- Air-L - lists.aoir.org

Re: [Air-l] re: transdisciplinarity
by Denise N. Rall 17 May '05

17 May '05

Dear Air'ers - Naturally I want to weigh in on this topic as it is the subject of my thesis. However I have now read hundred's of pages of material on these and related topics making it difficult to summarize or even, see a way forward - huh, this is what they call the 'writing up' part of the thesis - when things are clear as mud. However I must say that the answers won't come from reading a 'few online sources' depending on how far one is taking the discussion. There are perspectives from education, knowledgement management, and even the interdisciplinarians as organized researchers in IDS, or interdisciplinary studies, such as Jule Thompson Klein. Then there's other perspectives in knowledge productions such as offered by Gibbons et al. Another substantial perspective derives from Stephen Toulmin's sociology of knowledge. And, to my mind, the social epistemologists have an interesting take on disciplinary formulations. I have found those who look at disciplines as communities of practice to be fairly ordinary, while I really like the role of disciplines as epistemic culture as suggested by Knorr Cetina. My personal view of a discipline (currently, subject to change) represents a given disciplinary perspective more like a "Weltanschauung" than a particular set of rules or axioms, or frameworks or cultures, practices, or anything like that. Forthcoming interesting places to look will be Nancy Bayms (Ed.) Special issue on Internet Studies and Disciplines. While my paper (sadly) didn't make the cut, I have re-worked another paper under a new title: "Internet protocols and interdisciplinarity" This paper takes an operational view of the discourses around disciplines as similar to protocols that govern certain types of operations, such as internet protocols. It is not a sociology of knowledge approach but reviews the IDS frameworks of JT Klein et al. I will stick it up on my website (below) by the end of the week. Those who are interested can email me off-list for a .pdf. Cheers, Denise Denise N. Rall, PhD candidate, School of Environ. Science, Southern Cross University, Lismore NSW 2480 Sustainable Forestry Mentoring Coordinator & Internet Researcher Room T2.12, +61 (0)2 6620 3577 Tuesdays or Mobile 0438 233 344 http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/rsm/staff/pages/drall/index.html

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Nominations for AoIR Elections - 2 weeks to go
by Matthew Allen 17 May '05

17 May '05

Dear all I just want to remind everyone that, if you wish to nominate yourself, or someone else, for the positions of: vice-president, secretary, treasurer, grad student representative, open seat representative (3 positions) on the 2005-2007 AoIR executive, now is the time to do it. Email nominate(a)aoir.org and more info to be provided. In June we will be running a candidates' forum through which you can a) see what each candidate is saying in support of themselves and b) ask questions. Matt Dr Matthew Allen Associate Professor Internet Studies Associate Dean Teaching and Learning, Humanities Curtin University of Technology, CRICOS 00301J Australia m.allen(a)curtin.edu.au http://smi.curtin.edu.au/netstudies/allen.htm +61 8 92663511 (v) +61 8 9266 3166 (f) Vice-President, Association of Internet Researchers http://www.aoir.org

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re: transdisciplinarity
by GTa3411203＠aol.com 16 May '05

16 May '05

The transdisciplinarity approach to researching human behaviors lends itself well when technology is being used an enabler. I am finding it is necessary to use this approach to doing research to gain a better understanding of the different forces outside a specific discipline area that directly impacts human behaviors that can be assessed internal to a specific discipline. For instance, I am currently exploring how business organizations might use blogging as a tacit knowledge management support tool. My discipline area is human resource development. It is, though, necessary to take a look at the literature in any number of disciplines (e.g., philosophy, sociology, psychology, computer science) to gain insight as to how technology acts as an enabler in promoting human behaviors that are influenced by cultural practices. Hope this makes sense. :-) I am finding this approach to doing research is quite different as there is no established body of literature and the need to be knowledgeable and comfortable with spanning disciplines to seek out essential information to support hypotheses. Gail ----------------------------------- Gail D. Taylor, Ed.M. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Human Resource Education Ph.D. Student Educational Psychology Teaching Assistant

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transdisciplinarity
by Michele White 16 May '05

16 May '05

I strongly disagree with Barry's indication that research that is without a disciplinary structure or "guidance" is inherently worse that other research. There may be questions that need to be posed in opposition to or without the safe and containing support of a discipline. It seems to me that feminisms, postcolonial studies, queer theory, and disability studies all suggested and continue to indicate that certain identities and questions have been prevented by disciplinary methods, boundaries, accepted areas of study, and beliefs. For instance, Linda Nochlin's "Why Are There No Great Women Artists?" suggested that prior to the 1970s that the education of artists and the field of art history rendered conditions where women could not be elevated to the status of great artist. Feminist critiques encourage us to look at what disciplines prevent, how they guide, and wonder about the ongoing disciplining of Women's Studies and Internet Studies. All my best, Michele

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trans/inter/non
by Barry Wellman 14 May '05

14 May '05

Thanks to Michael and Jeremy on their descriptions of transdisciplinarity. They make sense to me. It's basically about the establishment of new disciplines. What scares me is when trans... means nondisciplinary -- I have seen too many papers in conferences and in journal submissions that seem to have no disciplinary guidance -- old and new. Let trans be tran (and inter be inter), but non be gone! Barry _____________________________________________________________________ Barry Wellman Professor of Sociology NetLab Director wellman at chass.utoronto.ca http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman Centre for Urban & Community Studies University of Toronto 455 Spadina Avenue Toronto Canada M5S 2G8 fax:+1-416-978-7162 To network is to live; to live is to network _____________________________________________________________________

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Re: [Air-l] transdisciplinarity
by Nentwich, Michael 14 May '05

14 May '05

> I am searching for literature on transdisciplinarity compared to > interdisciplinarity (within the context of new media content > production). I am grateful for any kind of info, particularly for > online available articles and papers. You might be successfull to find something when trying the Swiss transdisciplinarity website that includes a huge and well- ordered bibliographic database on transdisciplinarity: http://www.transdisciplinarity.ch/ (the site is in English) Good luck, Michael ------------- M. Nentwich http://eiop.or.at/mn/ author of "Cyberscience" http://hw.oeaw.ac.at/3188-7

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RE: [Air-l] relation digital divide - knowledge gap
by Opgenhaffen Michaël 13 May '05

13 May '05

Thanks Eszter, Redhika, Ulla, Danny, Paula and others for your help. I understand that my question was not well formulated, my excuses for that! This is quite a complex domain for me and I want to get it right. Therefore, an additional question: If I got it right, the knowledge gap is the situation that some groups (high-class, white, rich, well-educated, ...) are getting smarter en smarter (because of there learning-abilities and -motivations and other benefits) and the other groups aren't, so that the gap between the info-rich and info-poor is widening (cfr Matthew-effect). Since the success of ICT, we can observe sort of a same distinction between those who can work with internet and computers and those who can't or won't. Those who can work with ict, benefit from that use, while the groups for who it could be great to work on (for closing the knowledge gap) aren't working with ict so that again, the gap is widening. I now i formulated it very briefly, but is this in general correct? My question is twofold: 1) Can i describe the difference in knowledge-output between users and non-users as 'a knowledge gap'? I thought I read it somewhere, but as i read your answers, i begin to think that the knowledge gap is more a social phenomenon and not the difference in knowledge-output between users and non-users. 2) If this difference can not be called 'knowledge gap', which concept do you suggest to describe this possible difference in knowledge-output between users and non-users? Thankx a lot in advance. I know my English is not as good as my dutch is, but i hope clear anough to understand. Michaël ------------------------- Michaël Opgenhaffen Translation studies and journalism Lessius school Antwerp Belgium

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trans/inter
by Barry Wellman 13 May '05

13 May '05

Somebody just queried this list about research comparing to interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity. What's the difference, besides different jargon communities? Barry _____________________________________________________________________ Barry Wellman Professor of Sociology NetLab Director wellman at chass.utoronto.ca http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman Centre for Urban & Community Studies University of Toronto 455 Spadina Avenue Toronto Canada M5S 2G8 fax:+1-416-978-7162 To network is to live; to live is to network _____________________________________________________________________

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new media theory + social software
by Kathy Mancuso 13 May '05

13 May '05

Hi everyone, I don't want to say too much because I'm still trying to figure out what I'm thinking about, but does anyone know if anything has been done connecting the new media as art/visual product literature (here I am thinking Manovich on montage, Landow on hypertext, interface design theory) with current research on social software (danah boyd, Clay Shirky, the CoP crowd, et al)? So the visual aspects of social software. I am not thinking here so much of network mapping applications, of which there are plenty. Thanks, Kathy Mancuso

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transdisciplinarity
by Philipp Budka 13 May '05

13 May '05

Dear List, I am searching for literature on transdisciplinarity compared to interdisciplinarity (within the context of new media content production). I am grateful for any kind of info, particularly for online available articles and papers. Best, Philipp -- Philipp Budka philbu(a)gmx.net Rustengasse 5/10 A-1150 Wien, Austria http://www.philbu.net http://www.lateinamerika-studien.at -- 5 GB Mailbox, 50 FreeSMS http://www.gmx.net/de/go/promail +++ GMX - die erste Adresse f�r Mail, Message, More +++

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