Multidisciplinarity in social science workshop

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Thursday 24th September 2009
10:30 AM - 5:00 PM

How do we collaborate? Social scientists' experience of multidisciplinarity in biomedical settings is the theme of a workshop to be held at King’s College London, Strand Campus, on Thursday 24 September, 10.30am to 5pm.

The workshop will take the form of a ‘closed’, confidential space for considering some of the more challenging aspects of working collaboratively in biomedical settings. Brief statements from participants will be invited so as to allow ample time for discussion on overarching themes as set out below. Participants will all have experience of working collaboratively in biomedical settings in the UK and Europe.

Themes for discussion:

• Getting access: Medics and scientists are often gatekeepers who control access to the research sites that social scientists want to study and need to be convinced that we should be given access to the medical field. Thus, how do we get in? What arguments do we use? Are we truthful (and what does truthful mean in this context)?

• Inside the field: Once inside the field the researcher realises that s/he is a guest, and may engage in a series of trade offs to retain positive relations with informants. Politeness, self-censorship and guilt may compete with the desire to be open, honest and critical. What does one do if one observes something problematic, irregular or even unethical? Can we broker informal mechanisms to harness differences in status and ‘power’?

• Outside again: During the process of writing up papers and eventually publishing results new tensions may emerge when professionals become objects in our analyses.

Do we represent, intervene, describe, improve, interpret, improve, debunk? How do our knowledge projects interact with interests of patients, professionals, policy agendas or, for example, biotech and pharmaceutical industries? How does our research become part of furthering our own careers? How can researchers engage with collaborators about their interpretations while retaining control over dissemination?

Contact Dr Kathryn Ehrich on kathryn.ehrich@ kcl.ac.uk, http://www.kcl. ac.uk/schools/sspp/res/interdisciplinary/cbas/staff/acad/ke.html or phone 020 7848 2731 for more details.

Created Tue 1 Sep 2009 by Andrea Jonker-Bryce | Email to a friend