Participation Literacy

As I mentioned in the foreword, the transdisciplinarity approach is essential for me. Some knowledge of the transdisciplinary is also essential for your understanding of this thesis.

There are several concepts for describing border crossing qualities in research. Lena Trojer (1997), (2001) lines them out as follows:

• Multi-disciplinarity or Pluri-disciplinarity means that two or more disciplines are involved to solve a specific research problem. The level of integration and synthesis among the disciplines is sparse. This mode of research does not provoke the participating disciplines.
• Interdisciplinary research means that it is impossible to divide the research problem into clearly defined disciplinarily parts. The level of synthesis is noticeable, both methodically and theoretically. This mode of research is more provoking to the mother disciplines, since the impact of disciplinary change is obvious.
• In Transdisciplinary research, the solution of the research problem is placed beyond disciplinary thinking. Transdiciplinary research creates and maintains its own framework of methods and theories in the specific research context.

In The Potential of Transdisciplinarity, Helga Nowotny place transdisciplinarity in the context of a concept called mode-2, or a new way of thinking about research (2003). She identifies an array of attributes for the concept mode-2 and, transdisciplinarity is a key actor in this concept:

The third attribute of Mode-2 is transdisciplinarity. If we had intended to use the term´ multi-disciplinarity or pluri- disciplinarity, we would have done so. Rather, we have chosen transdisciplinarity for a reason. What we were trying to convey by the notion of transdisciplinarity is that, in Mode- 2, a forum or platform is generated and it provides a distinctive focus for intellectual endeavour, and it may be quite different from the traditional disciplinary structure. In a Mode-1 system, the focus of intellectual endeavour, the source of the intellectually challenging problems, arises largely within disciplines. This may still go on, but other frameworks of intellectual activity are emerging which may not always be reducible to elements of the disciplinary structure. Rather, it is in the context of application that new lines of intellectual endeavour emerge and develop, so that one set of conversations and instrumentation in the context of application leads to another, and another, again and again.(Nowotny, 2003)

In the New Production of Knowledge (1994), Michael Gibbons et al. created the concept mode-2 to describe a change in the research society. Mode-2 is not to replace mode-1 (traditional research). Mode-2 is different in most aspects. Problems are not set within a disciplinary framework, but operate in the context of application. It is transdisciplinary rather than mono- or multi-disciplinary, and carried out in non-hierarchical, transient, heterogeneously forms. Mode-2 is not carried out primarily within university structures. It involves close interaction of many actors, which means that knowledge production is becoming distributed and more socially accountable.

All this is very important for my dialogue and the mode-2 approach has many similarities with the Web 2.0 concept. These concepts have been created for the purpose of describing a change in a technosocial network. The Web 2.0 concept is also transdisciplinary as it is not confined to the computer science community, but has given birth to new thoughts and applications in many areas, such as within the field of information and library science. Web 2.0 is likewise non-hierarchical, heterogeneous and transient. For me both Web 2.0 and mode-2 are phenomena induced by a poststructuralist society.

Mode-2 knowledge production is important in my context, and can be used as an explanation to the different parts in the thesis: Part II which is aimed more to professionals and Part III which is aimed primarily for a research context, where the cyborg figure as a rhetoric tool does not seem too alien.

I wish to stress two issues. One - this text is not an argument against disciplinarity and mode-1, it is an argument for transdisciplinarity and mode-2 as a basis for the understanding of Web 2.0. My way of viewing myself and society is in the context of the contemporary and the postcontemporary. I agree that we must know the past to be able to form the future – perhaps, but I think there is an imbalance in society – and research – to deal more with the past than the future, when it should be the other way around. I think this view is a prerogative to be able to understand the mechanisms behind this text.

The other issue I want to stress is about the soapy border between science and research. Mode-2 is not about science. Mode-2 is about research.

In the last century and a half, scientific development has been breathtaking, but the understanding of this progress has dramatically changed. It is characterized by the transition from the culture of “science” to the culture of “research.” Science is certainty; research is uncertainty. Science is supposed to be cold, straight, and detached; research is warm, involving, and risky. Science puts an end to the vagaries of human disputes; research creates controversies. Science produces objectivity by escaping as much as possible from the shackles of ideology, passions, and emotions; research feeds on all of those to render objects of inquiry familiar. (Latour, 1998)

This quotation from Latour is so important that I am actually citing it two times in this text – repetition is a rhetoric tool that is often misunderstood.

Tags: cyborg, Gibbons, interdisciplinary, latour, mode 2, multi disciplinarity, Nowotny, pluri disciplinarity, poststructuralist, transdisciplinary, Trojer, web 2.0