When Trans met Discipline: scenes from an arranged marriage

Abstract

Transdisciplinarity is all the rage! This spirited statement, or announcement even, rings true of the contemporary intellectual landscape. The amalgamated term/concept proposes a means to breakdown traditional boundaries, encourage collaboration outside of staid academic spaces and in doing so become a key driver for innovation. Many have bought into this promise. However, amidst the fervour for the promise of fluidity of knowledge and interdisciplinary exchange lies a productive tension between the principles of transness and the inherent fixity of traditional disciplinary structures. Etymologically, they sit on opposites ends of a spectrum indicating flux and fixity. What kind of union does this term portend? What is liminal, or overlooked in the composition these opposing forces? Our provocation aims to take on a playful troubling in what observe as a limitation of the scope of transdisciplinary work. Drawing on critical perspectives from trans and queer studies, discipline-making and un-disciplining and the energies that heralded the birth of transdisciplinarity, our provocation plays with the tacit ways in which power structures, historical legacies, and implicit biases continue to operate spaces that claim transdisciplinarity. We aim to argue for a more thorough understanding of the interplay between fixity and fluidity, highlighting how acknowledging these dynamics can lead to an expanded palette of work that can leap beyond the current practices of engaged scholarship towards the speculative and outrageous. Through a series of conversations with texts, theorists and activists, our contribution will work to make productive mischief from the periphery.