Minding the Gap: Working Across Disciplines in Environmental Studies

I am a strong proponent of cross-disciplinarity as a scholar, as a participant in collaborative research projects, and as someone responsible for crafting academic programs. Yet given the inescapable influence of disciplinary knowledge production, I have found that more modest efforts at boundary-crossing are often the most successful and rewarding. In this essay, then, I wish to advance two claims. First, that rather than arguing for or against a particular model of cross-disciplinarity, we should identify and embrace a set of virtues integral to the success of any such endeavor. Second, that the call for problem-driven rather than method-driven scholarship is vital, yet is not identical with the call for cross-disciplinarity itself.