Workshop: Interdisciplinary Methods and Values

Interdisciplinary Methods and Values. Often in academia, across most disciplines, we talk of values. Although a commonly used concept, trying to generate a definition suitable to be used across disciplines is surprisingly difficult. Often if something holds value it is seen as more significant than other phenomena. However, the way this significance is measured varies greatly across discipline. Philosophers seek to value whatever is the most important for us to lead a good life, and in turn formulate moral principles that we ought to live by. For social scientists, values describe the principles that individuals, groups and societies hold most important. Whereas for economists, whatever has the greatest monetary worth has the greatest value. When academics engage in interdisciplinary methods to research values, they are often confronted with the difficulty of different ways of talking about values. In this workshop, we will explore the different ways disciplines understand value, and the complexities that arise when trying to identify exactly what we are referring to when we research value. As a result, we hope to start a conversation about how we navigate the elusive term value when engaging in interdisciplinary research.

Time Speaker Title
9.30 Rachel Ankeny Welcome and Introductions
10:00 Deborah Lupton Bringing together more-than-human theory with creative methods
10:45 Postgraduate Talks
11:00 Morning Tea
11:15 Christopher Mayes TBA
12:00 Postgraduate Talks
12:15 Lunch
13:15 Alexandra Peralta TBA
14:00 Postgraduate Talks
14:15 Linda Botterill Values in policy and politics: theory and methods
15:00 Afternoon Tea
15:15 Panel: Challenges of being an interdisciplinary researcher
16:15 Rachel Ankeny Closing