The dynamics of identity struggle in interdisciplinary meetings in higher education

Seongsook Choi, Keith Richards

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapter (peer-reviewed)peer-review

Abstract / Description of output

In response to shifts in requirements for research funding, interest in interdisciplinary engagement has burgeoned, but as yet the interactional dynamics of interdisciplinary meetings have received almost no attention. This chapter draws on a data set of over 20 hours of audio-recorded talk from 12 different interdisciplinary meetings involving biologists, mathematicians, bioinformaticians and statisticians. Drawing on a combination of applied conversation analysis and quantitative analysis (using the Interactional Discourse Lab developed by one of the authors), it explicates the ways in which disciplinary identities are deployed in the reconciliation of different perspectives on shared problems. In interdisciplinary engagement, it will argue, the interactive and contingently accomplished process of identity construction is mediated by reference to epistemic rights associated with disciplinary membership, and that while there is assumed parity of disciplinary entitlement, in practice the power of a dominant discipline can be invoked by relevant participants in order to establish epistemic precedence.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationIdentity Struggles
Subtitle of host publicationEvidence from Workplaces around the World
EditorsDorien Van De Mieroop, Stephanie Schnurr
Place of PublicationAmsterdam; Philadelphia
PublisherJohn Benjamins Publishing Company
Chapter9
Pages165-184
Number of pages20
ISBN (Electronic)9789027265883
ISBN (Print)9789027206602
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 26 Apr 2017

Publication series

NameDiscourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture (DAPSAC)
PublisherJohn Benjamins
Volume69
ISSN (Print)1569-9463

Keywords / Materials (for Non-textual outputs)

  • interdisciplinary identity
  • interdisciplinary
  • identity struggles
  • disciplinary identity
  • interdisciplinary engagement
  • interactional Discourse Lab
  • interdisciplinary research meeting
  • conversation analysis
  • epistemics
  • Systems Biology
  • drys
  • biology
  • statistics

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