Abstract
This article begins with the proposition that inter- and transdisciplinarity offer an important methodological grounding for collaborative HE research addressing complex agendas such as HE internationalization. Internationalization acts as a figure for the ‘troubled’ nature of higher education; hence we begin with the larger problem, discussing the current crises of disciplinary knowledge as the background question. We set out a framework for understanding and conceptualizing inter- and transdisciplinarity as a meta-theoretical approach that problematizes reductive and disciplinary approaches, in favour of research and analytical strategies which can work with, and across, differences. To work further through and operationalize different possibilities offered by inter-and transdisciplinary approaches to HE internationalizations, we discuss the use of tools such as social cartography to do ‘bridging work’ across different disciplinary and theoretical backgrounds and contexts. A non-formal practitioner–collaborator project is discussed to highlight emergent dimensions of collaboration that might otherwise be overlooked. Inter- and transdisciplinarity are not pre-specified specialized ‘methods’ but, rather, are orientations that may take reductive, convergent, divergent or emergent pathways. Inter- and transdisciplinarity can perhaps be best treated as a problematizing and open-ended methodological approach that foregrounds plurality and contestation, orienting research frameworks towards inclusiveness, tensions, unpredictability and complexity.
Highlights
We suggest that researchers of higher education might respond meta-theoretically to this systemic change and complexity, by turning to inter- and transdisciplinarity as a methodological starting point, and highlighting its relevance to critical and reflexive higher education research in general
We suggest that inter- and transdisciplinary approaches offer a vibrant and powerful potential for rethinking higher education (HE) internationalizations and emphasize that such methodologies are relevant to rethinking HE, research collaboration and partnerships more generally
This article responds to the general criticism that there is a dearth of ‘meta-thinking about HE’ in HE research (Barnett, 2014: 9), and the complaint that the theoretical framework for thinking about HE fails to do so educationally (Barnett, 1990), by reflecting on inter- and transdisciplinarity as a way of thinking about our recent research on the ethical dilemmas of higher education internationalization
Summary
The nineteenth and twentieth century imaginaries, which placed the Humboldtian research university and its modern civic counterpart in a shared, prestigious imaginary, are no longer regarded as legitimate or sustainable from either inside or outside the academy (Frodeman, 2014; Readings, 1996) Disciplines, with their individual histories, cultures, subject matters, methods, people and social positioning (Huber, 1990) represent the original ‘academic tribes and territories’, but they are becoming less relevant (Trowler, 2012), because the disciplinary and interdisciplinary architecture of knowledge itself is changing (Zeleza, 2006: 195). The arguments that exert pressure on disciplinarity concern foundational questions about the nature and role of HE itself, what educational change and reform should take place, and how the domains of knowledge and education must themselves be transformed
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