A Disciplinary Matter: Critical Sociology, Academic Governance and Interdisciplinarity

Abstract

Calls for interdisciplinary research practice are an increasingly ubiquitous feature of contemporary academic life. However, whilst the claims made for its benefits, or limitations, are diverse in character and provenance, it is possible to identify one significant source as being related to modes of academic governance. This relation has significant effects, but is also obscured by the heterogeneity of wider claims. A critical analysis of the relation is therefore needed in order to assess its significance for sociology: however, the mode of governance in question itself poses challenges to the idea or project of sociological critique. This article therefore attempts firstly to clarify the specificity of interdisciplinarity as a feature of academic governance, and secondly, drawing on Boltanski’s recent reformulation of sociological critique, to begin a critical analysis of its significance for sociology within this particular governmental context.