Facing ambiguity differently across design, business and technology
"team[s] of students of mixed disciplines worked together to understand and map a problem-space (identified by the client). They then defined a solution-space before focussing on a particular opportunity outcome. The range of projects included incremental innovation opportunities represented by the Lego and Hasbro projects through radical Philips work to truly disruptive work with Unilever. The studies confirmed stereotypical view points of how different disciplines may behave. They showed that design students were more (but not completely) comfortable with the ambiguous aspects associated with ‘phase zero’ problem-space exploration and early stage idea generation. They would only commit to a solution when time pressures dictated that this was essential in order to complete the project deliverables on time and they were happy to experiment with, and develop, new methods without a clear objective in mind. In contrast, the business students were uncomfortable with this ambiguity and were more readily able to come to terms with incremental innovation projects where a systematic approach could be directly linked to an end goal. The technologists, were more comfortable with the notion of the ambiguous approach leading to more radical innovation, but needed to wrap this in an analytical process that grounded experimentation. Meanwhile, the designers were unclear and unprepared to be precise when it came to committing to a business model. "
(Mark Bailey, 2010, p.42)
Bailey, M. (2010). "Working at the Edges". Networks, Art Design Media Subject Centre (ADM-HEA). Autumn 2010.
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Managing interdisciplinarity: a discussion of the contextual review in design research
"Although the debate about disciplinary status has not interrupted the production of innovative design research, as a relatively recent member of academia's 'tribes and territories' (Becher 1989) design is still establishing its disciplinary characteristics as a general research field and a set of specialist sub-fields. There is, for instance, some debate about whether design scholarship should include creative practice and reflection (for a sample of contrasting positions see Bayazit 2004; Downton 2001; Durling 2002; Roth 1999). Since a majority of design issues originate in everyday life individual design research questions are unlikely to fit specific disciplinary boundaries, the idea that design research definitively engages with multiple fields and literatures being widely acknowledged (Poggenpohl et al 2004). These considerations have contributed to the debate as to whether design research should conform to established models from the sciences and humanities or develop its own integral approaches. We suggest, however, that a greater focus on design's applied nature and inherent interdisciplinarity could profitably overtake the quest for disciplinary clarity."
(Carolyn Barnes and Gavin Melles, 2007)
1). Proceedings of 'Emerging Trends in Design Research', the International Association of Societies of Design Research (IASDR) Conference, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, 12-15 November 2007
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Digital Libraries as a new discipline formed through the integration of concepts and epistemologies
"For [Erica] Schoenberger, academic disciplines are both an object of study, as well as a method of study. For example, anthropologists study culture through participant observation [Sch01]. Geographers may add place to the criteria that define a discipline; for example, historians study in archives. Forms of discourse, the rhetorical strategies, also vary among the disciplines; some are linguistic, while others are mathematical. Finally, evidence and epistemological commitments define a discipline. For Hurd, disciplinarity is defined by Roy as 'a field of knowledge which some minimum number of universities (say, 12-20) have established in departments labeled with the discipline's name.' [Hur92]. Disciplines are thus constructs as well as ways for controlling knowledge production. Disciplinary cultures produce objects and methods of study, the credentialed practitioners of the discipline, values and ways of knowing, and identities.
'The impact of knowledge on action - whether in the field of social or natural phenomena - forces interaction between the disciplines and even generates new disciplines. The 'inter-discipline' of today is the 'discipline' of tomorrow.' [INT72]. Therefore, proposing and structuring Digital Libraries as an academic inter-discipline is in one sense knowledge fragmentation but it also has the potential for unification. Since interdisciplinarity can be defined as the integration of concepts and epistemologies from different disciplines, digital libraries constitute a problem domain to which both LIS and Computing (among others) contribute. The only relevant question in this context is how can interdisciplinary DL education be truly achieved and disciplinary protectionism battles be avoided [Abb87]? Explicating the nature of the disciplines and professions involved may move us closer to the goal of interdisciplinary DL education."
(Anita Coleman, 2002)
Coleman, A. (July/August 2002). 'Interdisciplinarity: The Road Ahead for Education in Digital Libraries.' D-Lib Magazine 8(7/8).
[Sch01] E. Schoenberger. Interdisciplinarity and Social Power. Progress in Human Geography, 25 (3): 365-382, 2001
[Hur92] J. Hurd. The Future of University Science and Technology Libraries: Implications of Increasing Interdisciplinarity. Science and Technology Libraries, 13 (1): 17-32, Fall 1992.
[INT72] Interdisciplinarity: Problems of Teaching and Research in Universities. Paris, OECD, 1972.
[Abb87] A. Abbott. The System of Professions: An Essay on the Division of Expert Labor. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1987.
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Design knowledge or design, communication and culture?
"The problem with any debate over design is that the intellectual resources with which the debate is typically engaged are themselves located within the field, and the competing definitions of design is the terrain over which struggles are fought and the resources used in those struggles. Each actor (or in this case, each designer) engages in these struggles and does so from a position within the field; each has a situated viewpoint and this viewpoint shapes the analysis of the field (Bourdieu, 1983). Thus, there is a need to be able to view the field afresh, from a perspective that is not associated with any specific position within the field but rather objectifies the field. This is not to argue for an 'ultimate-truth' perspective, but rather to suggest that, in order to be able to analyse the debates, one needs specific kinds of tools. Designers work with knowledge to 'do' design. When analysing the field of design the object of study has now shifted: it is not the design object but knowledge itself as an object that is being studied. For engineering a bridge, engineering knowledge is valuable; for designing a house, architectural knowledge is valuable. For analysing knowledge, a theory of knowledge itself is valuable."
(Lucila Carvalho, Andy Dong & Karl Maton, 2009, p.485)
Fig.1 Legitimation codes of specialisation Source: Maton (2007:97)
2). Carvalho, L., Dong, A. & Maton, K. (2009) 'Legitimating design: A sociology of knowledge account of the field', Design Studies 30(5): 483-502.
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
New Directions in Interdisciplinarity: Broad, Deep, and Critical
"Before interdisciplinarity in either the disciplinary producing or disciplinary-circumscribing senses could manifest itself, disciplinarity itself had to take on its peculiarly modern form. Any assessment of interdisciplinarity - multi - and trans-, noncritical and critical- will benefit from an appreciation of this background.
Prior to the modern period, learning exhibited a kind of unity that might be called predisciplinary. Aristotle, it is true, introduced distinctions between logic, physics, and ethics, but these were never of a kind to raise the possibility of cross-disciplinary formations such as 'physical ethics.' During the Middle Ages, the division of the artes liberales into grammar, rhetoric, dialectic (the trivium), arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music (the quadrivium) ensured that the education of 'free men' included all the knowledge and skills needed to exercise their social roles. Insofar as it existed, disciplinary specialization was present more in the 'servile arts' of artisans and tradesmen. Not even teachers of the liberal arts became specialists in their different branches, because the idea of, for example, possessing arithmetic without grammar would have been considered a deformation of the mind. In the monastery schools, the unfettered pursuit of knowledge was viewed skeptically, criticized as curiositas, and therefore subject to disciplinization in a premodern behavioral sense. Only at the end of the Middle Ages, as the infinite pursuit of disciplinary knowledge took on the character of a spiritual activity, would Renaissance men become necessary to cross boundaries and synthesize diverse areas of learning."
(Robert Frodeman and Carl Mitcham, 2007, p.508)
[1][2] Frodeman, R. and C. Mitcham (2007). "New Directions in Interdisciplinarity: Broad, Deep, and Critical." Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society 27(6).
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
