Adrian Ivakhiv has some thoughts on “The joy (& loneliness) of being interdisciplinarian“.
I am someone who did a first degree in Politics and Modern history – though taught from a single department of Government – with a PhD from that same department in what can best be described as political theory, and who then taught in a Politics and International Studies department for three years. I think I can therefore claim to be what North Americans tend to call a ‘political scientist’, although the ‘scientist’ part isn’t something I’m comfortable with. For a while I engaged more with philosophers and philosophy than anything else. I then moved to Geography. I have no qualifications in Geography – not even a GCSE. I’ve published in most of the key Geography journals. I edit a journal that Geographers see as one of their own, though it has always claimed to be an interdisciplinary journal, and I’ve continued to try to make it so. So can I claim to be a Geographer? If so – and while I’ve usually denied it myself, some eminent Geographers have insisted that I am – when did I become one? The day I was hired by Durham? At some point since?
If I had to take a label at all, I usually say that I do the history of ideas. I’ve done it in Politics departments; I now do it in a Geography department. It allows me – I think – to write on very contemporary issues such as the ‘war on terror’ in a way that is informed by transformations among concepts, or to work on Beowulf or Antigone. I see no reason why I shouldn’t work on Leibniz and Lebanon; Heidegger and hermaphrodites; Coriolanus and contingent sovereignty. Is this interdisciplinary? Transdisciplinary? Undisciplined? One of the good things about the position I’m in – and I fully recognise this is not the case for many people – is that I no longer need to care.
Progressive Geographies 
You’re very lucky then!
Dear Stuart, I try to follow the same path – geography through interdisciplinarity while being anchored in a “political studies” department (which I’m more at ease and better fits my inclinations than “science”). I was first trained in history then in political science – discovering too late I was really being interested in political and cultural geography! You’re thus an inspiration in that regard and I certainly hope I will, in times, be able to write, like you, that “One of the good things about the position I’m in – and I fully recognise this is not the case for many people – is that I no longer need to care.” I say this whilst acknowledging that even in “interdisciplinarity”, there is always some inescapable (often cumbersome) disciplinary aspects to deal with.
Happy Holidays!
David
thanks for the replies. My point was not that I don’t have to care in general, but that I don’t need to care whether it is acceptably disciplined or not. So yes, I am lucky, but it wasn’t necessarily that easy to get to this position.
Ahh, thanks for this post! I enjoy and learn from your blog regularly, but this post really offers some unexpected edification, too.
I no longer need to care either. I blog about what I want and I can’t imagine anyone who would publish me. I am working on DeLillo’s Cosmopolis now at http://cosmopolisfilm2.blogspot.com and I just did a film review of Ides of March which is a major visual window into the Foucauldian grid of power/knowledge. I am noticing more and more searches on google meshing with my thinking.
Yes sorry, I wasn’t trying to suggest you were handed your good fortune on a plate! Keep up the good work in 2012! M
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