The Dynamics of Collaboration in Heritage Science

Abstract

Heritage science is an interdisciplinary field and successful heritage science research by necessity involves interdisciplinary collaboration between researchers with different disciplinary backgrounds and professional experience. Successful interdisciplinary research is challenging, and many issues have been identified both within and outside heritage science. However, within heritage science there has never been an attempt to do an in-depth study of how communication in interdisciplinary research works in practice. This paper aims to address this gap by providing an in-depth exploration of a case study. We present the analysis of the transcribed recording of a five-hour workshop and follow-up interviews with the workshop participants that took place within the framework of a collaborative heritage science research project. The analysis looks in detail at the dynamics of communication in the context of this meeting, identifying the main topics of conversation and the nature of the transitions between them. We discuss the way in which researchers use different physical scales when thinking about heritage material degradation. We identify key features of interdisciplinary research such as the sense of community and the use of language. Recommendations and insights for future practice are presented.