Main description:

The landscape of contemporary research is characterized by growing interdisciplinarity, and disciplinary boundaries are blurring faster than ever. Yet while interdisciplinary methods, and methodological innovation in general, are often presented as the 'holy grail' of research, there are few examples or discussions of their development and 'behaviour' in the field.

This Routledge Handbook of Interdisciplinary Research presents a bold intervention by showcasing a diversity of stimulating approaches. Over 50 experienced researchers illustrate the challenges, but also the rewards of doing and representing interdisciplinary research through their own methodological developments. Featured projects cover a variety of scales and topics, from small art-science collaborations to the 'big data' of mass observations.

Each section is dedicated to an aspect of data handling, from collection, classification, validation to communication to research audiences. Most importantly, Interdisciplinary Methods presents a distinctive approach through its focus on knowledge as process, defamiliarising and reworking familiar practices such as experimenting, archiving, observing, prototyping or translating.

Contents:

General introduction, Section 1: Making and Assembling 1. Making and Assembling: Towards a Conjectural Paradigm for Interdisciplinary Research, 2. Arranging, 3. Drawing, 4. Experimenting, 5. Figuring, 6. Imaging, 7. Rescaling, 8. Sand-drawing, 9. Suspending, Section 2: Capturing and Composing, 1. Capturing and Composing: Doing the Epistemic and the Ontic Together, 2. Abducting, 3. Archiving, 4. iBorder/ing, 5. Casing, 6. Diffracting, 7. Figurationing, 8. Notating, 9. Prototyping, 10. Retrieving, 11. Timing, 12. Visualising Data: A View from Design Space Section 3: Engaging and Distributing 1. Engaging and Distributing, 2. Affective analysis, 3. Data-Sprinting: A Public Approach to Digital Research, 4. Digging, 5. Issuecrawling: Building Lists of URLs and Mapping Website Networks, 6. Moving methods, 7. Playing with Ethics, 8. Sensing atmospheres, Section 4: Of Interdisciplinarity, 1. Of Interdisciplinarity, 2. Diagramming, 3. Conversation Between Angela Last and Nina Lykke, 4. Haunting Seedy Connections, 5. Dirty Methods as Ethical Methods? In the Field with 'The Cultural Politics of Dirt in Africa, 1880-Present' Section 5: Valuing and Validating, 1. Valuing and Validating: On the 'Success' of Interdisciplinary Research, 2. Compromising, 3. Deriving, 4. Disrupting, 5. Dissenting, 6. Exemplifying, 7. Explaining, 8. Generalizing, 9. Interdisciplines, and Indigenous Research and Methodologies, 10. Troubling, 11. Problem-Making, 12. Projecting, 13. Qualifying, 14. Scaling, 15. Speculating, 16. Wedging