Choreographing the Interdisciplinary

Abstract

Interdisciplinary works tends to have an inbuilt spatial logic, based, for example, on the model of the ‘layer cake’ — in which each layer encompasses a specific, tightly-bounded domain. This chapter is about distributions of space and time in interdisciplinary projects, and a critique of the dominant spatial logics and metaphors that often prop up interdisciplinary endeavours. Against such imaginaries, the chapter sets out four alternatives for rethinking the space of interdisciplinarity: matrices, topologies, incorporations, laboratories. The chapter positions these alternatives as ways of imagining interdisciplinary space, beyond the logic of fiefdom that now predominates.