Much like farming, training in a discipline involves honing skills through the mastery of tools, adherence to routines, and the internalization of knowledge. Such sustained immersion in a single field of study shapes one’s approach and sensibility. Interdisciplinarity, however, requires stepping beyond this comfort zone. To illustrate this, Adrian Ivakhiv recounts his graduate studies at an institution practicing environmental interdisciplinarity, at which every scholar came from a different field and none of them began as “environmental-studies scholars” like Ivakhiv did. He tells of how a new generation of scholars worked out the disciplinary boundaries and disjunctions between troditional fields and found academic subjects at the fields’ intersections. Interdisciplinary work requires mastering multiple disciplines, translating concepts, and understanding knowledge as inherently hybrid. Ultimately, he concludes, both disciplinarity and interdisciplinarity are vital for addressing today’s environmental challenges as they offer the necessary inside and outside perspectives.
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