Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Visualising the Interdisciplinary Research Field: The Life Cycle of Economic History in Australia

  • Published:
Minerva Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Interdisciplinary research is frequently viewed as an important component of the research landscape through its innovative ability to integrate knowledge from different areas. However, support for interdisciplinary research is often strategic rhetoric, with policy-makers and universities frequently adopting practices that favour disciplinary performance. We argue that disciplinary and interdisciplinary research are complementary, and we develop a simple framework that demonstrates this for a semi-permanent interdisciplinary research field. We argue that the presence of communicating infrastructures fosters communication and integration between disciplines and the interdisciplinary research field to generate innovative knowledge. We apply this to the experience of economic history in Australia in the second half of the twentieth century to demonstrate the life cycle of a semi-permanent interdisciplinary research field.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Abbott, Andrew. 2001. Chaos of Disciplines. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Anderson, Donald S., and E. Eaton. 1982. Part 1: Post-war reconstruction and expansion 1940–1965. Higher Education Research and Development 1(1): 8–93.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Aram, John D. 2004. Concepts of interdisciplinarity: Configuration of knowledge and action. Human Relations 57(4): 379–412.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bashford, Alison, and Stuart Macintyre. 2013. The Cambridge History of Australia. Melbourne: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Becher, Tony, and Paul R. Trowler. [1989] 2001. Academic tribes and territories: Intellectual enquiry and the culture of disciplines. Buckingham: The Society for Research into Higher Education, Open University Press.

  • Boden, Margaret Ann. 2006. Mind as machine: A history of cognitive science. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boldizzoni, Francesco. 2011. The poverty of clio: Resurrecting economic history. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Bonaccorsi, Andrea. 2010. New Forms of Complementarity in Science. Minerva 48(4): 355–387.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Boyce, Gordon. 2006. Communicating infrastructures. In How Organisations Connect: Investing in Communication, eds. Gordon Boyce, Stuart Macintyre, and Simon Ville. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bromham, Lindell, Russell Dinnage, and Xia Hua. 2016. Interdisciplinary research has consistently lower funding success. Nature 534(7609): 684–687.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Burt, Ronald S. 2000. The Network Structure of Social Capital. Research in Organisational Behaviour 22(1): 345–423.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Burt, Ronald S. 2004. Structural Holes and Good Ideas. American Journal of Sociology 110(2): 349–399.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Butlin, Noel. 1962. Australian Domestic Product, Investment and Foreign Borrowing 1861–1938/9. London: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Butlin, Noel. 1964. Investment in Australian Economic Development, 1861–1900. London: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Chubin, Daryl E., Alan L. Porter, Frederick A. Rossini, and Terry Connolly. 1986. Interdisciplinary analysis and research: Theory and practice of problem-focused research and development. Mt Airy, MD: Lomond.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cipolla, Carlo. 1991. Between History and Economics: An Introduction to Economic History. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Coats, Alfred W. 1980. The Historical Context of the ‘New’ Economic History. Journal of European Economic History 9(1): 185–207.

    Google Scholar 

  • Coghlan, Timothy. 1918. Labour and Industry in Australia. London: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Coleman, James. 1988. Social capital in the creation of human capital. American Journal of Sociology 94(Supplement): S95–S120.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Coleman, William. 2015. The historiography of Australian economic history. In The Cambridge Economic History of Australia, eds. Simon Ville, and Glenn Withers, 11–28. Melbourne: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Collins, Randall. 1975. Conflict sociology. Toward an explanatory science. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ding, Ying. 2011. Scientific collaboration and endorsement: Network analysis of coauthorship and citation networks. Journal of Informetrics 5(1): 187–203.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Forsyth, Hannah. 2014. A History of the Modern Australian University. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Frickel, Scott, and Neil Gross. 2005. A general theory of scientific/intellectual movements. Annual Review of Sociology 70(1): 204–232.

    Google Scholar 

  • Frodeman, Robert, and Carl Mitcham. 2007. New Directions in Interdisciplinarity: Broad, Deep, and Critical. Bulletin of Science, Technology and Society 27(6): 506–514.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fuchs, Stephan. 1993. A Sociological Theory of Scientific Change. Social Forces 71(4): 933–953.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fuchsman, Ken. 2009. Rethinking integration in interdisciplinary studies. Issues in Integrative Studies 1(27): 70–85.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gable, Guy G., Shirley Gregor, Roger Clarke, Gail Ridley, and Robert Smyth. 2008. The information systems academic discipline in Australia. Canberra: ANU ePress.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gibson, Chris. 2007. Geography in Higher Education in Australia. Journal of Geography in Higher Education 31(1): 97–119.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gittins, Ross. 2011. Economic history ignored leads to the inevitable. Sydney: Fairfax.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gläser, Jochen, and Grit Laudel. 2007. Evaluation without evaluators: The impact of funding formulae on Australian university research. In The Changing Governance of the Sciences: The Advent of Research Evaluation Systems, eds. Richard Whitley, and Jochen Gläser, 127–151. Dordrecht: Springer.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Green, Vivian. 1974. A History of Oxford University. London: Basford.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gregory, Robert G., and Noel Butlin (eds.). 1988. Recovery from the Depression: Australia and the World Economy in the 1930s. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grigg, Lyn. 1999. Cross-disciplinary research: A discussion paper. Canberra: Australian Research Council.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harris, Edwyna. 2007. Historical regulation of Victoria’s water sector: A case of government failure? Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics 51(3): 343–352.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Harvard University. 2011. Program on the study of capitalism. Accessed 24th June 2015, from http://studyofcapitalism.harvard.edu/.

  • Harvard University. 2016. Joint Center for History and Economics. Accessed 12th May 2016, from http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~histecon/.

  • Hatch, Mary Jo. 1999. Exploring the empty spaces of organizing: How improvisational jazz helps redescribe organizational structure. Organization Studies 20(1): 75–100.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • HM Treasury. 2006. Science and innovation investment framework 2004–2014: next steps. London: HM Treasury.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hudson, Pat. 2001. Living Economic and Social History. Glasgow: Economic History Society.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jacobs, Jerry A., and Scott Frickel. 2009. Interdisciplinarity: A critical assessment. Annual Review of Sociology 35(1): 43–65.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Klein, Julie T. 1996a. Crossing boundaries: Knowledge, disciplinarities, and interdisciplinarities. Charlottsville: The University of Virginia Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Klein, Julie T. 1996b. Interdisciplinary needs: The current context. Library Trends 45(2): 134–154.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kuhn, Thomas S. [1962] 1970. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

  • Lakatos, Imre, John Worrall, and Gregory Currie. 1980. The methodology of scientific research programmes: Volume 1: Philosophical papers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lattuca, Lisa R. 2001. Creating interdisciplinarity: Interdisciplinary research and teaching among college and university faculty. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lipartito, Kenneth. 2016. Economic History and Policy: Historiography of Australian Traditions. The American Historical Review 121(1): 101–139.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lloyd, Chris. 1995. Economic history and policy: Historiography of Australian traditions. Australian Journal of Politics and History 41(3): 61–79.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lloyd, Chris. 1997. Can economic history be the core of social science? Why the discipline must open and integrate to ensure the survival of long-run economic analysis. Australian Economic History Review 37(3): 256–266.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lloyd, Chris. 2015. Analytical frameworks of Australia’s economic history. In The Cambridge Economic History of Australia, eds. Simon Ville, and Glenn Withers, 52–69. Melbourne: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lyall, Catherine, and Laura R. Meagher. 2012. A masterclass in interdisciplinarity: Research into practice in training the next generation of interdisciplinary researchers. Futures 44(6): 608–617.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lyons, John S., Louis P. Cain, and Samuel H. Williamson. 2008. Reflections on the cliometrics revolution: Conversations with economic historians. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Maddock, Rod, and Ian W. McLean (eds.). 1987. The Australian Economy in the Long Run. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marginson, Simon. 2000. Monash: Remaking the university. St Leonards: Allen and Unwin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marginson, Simon, and Mark Considine. 2000. The enterprise university: Power, governance and reinvention in Australia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • McLean, Ian W. 2013. Why Australia prospered: The shifting sources of economic growth. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mitch, David. 2011. Economic History in Departments of Economics: The Case of the University of Chicago, 1892 to the Present. Social Science History 35(2): 237–271.

    Google Scholar 

  • Morgan, Stephen, and Martin Shanahan. 2010. The supply of economic history in Australasia: The Australian Economic History Review at 50. Australian Economic History Review 50(3): 217–239.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mulkay, Michael J., G. Nigel Gilbert, and Steve Woolgar. 1975. Problem Areas and Research Networks in Science. Sociology 9(1): 187–203.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mullins, Nicholas C. 1973. Theory and theory groups in contemporary American sociology. New York: Harper & Row.

    Google Scholar 

  • Murray, Keith, Ian C. Ross, Charles Morris, A.J. Reid, and J.C. Richards. 1957. Report of the Committee on Australian Universities, September 1957. Canberra: Commonwealth Government.

  • Nahapiet, Janine, and Sumantra Ghoshal. 1998. Social Capital, Intellectual Capital, and the Organisational Advantage. The Academy of Management Review 23(2): 242–266.

    Google Scholar 

  • National Academies. 2005. Facilitating Interdisciplinary Research. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

  • Nicholas, Stephen (ed.). 1988. Convict Workers: Reinterpreting Australia’s Past. Melbourne: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nicholas, Stephen. 1997. The Future of Economic History in Australia. Australian Economic History Review 37(3): 267–274.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nieves, Julia, and Javier Osorio. 2013. The role of social networks in knowledge creation. Knowledge Management Research and Practice 11(1): 62–77.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nowotny, Helga, Peter B. Scott, and Michael T. Gibbons. 2001. Re-thinking science: Knowledge and the public in an age of uncertainty. Oxford: Oxford Polity Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Page, Scott E. 2007. The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pettis, Michael. 2010. How has the crisis changed the teaching of economics? London: Economist Group.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pfister, Thomas. 2015. Coproducing European Integration Studies: Infrastructures and Epistemic Movements in an Interdisciplinary Field. Minerva 53(3): 235–255.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pincus, Jonathan, and Graeme Snooks. 1988. The past and future role of the Australian Economic History Review: Editorial reflections and aspirations. Australian Economic History Review 28(2): 3–7.

    Google Scholar 

  • Popper, Karl. 1963. Conjectures and refutations: The growth of scientific knowledge. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Raasch, Christina, Viktor Lee, Sebastian Spaeth, and Cornelius Herstatt. 2013. The rise and fall of interdisciplinary research: The case of open source innovation. Research Policy 42(5): 1138–1151.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rafols, Ismael, Loet Leydesdorff, Alice O’Hare, Paul Nightingale, and Andy Stirling. 2012. How journal rankings can suppress interdisciplinary research: A comparison between Innovation Studies and Business & Management. Research Policy 41(7): 1262–1282.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Reinhart, Carmen, and Kenneth Rogoff. 2009. This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rhoten, Diana, and Andrew Parker. 2004. Risks and rewards of an interdisciplinary research. Science 306(5704): 2046.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Round, Kerrie, and Martin Shanahan. 2012. From protection to competition: The politics of trade practices reform in Australia and the Trade Practices Act 1965. Australian Journal of Politics & History 58(4): 497–511.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schedvin, C. Boris. 1979. Midas and the Merino: A Perspective on Australian Economic Historiography. The Economic History Review 32(4): 542–556.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shapiro, Ehud. 2014. Correcting the bias against interdisciplinary research. eLife 3(1): 1–3.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sinclair, W. Angus. 1987. Economic history. In Australians, a guide to sources, ed. Dietrich H. Borchardt, 245–251. Sydney: Fairfax, Syme & Weldon.

    Google Scholar 

  • Teo, Hsu-Ming, and Richard White. 2003. Cultural history in Australia. Sydney: UNSW Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Turner, Stephen. 2000. What are disciplines? And how is interdisciplinarity different? In Practicing Interdisciplinarity, eds. Peter Weingart, and Nico Stehr, 46–65. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Van Der Wee, Herman. 2007. Economic History: Its Past, Present and Future. European Review 15(01): 33–45.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ville, Simon. 2015. Divergence and Convergence: New and Shifting Paradigms in Comparative Economic History. Australian Economic History Review 55(1): 80–94.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ville, Simon, and Glenn Withers. 2015. The Cambridge Economic History of Australia. Melbourne: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Whitley, Richard. 1984. The Intellectual and Social Organisation of the Sciences. Oxford: Clarendon.

    Google Scholar 

  • Whitley, Richard. 2007. Changing Governance of the Public Sciences. In The Changing Governance of the Sciences: The Advent of Research Evaluation Systems, eds. Richard Whitley, and Jochen Gläser, 3–30. Dordrecht: Springer.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Whitley, Richard, and Jochen Gläser (eds.). 2007. The Changing Governance of the Sciences: The Advent of Research Evaluation Systems. Dordrecht: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Whitwell, Greg. 1997. Future directions for the Australian Economic History Review. Australian Economic History Review 37(3): 275–281.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Woelert, Peter, and Victoria Millar. 2013. The ‘paradox of interdisciplinarity’ in Australian research governance. Higher Education 66(6): 755–767.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wright, Claire, and Simon Ville. 2017. The evolution of an intellectual community through the words of its founders: Recollections of Australia’s economic history field. Australian Economic History Review 57(3). doi:10.1111/aehr.12110.

Download references

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Chris Lloyd and Claire Seaman for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper. Comments from two anonymous referees have also made substantial improvements to this paper.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Wollongong, Northfields Ave, Wollongong, NSW, 2522, Australia

    Claire Wright & Simon Ville

Authors
  1. Claire Wright
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Simon Ville
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Claire Wright.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Wright, C., Ville, S. Visualising the Interdisciplinary Research Field: The Life Cycle of Economic History in Australia. Minerva 55, 321–340 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11024-017-9319-z

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11024-017-9319-z

Keywords

Search

Navigation