Dear All, Since I more or less posed the original question, allow me to say I would not assume at all that I came from a position of determining "institutional strategy," nor, however, would I say that this shouldn't be an issue of concern. I may have a more difficult time than others separating the issue of ethics (I particularly like all of the framing of interdisciplinary ethics), institutional strategies, political economics and the notion of processes of discipline, and more specifically defined "disciplinary space." This comes from my bias of trying to look at this question in terms of "the historical versus ahistorical perspectives." I am simply thinking that we need to examine not only the issue(s) of whether "Internet ______" is a discipline, but rather what is/are the issues that lie at the heart of the debate. I am most concerned that to the degree that we don't try to grapple with these definitions we are easily consumed by hegemony and the processes that define context for us, without our conscious intervention into the more subtle actions which ultimately have significant consequences. In particular, I think the ethical issues are particularly vulnerable in scenarios experiencing radical shifting of boundaries, and random blending of "stuff." In fact, I think that this is exactly the kinds of scenarios that lead to the kinds of corporate scandals that have emerged within the past ten years. This type of reasoning takes me right back to my inability to easily separate institutional structures from cultural processes and ultimately issues of great social import such as ethics. There have been many excellent points raised by a number of people in this discussion, but I am also yet not willing to cave in on the point that the construct of academic discipline, is not central to the political and economic organization of the university and therefore is integrally linked to the university's primary social institutional functions, and certainly it's ethical behavior within the society. I think Matt's post is very intriguing re: the processes of a discipline, and I whole-heartedly agree with almost all of what Charles is saying. I guess I'm suggesting that it is within these processes that the political and economic nature of organization will manifest itself to define the "space" or territory of a discipline, and this is certainly one of the places that ethics becomes central to the processes and where our antennae need to be focused or we easily can become misguided. I think beyond interesting discussion, we have a serious responsibility to try to bring as much light to these issues as possible and that strategies are part of a legitimate discussion of ethics. I should hope that more people will continue to post. The range of discussion has been enlightening and quite worthy of our effort. IB Irene Berkowitz Coordinator for Curricular Publications and Systems Office of the Vice Provost Temple University tel. 215-204-7596 fax. 215-204 3175 berkowitz@mail.temple.edu
cmess@lib.drury.edu 11/06/2002 1:36:02 PM >>> radhika gajjala writes
ethics of inter/trans/disciplinarity sounds pretty good - but who will lay down the Law on this one?
Hmmm. It seems to me that aoir-ists, as interdisciplinarians par excellence, should attempt to articulate these ethics. Perhaps I'm being overly optimistic, but my experience with the ethics working committee convinces me that a) we - by which I mean, a bunch of different people working out of a bunch of different disciplines in a bunch of different kinds of institutions and cultural contexts - already have some sense (partly overt and articulate / partly covert and tacit) of what such an ethics would "look like," based on our experiences, our own ethical reflections, etc. (In particular: one of the most important sources for the development of the working committee's guidelines were the ethical reflections of many different researchers in a variety of contexts. In addition to some of the hallmark articles and values statements, these individual works meant we did not have to start de novo and in a vacuum: we were able instead to begin exploring some paths worked out in practice that turned out to be very helpful and substantive.) b) with enough good will and patience (in the case of the working committee, nearly two years - but hey, that's not much in the scope of the history of world philosophies - smile!) people from a variety of disciplines, experiences, and cultures, can achieve a reasonable degree of success both in articulating commonly shared values and orientations, and in marking out irreducible differences that help demarcate important distinctions between disciplines, methodologies, and larger cultural/national traditions. It would seem to me, then, that an ethics of inter/trans/disciplinarity would share with the current ethical guidelines precisely an emphasis on a pluralism that avoid both monolithic dogmatism (what most of us seem to find unsatisfactory about "disciplines" in the narrow sense) and a sheer relativism that by endorsing everything may not endorse much of anything (and renders attempting to make qualitative judgments about research and scholarship more or less a meaningless exercise). It would also share with those guidelines a sense of on-going dialogue and openness - i.e., a sense that discerning and articulating these sorts of things is very much a continuing process, one open to pursuing new insights and new directions. (A good thing we have these documents on the web - they can be changed easily!) Finally, if such an ethics were to have these characteristics, they would not look entirely like the Law (e.g., as brought down from on high, carved in stone, by a single prophet who enjoyed exclusive access to the Absolute) but more like an emergent _ethos_, a description and prescription of what our best habits (ethos), our best practices might be under the current circumstances. (This may be part of radhika's point?) They would be the work of a collective dialogue - one marked by sometimes passionate but respectful debate over important differences. They would be the result of a lot of hard work - but also a lot of fun. In sum, I'd encourage aoir-ists to jump in and start articulating! cheers, Charles Ess Director, Interdisciplinary Studies Center Drury University 900 N. Benton Ave. Voice: 417-873-7230 Springfield, MO 65802 USA FAX: 417-873-7435 Home page: http://www.drury.edu/ess/ess.html Co-chair, CATaC 2002: http://www.it.murdoch.edu.au/~sudweeks/catac02/ Exemplary persons seek harmony, not sameness. -- Analects 13.23
From: radhika gajjala <radhika@cyberdiva.org> Reply-To: air-l@aoir.org Date: Wed, 06 Nov 2002 07:16:05 -0500 To: air-l@aoir.org Subject: Re: [Air-l] What is a discipline.
ethics of inter/trans/disciplinarity sounds pretty good - but who will lay down the Law on this one?
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