The Logic of Equivalence in Academic Discourse? Challenges in Analytical Framework

This presentation will discuss the theoretical and methodological challenges in identifying two macro-discourses in the field of interdisciplinarity studies: the integration-premised-discourse and the discipline-inclusive-discourse. The presentation will focus on the construction of an order of discourse to distinguish between the scientific field, where interrelationships among academic disciplines are taken as an object of research, and the widespread uses of ‘interdisciplinary’ and ‘interdisciplinarity’ in academic discourse more generally, typically for legitimation purposes. The assumption is that constructing an order of discourse for a politicized empirical field, will have to navigate through a borderland between between rigorous scholarship and surrounding ideological and political forces that emanate from other agendas. A model is presented of the order of discourse where the two macro-discourses meet. It is suggested that the logics of signification, and the tension between difference and equivalence, may be important tools for theorizing this borderland. It is argued that whereas the logic of equivalence and the production of empty signifiers appears to be of marginal interest to the scientific field, the logic of difference as a more complex articulation of elements, seems to be more in line with the ideals of academic discourse.