TY - JOUR
T1 - Interdisciplinarity and boundary work
T2 - Challenges and opportunities for agrifood studies
AU - Hinrichs, Clare C.
N1 - Copyright:
Copyright 2008 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2008/6
Y1 - 2008/6
N2 - Despite its vigor, agrifood studies research faces two fault lines: the durability of disciplines, and challenges in engaging non-academic stakeholders. In this essay, I use the concept of boundary work from social studies of science and technology to reflect on the challenges and opportunities for more engaged interdisciplinary research in agrifood studies. I draw on recent field visits to several "sustainable food chain" research projects funded through the Rural Economy and Land Use Programme (RELU), an innovative interdisciplinary research initiative of the UK Research Councils, to highlight the contradictory nature of boundary work in interdisciplinary research. Involving efforts both to bridge interfaces and to separate, exclude and manage other disciplines or stakeholders, boundary work is inherent to interdisciplinarity. Innovations in the organizational culture of projects and in the larger structural context for research can multiply the more generative potential of boundary work, and also yield more and better interdisciplinary research in agrifood studies.
AB - Despite its vigor, agrifood studies research faces two fault lines: the durability of disciplines, and challenges in engaging non-academic stakeholders. In this essay, I use the concept of boundary work from social studies of science and technology to reflect on the challenges and opportunities for more engaged interdisciplinary research in agrifood studies. I draw on recent field visits to several "sustainable food chain" research projects funded through the Rural Economy and Land Use Programme (RELU), an innovative interdisciplinary research initiative of the UK Research Councils, to highlight the contradictory nature of boundary work in interdisciplinary research. Involving efforts both to bridge interfaces and to separate, exclude and manage other disciplines or stakeholders, boundary work is inherent to interdisciplinarity. Innovations in the organizational culture of projects and in the larger structural context for research can multiply the more generative potential of boundary work, and also yield more and better interdisciplinary research in agrifood studies.
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U2 - 10.1007/s10460-008-9118-0
DO - 10.1007/s10460-008-9118-0
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:43349085312
SN - 0889-048X
VL - 25
SP - 209
EP - 213
JO - Agriculture and Human Values
JF - Agriculture and Human Values
IS - 2
ER -