In recent times there has been a disturbing sense that the arena of arts and humanities-led interdisciplinary work – grounded in critical, ethical and political debate – is being appropriated and used to deliver instrumental government policy: to answer questions rather than pose them, and to provide market-driven solutions rather than challenge ideological norms. This essay argues for the importance of acknowledging the more relational and thus emotional aspects of interdisciplinary research and practice, suggesting that it is only by paying attention to the psychic dimension of interdisciplinarity that we can understand its transitional status and transformational potential, and so better position ourselves in today’s sites of contestation.

Jane Rendell, ‘The Transitional Space of Interdisciplinarity’, in Daniel Hinchcliffe, Jane Calow and Laura Mansfield (eds), Speculative Strategies In Interdisciplinary Arts Practice