Building connections and broadening horizons through interdisciplinary public sociology

Abstract

Public sociologists bring their expertise to communities around the world that face complex and persistent problems, including systemic inequality, environmental degradation and public health disparities. The causes, manifestations and resolution of these challenges are interdisciplinary in nature, rarely falling within the boundaries or confines of one particular discipline. In this chapter, I contend that, in many cases, resolving these complex challenges requires integration of theories, methods and concepts from different disciplines. This more pluralistic approach is a better match for the complex problems that we face. The goal of this chapter is to encourage public sociologists to build bridges with colleagues from other disciplines to engage in interdisciplinary public sociology. The chapter begins with a brief overview of the various types of interdisciplinarity, followed by a discussion of the connection between public sociology and interdisciplinary work. As social problems are inevitably rooted in community members’ everyday experiences, the community itself must be viewed as its own field of knowledge (or, ‘discipline’) that is integral to such endeavors, a topic discussed in the third section. I then provide insights from an interdisciplinary public sociology project addressing the impacts of COVID-19 on food insecurity. While sociologists are particularly well suited to contribute to ongoing research on these pressing social concerns, we realized early on that this research would not be as rich nor as relevant to the community without an interdisciplinary approach. The chapter concludes with suggestions for initiating cross-disciplinary projects in public sociology.