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Disciplinary Boundaries (disciplinary + boundary)
Selected AbstractsCrossing Disciplinary Boundaries: International Relations Meets International LawINTERNATIONAL STUDIES REVIEW, Issue 1 2000Sonia Cardenas Book reviewed: Byers, Michael Custom, Power and the Power of Rules [source] From Polychronicity to Multitasking: The Warping of Time Across Disciplinary BoundariesANTHROPOLOGY OF WORK REVIEW, Issue 2 2009Amy Todd Abstract Anthropologist Edward T. Hall's contrast between polychronic and monochronic orientations toward time has stimulated research in the business and management sciences. While Hall's approach to time is ethnographic, the business and management sciences measure polychronicity with a survey instrument, the Inventory of Polychronic Values (IPV). An examination of the IPV and the results it has yielded, however, indicate that it is not measuring polychronicity in the ethnographic sense. The IPV remains firmly within monochronic time and thus fails to seriously engage cultural difference. The transformation of the ethnographic meaning of polychronic to a conceptual one raises methodological and analytical questions of general relevance to the cross-cultural study of work. [source] Development Section, April 2008GEOGRAPHY COMPASS (ELECTRONIC), Issue 3 2008Cheryl McEwan EDITORIAL It is a great privilege to serve as Editor for the Development section of Geography Compass. The journal is an exciting new venture in electronic publishing that aims to publish state-of-the-art peer-reviewed surveys of key contemporary issues in geographical scholarship. As the first Editor of this section, it is my responsibility to establish the key aims and innovations for this section of the journal. These include: publishing reviews of scholarship on topics of contemporary relevance that are accessible and useful to researchers, teachers, students and practitioners; developing the range of topics covered across the spectrum of development geography; helping to set agendas in development geography by identifying gaps in existing empirical and conceptual research; commissioning articles from both established and graduate/early career researchers who are working at the frontiers of development geography; and communicating the distinctiveness of Geography Compass. Part of this distinctiveness is in publishing articles that are both of scholarly excellence and accessible to a wide audience. The first volume of Geography Compass was published in 2007, covering a wide range of topics (e.g. migration, children, technology, grassroots women's organizations, civil society, biodiversity, tourism, inequality, agrarian change, participatory development, disability, spirituality) in a number of specific geographical areas (e.g. Africa/southern Africa, Caribbean, China, Peru). Forthcoming in 2008/2009 are articles on the Gambia, Latin America, the Philippines, Southeast Asia, Bangladesh and South Africa, focusing on topics such as food security, comparative post-socialism, foreign aid and fair trade. Building on these diverse and excellent articles, I plan to communicate the distinctiveness of Development in a number of ways. First, I encourage an ecumenical approach to the notion of ,development geography' and welcome contributions from scholars across a range of social science disciplines whose work would be useful to a geography audience. This is important, not least because both development and geography, in disciplinary terms, are largely European inventions. Many scholars in Latin America, Africa and Asia, for example, do not refer to themselves as either development specialists or geographers but are producing important research in areas of direct relevance to students and researchers of ,development geography'. As the first editions illustrate, I also seek to publish articles that reflect ,development' in its broadest sense, encompassing economic, (geo)political, social, cultural and environmental issues. 2008 will be an interesting year for development, with a number of important issues and events shaping discourse and policy. These include: the Beijing Olympics and increasing focus on China's role in international development; political change in a number of African countries (Kenya, Zimbabwe, South Africa); the US presidential elections and potential shifts in policy on climate change, trade and security; the impacts of the Bali roadmap on climate change in the current economic context; the increasing number of impoverished people in Asia (notably China and India), sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America (notably Brazil) that even the World Bank has acknowledged; the implications of the increasing role of philanthropic foundations (e.g. the Gates Foundation and those emerging in India and Russia) in international development. I hope to see some of these issues covered in this journal. Second, I am keen to break down the association between ,development' and parts of the world variously categorized as ,Third World', ,Global South' or ,Developing World' by publishing articles that cut across North and South, East and West. The intellectual and disciplinary practices within (Western) geography that separate those researching issues in the South and post-socialist contexts from those researching similar issues in advanced capitalist economies are, it seems, no longer sustainable or sensible. Moreover, while studies of transnational and ethical trade, neoliberalism, household economies and ,commodity chains', for example, incorporate a multitude of case studies from across the world, these tend to be understood through conceptual lenses that almost always have their theoretical antecedents in Western theorization. The notion of ,learning from' debates, policy and practice in other parts of the world is still relatively alien within the discipline. There are thus issues in how we research and teach ethically and responsibly in and about different parts of the world, and in which this journal might make a contribution. Third, and related, part of my responsibility is to ensure that Compass reflects the breadth of debate about ,development' by publishing articles written by a truly international range of scholars. This has proved to be a challenge to date, in part reflecting the newness of the journal and the difficulties posed by English language publication. However, an immediate aim is to publish the work and ideas of scholars based outside of Anglophone contexts, in the Global South and in post-socialist contexts, and to use international referees who are able to provide valuable commentaries on the articles. A longer-term aim is to also further internationalize the Editorial Board. Currently, one-third of the Editorial Board is non-UK and I plan to increase this to at least 50% in future. Fourth, I plan to ensure that the Development section takes full advantage of electronic publication and the opportunities this offers. Thus, while I am keen to retain a word limit in the interest of publishing accessible articles, the lack of constraint regarding page space enables authors to include a wide range of illustrative and other material that is impossible in print journals. I plan to encourage authors to make greater use of visual materials (maps, photographs/photo-essays, video, sound recordings, model simulations and datasets) alongside text as well as more innovative forms of presentation where this might be appropriate. Finally, in the coming year, I intend to work more closely with other Compass section Editors to realize the potential for fostering debate that cuts across subdisciplinary and even disciplinary boundaries. The journal publishes across the full spectrum of the discipline and there is thus scope for publishing articles and/or special issues on development-related topics that might best be approached through dialogue between the natural and social sciences. Such topics might include resources (e.g. water, oil, bio-fuels), hazard and risk (from environmental issues to human and state security), and sustainability and quality of life (planned for 2008). Part of the distinctiveness of Compass is that electronic-only publication ensures that articles are published in relatively quick time , in some cases less than 3 months from initial submission to publication. It thus provides an important outlet for researchers working in fast-changing contexts and for those, such as graduate and early-career researchers, who might require swift publication for career purposes. Of course, as Editor I am reliant on referees both engaging with Manuscript Central and providing reports on articles in a relatively short space of time to fully expedite the process. My experience so far has been generally very positive and I would like to thank the referees for working within the spirit of the journal. Editing a journal is, of course, a collaborative and shared endeavour. The Development Editorial Board has been central to the successful launch of Development by working so generously to highlight topics and potential authors and to review articles; I would like to take this opportunity to thank Tony Bebbington, Reg Cline-Cole, Sara Kindon, Claire Mercer, Giles Mohan, Warwick Murray, Richa Nagar, Rob Potter, Saraswati Raju, Jonathan Rigg, Jenny Robinson and Alison Stenning. The Editors-in-Chief , Mike Bradshaw and Basil Gomez , have provided invaluable advice while adding humour (and colour) to the editorial process. Colleagues at Wiley-Blackwell have provided superb support, in particular, Helen Ashton who is constantly on hand to provide advice and assistance. I look forward to working closely with these people again in the coming year, as well as with the authors and readers who are vital to ensuring that Geography Compass fulfils its remit. [source] The Contours of Political Transformation and Conservation Areas in Southern AfricaGEOGRAPHY COMPASS (ELECTRONIC), Issue 2 2008Maano Ramutsindela Ecology and other conservation sciences have largely been preoccupied with the establishment, number, size and the functions of nature conservation areas around the globe. Beyond these concerns, nature conservation areas mirror complex interrelationships between society and the environment, and how those relationships are, or should be managed in various contexts. These interrelationships cannot appropriately be understood within the confines of disciplinary boundaries; they require multi- and interdisciplinary perspectives. The aim of this article is to illustrate that various categories of nature conservation areas, including protected areas, embody ideas about nature and how it should be governed in changing socio-economic conditions. The article draws on examples from southern Africa to argue that significant turns in strategies for protecting nature were made during periods of political transformation. It concludes that the gradation of protected areas, as a group of conservation areas, reflects different ways in which human activities are incorporated or marginalised in these areas. These processes are contingent on sociopolitical conditions. [source] Becoming Undisciplined: Toward the Supradisciplinary Study of SecurityINTERNATIONAL STUDIES REVIEW, Issue 1 2005J. Marshall Beier In recent years we have seen increasing reflection among scholars of security studies regarding the boundaries of their field and the range of its appropriate subject matter. At the same time, scholars elsewhere in the academy have been developing their own approaches to issues of security. These various pockets of work have been undertaken in nearly complete isolation from one another and with little apparent awareness of relevant developments in the other fields. In this essay, we advance the claim that security cannot be satisfactorily theorized within the confines of disciplinary boundaries,any disciplinary boundaries. The challenge thus becomes how to develop what might be termed a "supradisciplinary" approach to the study of security that will allow us to think and engage our subject matter across a range of discourses without giving rise to an interdisciplinary hybrid or sui generis discipline. [source] Contrasting approaches to statistical regression in ecology and economicsJOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY, Issue 2 2009P. R. Armsworth Summary 1Conservation and natural resource management challenges are as much social problems as biological ones. In recognition of this fact, ecologists and economists work increasingly closely together. We discuss one barrier to effective integration of the two disciplines: put simply, many ecologists and economists approach statistical regression differently. 2Regression techniques provide the most commonly used approach for empirical analyses of land management decisions. Researchers from each discipline attribute differing importance to a range of possibly conflicting design criteria when formulating regression analyses. 3Ecologists commonly attribute greater importance to spatial autocorrelation and parsimony than do economists when designing regressions. Economists often attribute greater importance than ecologists to concerns about endogeneity and conformance with a priori theoretical expectations. 4Synthesis and applications. The differing importance attributed to different design characteristics may reflect a process of cultural drift within each discipline. Greater interdisciplinary collaboration can counteract this process by stimulating the flow of ideas and techniques across disciplinary boundaries. [source] Beyond Lack and Excess: Other Architectures/Other LandscapesJOURNAL OF ARCHITECTURAL EDUCATION, Issue 1 2000Gülsüm Baydar Nalbanto Familiar binary categories of architecture such as Western/regional, high style/vernacular and modern/primitive are crucial in guarding its disciplinary boundaries. In the first part of my article, by analyzing a number of paradigmatic architectural texts, I argue that notions of lack and excess are instrumental in maintaining the largely superimposed binary constructions of West/non-West and architecture/nonarchitecture. Then, through a particular reading of a non-Western site, I explore ways of rethinking the categories of architecture and non-Western beyond such binary oppositions. [source] On mental events, disciplinary boundaries, and reductionism: A reply to PlaudJOURNAL OF CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 9 2001Stephen S. Ilardi Plaud's (2001) radical behavioral manifesto suggests that a psychological science based exclusively upon the study of environment-behavior functional contingencies would yield a discipline unencumbered by mentalism, vaguely delineated disciplinary boundaries, or inappropriate reductionism. In reply, we note that: (a) mental events,e.g., thoughts and feelings,are increasingly accessible to objective investigation, and provide an observable proximal causal mechanism for the environmental selection of behavior; (b) the call for pristine disciplinary boundaries is anachronistic, inasmuch as progress in the natural sciences has engendered disciplinary boundaries that are increasingly porous; (c) cognitive neuroscience facilitates a comprehensive understanding of complex human behavior by mapping out the relationship between such behavior and underlying brain events, thereby engaging in an appropriate form of reductionism (constitutive reductionism) that has become a hallmark of the natural sciences; and (d) ironically, it is radical behaviorism, in its disavowal of the informational level of complexity instantiated in brain events, that engages in inappropriate eliminative reductionism (i.e., reducing neural information to "nothing but" its underlying bring states). © 2001 Jo n Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Clin Psychol 57: 1103,1107, 2001. [source] The Mormon Question: Polygamy and Constitutional Conflict in Nineteenth-Century AmericaJOURNAL OF SUPREME COURT HISTORY, Issue 1 2003Sarah Barringer Gordon My research into the "Mormon Question" has blurred disciplinary boundaries, demonstrating that legal history occurs outside the confines of law books, out in the world of popular culture, political cartooning, and sermonizing, and even in outbreaks of violence. This article is designed to illustrate how an entire body of constitutional law was made in opposition to the marital and sexual arrangements of Mormons in the Utah Territory in the nineteenth century. [source] Shakespearean Editing and Why It MattersLITERATURE COMPASS (ELECTRONIC), Issue 1 2005Leah Marcus A generation ago, many Shakespearean scholars simply accepted the versions of the play that they were provided with by editors. So long as the label was right , Arden, Oxford, Cambridge, Penguin, Riverside, Pelican , the content was assumed to be reliable. But editing can never be transparent , it is always influenced by the cultural assumptions of the editor and his or her era, however submerged those assumptions may be in terms of the editor's stated textual practices. In the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries, as a result of feminist and postcolonial critical approaches to Shakespearean texts, we have begun to realize the degree to which our inherited editions are shaped in accordance with assumptions about colonialism, race, and the status of women that are no longer acceptable to us, and that in fact distort elements of Shakespeare's plays as they exist in early printed quarto and folio versions. As earlier disciplinary boundaries between editing and criticism have broken down, Shakespearean critics have increasingly turned to editing in order to undo some of the racist and sexist assumptions behind our received texts of the plays. [source] Towards valid measures of self-directed clinical learningMEDICAL EDUCATION, Issue 11 2003Tim Dornan Aim, To compare the validity of different measures of self-directed clinical learning. Methods, We used a quasi-experimental study design. The measures were: (1) a 23-item quantitative instrument measuring satisfaction with the learning process and environment; (2) free text responses to 2 open questions about the quality of students' learning experiences; (3) a quantitative, self-report measure of real patient learning, and (4) objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) and progress test results. Thirty-three students attached to a single firm during 1 curriculum year in Phase 2 of a problem-based medical curriculum formed an experimental group. Thirty-one students attached to the same firm in the previous year served as historical controls and 33 students attached to other firms within the same module served as contemporary controls. After the historical control period, experimental group students were exposed to a complex curriculum intervention that set out to maximise appropriate real patient learning through increased use of the outpatient setting, briefing and supported, reflective debriefing. Results, The quantitative satisfaction instrument was insensitive to the intervention. In contrast, the qualitative measure recorded a significantly increased number of positive statements about the appropriateness of real patient learning. Moreover, the quantitative self-report measure of real patient learning found high levels of appropriate learning activity. Regarding outpatient learning, the qualitative and quantitative real patient learning instruments were again concordant and changed in the expected direction, whereas the satisfaction measure did not. An incidental finding was that, despite all attempts to achieve horizontal integration through simultaneously providing community attachments and opening up the hospital for self-directed clinical learning, real patient learning was strongly bounded by the specialty interest of the hospital firm to which students were attached. Assessment results did not correlate with real patient learning. Conclusions, Both free text responses and students' quantitative self-reports of real patient learning were more valid than a satisfaction instrument. One explanation is that students had no benchmark against which to rate their satisfaction and curriculum change altered their tacit benchmarks. Perhaps the stronger emphasis on self-directed learning demanded more of students and dissatisfied those who were less self-directed. Results of objective, standardised assessments were not sensitive to the level of self-directed, real patient learning. Despite an integrated curriculum design that set out to override disciplinary boundaries, students' learning remained strongly influenced by the specialty of their hospital firm. [source] Linguistic Anthropology in 2008: An Election-Cycle GuideAMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, Issue 2 2009Paja Faudree ABSTRACT Loosely following the structure of the U.S. election cycle, I identify some of the more important institutions and events that have recently served as venues for field-building scholarly practices and processes in linguistic anthropology. I examine various trends and concerns animating recent publications on language and social life. I discuss the ongoing impact on the field of recent major works that attempt to codify methodological and theoretical approaches to the intersection of language and society. I also consider some of linguistic anthropology's emergent ventures, including new collaborative projects and new proposals for interdisciplinary work. Finally, I discuss some of the political implications of academic specialization, disciplinary boundaries, and impending "generational shift," both in the subdiscipline and the academy generally. I close by raising questions about future directions and possibilities for research in linguistic anthropology and other interdisciplinary enterprises. [Keywords: linguistic anthropology, interdisciplinarity, linguistic ideology, semiotic practices, linguistic variation] [source] Theories of and in the Policy ProcessPOLICY STUDIES JOURNAL, Issue 4 2008David L. Weimer Like public administration before it, public policy has an uneasy place in the discipline of political science. The stress is most obvious in the distinction between theories that attempt to explain the policy process and theories that are useful to those who seek to operate within the policy process. Accommodating this stress within the disciplinary boundaries of political science poses a difficult challenge. [source] A guide to knowledge translation theoryTHE JOURNAL OF CONTINUING EDUCATION IN THE HEALTH PROFESSIONS, Issue 1 2006Carole A. Estabrooks RN Abstract Despite calls over several decades for theory development, there remains no overarching knowledge-translation theory. However, a range of models and theoretical perspectives focused on narrower and related areas have been available for some time. We provide an overview of selected perspectives that we believe are particularly useful for developing testable and useful knowledge-translation interventions. In addition, we discuss adjuvant theories necessary to complement these perspectives. We draw from organizational innovation, health, and social sciences literature to illustrate the similarities and differences of various theoretical perspectives related to the knowledge-translation field. A variety of theoretical perspectives useful to knowledge translation exist. They are often spread across disciplinary boundaries, making them difficult to locate and use. Poor definitional clarity, discipline-specific terminology, and implicit assumptions often hinder the use of complementary perspectives. Health care environments are complex, and assessing the setting prior to selecting a theory should be the first step in knowledge-translation initiatives. Finding a fit between setting (context) and theory is important for knowledge-translation initiatives to succeed. Because one theory will not fit all contexts, it is helpful to understand and use several different theories. Although there are often barriers associated with combining theories from different disciplines, such obstacles can be overcome, and to do so will increase the likelihood that knowledge-translation initiatives will succeed. [source] | |||||||||||||