic. It requires an active triangulation between depth, breadth and synthesis, unlike in the looser forms of integration. Synthesis includes a process where “simpler” forms of knowledge are confronted and made coherent. It is the best revelation that education for depth of knowledge is not enough. We must educate for breadth and synthesis of knowledge as well. It is when we are engaged in synthetic interdisciplinarity that simpler forms of knowledge are confronted and made coherent.

 

What does all this mean? It means that we should not fear to integrate knowledge by hyping the half-hearted multidisciplinary approach. If we choose interdisciplinary integration then we are choosing to open up to taking in account more variables, more methods, more view points, more perspectives and more theories. That is holism. The highest form of integration is when we can generate new coherent knowledge (for example, theories and concepts) out of two or more types of knowledge or through amalgamation although the epistemic rules for the latter have not been described yet.

 

To do interdisciplinary integration, however, we need some capabilities to be developed in ourselves. These include the capabilities of differentiating, comparing, contrasting, relating, clarifying, reconciling, synthesising and multi-logical thinking. We need capabilities of decoding value patterns and normative assumptions governing theories, frameworks, concepts and shifts from absolute answers and solutions to tentativeness and reflexibility. The latter includes epistemological reflection and critique of or challenge of the sovereignty of disciplines. Furthermore more, we need skills of knowledge transfer (that is, transfer of scientific knowledge into spheres of action where other contexts and criteria are also valid -be it political, managerial decision-making and other forms decision-making.

 

If I have not convinced you of where education is really going -interdisciplinary way -then I will never. But our Universities and colleges should take this article seriously. We seem to be 35 five years behind in adopting the interdisciplinary technique. That is why we are still sticking to multidisciplinarity, which is backward-leaning.

 

Suffice, however, to mention that the motives of interdisciplinarity are as follows: general education, liberal studies and professional training; social, economic and technical problem-solving; social, political and epistemological critiques; holistic, systems and transdisciplinary approaches; cross-fertilisation of borrowing and subdisciplinary interactions; faculty development and instititutional down-sizing.

 

Our universities and colleges cannot afford to ignore these motives any further. We need to rethink the academic strategy of subjecting our best brains to a ritual of torture resulting in the production of more and more doctoral candidates who have to learn more and more about less and less until they succeed in becoming the world's leading authorities on their own miniscule niches of knowledge.

As Egneus, Bruckmeier and Polk (2000) have observed, today, under the guiding idea of interdisciplinarity, the ideals of the universally educated scientist and the university or college as a storehouse of knowledge have to be reformulated. The interdisciplinary capacity to acquire different skills and methods to handle complex knowledge is the main requirement. This is no longer fulfilled by trying to follow the unrealistic goal of becoming learned in all disciplines, but instead by learning different methods to produce and apply knowledge.

We must de-emphasise deep knowledge and re-emphasise broad knowledge that the ancient Greeks valued so much. We have to begin producing interdisciplinary doctorates because we need them today more than yesterday tomorrow more than today for problem solving, citizenship, wisdom and sustainability.

 

Will the political decision-makers and bureaucrats of education listen? They have to because if we are to embrace interdisciplinarity -and we have to -we need a radical deliberate and responsible decision to restructure our institutions and to reformulate their objectives and reward systems. This is the way to restore an appropriate balance to scholarly activity in the country.

 

Why in a country faced with numerous cross-cutting problems should we continue to glorify an education system that puts forth people who ipso facto know too much about their minute topics but are too helpless beyond those topics -in a wider world? Interdisciplinarity, not multidisciplinarity, will save us before Jesus does.

 

For God and My Country .