The present challenges of the production of knowledge: the call for interdisciplinarity

Abstract

We are going through a moment of radical reconstruction in the form of thinking the material world in which we live and act as well as the relationship that we, humans, have established – individually or collectively – with this same world. The movement now calls for new paradigms, new categories of thought, new research methodologies, new ways of teaching. Many of the problems that science and contemporary techniques should face do not let themselves reduce the disciplinary function of clipping from which historically educational institutions and research have een structured. Further collaborations between scientists with backgrounds marked by a high specialization are in demand. Conceptual boundaries established between different areas of knowledge become permeable. Exchanges and methodological adjustments are needed. The call for interdisciplinary collaboration is expressed today with more and more force. Bridges are thrown between sectoral approaches of reality. Interdisciplines are born and find institutional space. Technological innovations mobilize competencies from far-flung scientific horizons. Despite this strong historical dynamics, numerous obstacles remain. Some of them are expression of institutional and interpersonal confront resistances. Others originate in the intellectual rigidity imposed by a highly specialized academic training. To this day, there is not a definition of interdisciplinarity that is consensual and, even less, an established doctrine that can be applied to the field work. Contributing to clarify the theoretical and methodological bases upon which you can build a project of concrete practice of interdisciplinarity in the field of teaching and research becomes essential.