[p2p-research] from disciplinarity, to interdisciplinarity, via transdisciplinarity, to undisciplinarity

[Michel Bauwens]

 will be published on may 4, but an important issue for the P2P Research
Group:
<http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/tim-oreilly-calls-for-diy-government-and-civic-action/2009/04/30>

The P2P epistemological shift towards
undisciplinarity<http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/the-p2p-epistemological-shift-towards-undisciplinarity/2009/05/04>
[image: photo of Michel Bauwens]Michel Bauwens
4th May 2009

 On April 27, Mark Taylor wrote a much remarked
editorial<http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/27/opinion/27taylor.html?>,
The End of the University as We Know It, criticising the traditional
university approach to learning, proposing a set of seven inter-related
reforms.

He wrote amongst other things that:

*“GRADUATE education is the Detroit of higher learning. Most graduate
programs in American universities produce a product for which there is no
market (candidates for teaching positions that do not exist) and develop
skills for which there is diminishing demand (research in subfields within
subfields and publication in journals read by no one other than a few
like-minded colleagues), all at a rapidly rising cost.”*

One of his charges is the outmoded organization in more and more arcane
subdisciplines, each of which is defending its institutional turf, writing
articles that are sometimes readable by only a dozen people in the world,
but that become primary endeavours because of the competitive ‘publish or
perish’ path to tenure.

(Note that his editorial has been strongly
criticized<http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=e39ea696-5c3c-4622-8b85-2d9183b4b7e9>for
being out of touch with reality.)

So, if disciplinarity is a problem, what’s the solution?

*John Marshall<http://www.nearfuturelaboratory.com/2008/05/19/undisciplinarity/>favours
a transdisciplinary
approach <http://p2pfoundation.net/Transdisciplinarity>:*

*“Previous models of university-based research have amplified the tendency
for knowledge to pile up in vertically specialised ‘silos’. This structure
can be held responsible for perpetuating divisions between domains that
isolate knowledge from the contexts in which it is can be used. The existing
models of academic structures are the ’sacred cows’ of contemporary
education. Unfortunately (for the most part) they also operate as artificial
barriers to the next generation of art-design-technology practitioners. Neil
Gershenfeld (2005) points out that ‘making’ has been considered an
‘illiberal art’ since the Renaissance. He points out that industrial
mechanization has meant that skilled workers that once used to do many
things now do only one and that thinking about how to make things became the
business of specialists. A ‘transdisciplinary’ approach recognises the
boundaries of the problem being addressed, not the artificial boundaries of
disciplines.”*

For the *Near Future Laboratory* blog, this doesn’t go far enough, what we
need is a break from the disciplines altogether, a move to
undisciplinarity<http://www.nearfuturelaboratory.com/2008/05/19/undisciplinarity/>
.

*(note the evolutionary thrust here, from disciplinarity, to
interdisciplinarity, via transdisciplinarity, to undisciplinarity;
forgetting about disciplines altogether being a more radical step than
merely ‘transcending’ the disciplines, which implies they are still there to
be transcended)*

*Indeed, Interdisciplinarity is
Dead<http://www.nearfuturelaboratory.com/2007/10/18/conclusion-interdisciplinarity-is-dead/>
!*

“Where I teach, the keyword has been interdisciplinarity, but it’s only lip
service that often devolves into clumsy, politically fraught, contentious
projects that maybe get completed..after a few years”

*So:*

*“I prefer the term “undisciplinary” because it wants nothing to do with
playing the usual games, according to the usual logics (doing things to
serve a specific mode of capital accumulation and capital production —
whether knowledge-as-property, culture-as-commodity, objects or other
materializations that can be sold for profit.) It’s not “interdisciplinary”
— which I bought into once. Neither is it transdisciplinary, which I
admittedly don’t know that much about, but suspect it’s a bit of an
over-theorized alternative to “interdisciplinary”*

*“Undisciplinarity” is as much a way of doing work as it is a departure from
ways of doing work, even what “counts” as work. It is a work habit and
approach to creating and circulating culture that can go its own way,
without worrying about working outside of what histories-of-disciplines say
is “proper” work. It’s “undisciplined” and not willing or even able to
operate within the realm of consumer capitalism and capital accumulation.
You can’t be wrong — or have old-timers tell you how to do what you want to
do. This is a good thing, it means new knowledge is created rather than
incremental contributions to a body of existing knowledge. It means new ways
of working, new practices, new unexpected processes and projects come to be,
almost by definition. It’s not for everyone. Many if not most people need to
be told how to do what they do. They need discipline and boundaries and
steps and rules. They need to know what’s good, and what’s bad. They need to
know what the boundaries are and where the limits of the discipline lie. And
this makes sure that the creation of specific, sensible knowledge is
created.*

*Why is this important? Why “undisciplinarity”? Because we need more playful
and habitable worlds that the old forms of knowledge production are
ill-equipped to produce.” *

It’s an epistemological shift, not (only) new ways of fixing the problems
the old disciplinary and interdisciplinary practices created in the first
place.

Undisciplinarity, as the author explains
here<http://www.nearfuturelaboratory.com/2008/06/09/undisciplinary-design-for-people-practice/>,
starts with the object of study directly.

*That is also a possible connection to peer to peer dynamics, which is an
object-oriented sociality, just as undisciplinarity could be considered,
aobject-oriented research practice.*

For more information, we monitor P2P epistemological trends through a delicious
tag <http://del.icio.us/mbauwens/P2P-Epistemology>, and we have a special
section of our wiki <http://p2pfoundation.net/Category:Intelligence> devoted
to it.


-- 
Working at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhurakij_Pundit_University -
http://www.dpu.ac.th/dpuic/info/Research.html -
http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI

Volunteering at the P2P Foundation:
http://p2pfoundation.net  - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net -
http://p2pfoundation.ning.com

Monitor updates at http://del.icio.us/mbauwens

The work of the P2P Foundation is supported by SHIFTN,
http://www.shiftn.com/
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