The social science fields, more specifically the academic departments in which they are located, the ones I know best, are funky beasts. Although there is a demand for scholars who work in a specific area to do interesting research, there is also often a blind loyalty to hiring candidates who have graduated in the social science of the hiring department.
Not only do we see this process in academic hiring in general, but when scholars apply for grant funding, we are frequently compelled to select a traditional field with which to associate our research proposal.
Why does this social science orthodoxy exist?
In some respects, I understand it. Earning a doctorate in a field is a way to rationalize a profession. In many respects, it makes hiring and the distribution of resources decisions easier.
And in some situations when an academic program wants an expert to teach a narrow set of courses or to lead a specific program, say for example sociological theory, it might make sense for that teacher to hold a Ph.D. in that field.
Some professors, often older ones, fall on the sword of tradition. They argue that we need to train a future generation of Sociologists, Anthropologists, etc., and in order to do this, all new hires must have a Ph.D. in that field. And if we fail to do this, we will somehow dilute the knowledge base. Really? Is that true? Very few of the undergraduates we teach and mentor (our proverbial bread and butter) end up becoming professional anthropologists, geographers, sociologists, etc. So who are we kidding? Maybe the gatekeepers are trying to maintain an element of purity in their chosen social science field? It’s hard to tell.
I suspect that there are other reasons why this orthodoxy exists. First, there appears to be a conviction that anyone a department hires must have a basic grounding in the discipline in order to best help students seeking degrees. For example, hiring committees want a new hire to be able to teach an introductory class and to understand and support all of the different sub-areas.
Second, some disciplines have outdated stereotypes about scholars from other disciplines. In the social sciences, for example, some Anthropologists think Sociologists lack awareness of cultural matters. Criminal Justice and Criminology folks often stereotype Sociologists as a bunch of postmodernist nutjobs, and Sociologists frequently assume that Criminal Justice is way too conservative, and the departments they work in are little more than so-called “cop shops.”
Third, the territorialism we witness is rooted in the history of academia neglecting and underfunding the social sciences. I think much of this problem is economic in nature. Majors such as Psychology and Criminology attract more students, which creates power struggles and resentment, intensifying stereotypes and occasionally inspiring Criminologists in departments of Sociology to break off and create their own departments. In the competition for scarce resources on campus, the more the Economists, Historians, Sociologists, etc. can claim fealty to their disciplines and depict other departments as encroaching on their territory, the greater the likelihood they can maintain their financial status quo.
The reality is that scan almost any piece of scholarship and you will notice that social scientists of all stripes are citing literature from other disciplines all the time. That’s how arguments are made and supported and that is how we push a discipline further.
What are the negative effects of maintaining disciplinary orthodoxy?
A handful of outcomes come to mind. To begin with, requiring job applicants to have a Ph.D. in a singular field significantly limits the pool of appropriate candidates. In turn, this promotes tunnel vision with respect to the kinds of people we hire, the subjects we study, and the knowledge that we impart on our students. This stance is therefore both a parochial and narrow-minded.
Moreover, this approach does a disservice to our students, who might benefit from the tutelage of instructors who do really interesting interdisciplinary research. At its extreme, requiring people to hold a Ph.D. in a specific discipline is claustrophobic and xenophobic. It prevents scholars from experimenting and exploring subjects and literature that could be beneficial to their work.
It is simplistic to assume that just because someone has earned a Ph.D. in a particular social science field that they are automatically qualified to teach introductory subjects in that field. Many Ph.D. graduates help professors publish papers, and end up only knowing a very narrow range of knowledge in a particular academic field.
Championing inter- and multidisciplinary research
In reality, gone are the days when scholars could flip through the dominant journal in their field to find out what the latest research had to say about particular social and political problems. This is where inter- or multidisciplinary approaches to problems and questions come into play. Chairs, deans, and everyone up to the presidents of respected universities, sing the praises of collaborative and interdisciplinary research. Sometimes resources are invested in this approach to knowledge building and instruction. Interdisciplinary teams are necessary for securing most major grants as well, recognizing the importance of interdisciplinary research to answer important questions.
This is perhaps why we have seen, over the past four decades, a proliferation of departments, schools and colleges of Public Policy. This also explains why the large commissions examining various public policy challenges try to draw people from different disciplines.
Even Google Scholar does not have pre-set disciplines and leaves it up to researchers to identify the field that they think is most appropriate.
If I had to go out on a limb, I would argue that some of the most significant scholarly research in the world is interdisciplinary, and finding answers to interesting questions is what motivates most academics, not “contributing to the literature” of sociology, economics, etc. As a researcher, if all you do is restrict yourself to the scholarship in your field, then you have essentially inherited a straightjacket that may not result in much except wasting a lot of your time. The programs that are interesting and exciting, and that appear to be gaining enrollments are interdisciplinary: ones that not only combine the social sciences, but humanities too.
Conclusion
In many respects, social science disciplines, from Anthropology to Sociology, are best seen as temporary homes to hang one’s hat. But when they start putting up barriers to entrance, like requiring a Ph.D. in a specific field or excluding people who do not have a Ph.D. in a particular field, or not letting someone conduct research unless it primarily draws from the literature in a particular fiend, things become more limited and less defensible.
Sure, at certain critical times, we are going to have to find a place to call our academic home, but because most universities are configured into subdivisions, such as departments, divisions, schools, and colleges, the blind allegiance to a single discipline is misplaced.
Photo by vhines200
“mayhem in the ring”
https://jeffreyianross.com/wp-content/uploads/28289912483_258474b5e3_c.jpg534800Jeffrey Ian Rosshttps://jeffreyianross.com/wp-content/uploads/jeffrey-ian-ross-logo-04.pngJeffrey Ian Ross2021-03-31 02:46:582024-09-22 12:23:42Why preferring individual social science disciplines is a bad practice: Two cheers for interdisciplinary approaches
Occasionally I hear and see the comment (also known as approach, axiom, principle, and statement), often in activist circles, that although somebody may be considered an expert on a subject (e.g., poverty, discrimination, criminal victimization, etc.), because they don’t have lived (or direct) experience of something (e.g., a problem, situation, series of events, persons, etc.), or they have not been significantly impacted, they are somehow unqualified to understand the problem, and their perceptions are suspect, not credible, or useless.
More damning, is the retort that the solutions and changes advocated by these “so-called experts,” should be not trusted and thus disregarded.
I believe that we are seeing an increase in this phenomenon (the dismissal of expert opinion that does not have the accompanied lived experience) in many academic domains such as criminal justice, disability studies, gender studies, racial and ethnic studies, social work, etc.
Enter the complementary principle of those who are closest to the problem, are in the best position to change it, as one of the frequent “solutions” to the failure to have people who have lived experience shaping the agendas of groups or constituencies that are negatively impacted.
This approach (i.e., those who are closest to the problem are in the best position to change it) is premised on the assumption that lived experience unequivocally imbues people with particular knowledge and insights and that they will be qualitatively better than the “so-called” experts to lead a relevant group, organization, social movement, etc.
Both of these axioms would be great, if only they were universally true.
Before continuing, both of these statements beg a number of questions including what is an expert, and who is doing the labelling, but this is a discussion best left for a different context.
Also, I’m not talking about cultural appropriation, nor am I referring to the situations such as the ones involving former George Washington University professor, Dr. Jessica Krug, nor former Spokane NAACP chapter president, Rachel Dolezal. In both of the latter cases these individuals, who were from white families, tried to pass themselves off as African-Americans.
Why are the two approaches summarized above suspect? There are many people who have lived experience, but were oblivious to the unique situations in which they were exposed, lack the ability to adequately analyze and communicate what they saw or experienced to a wider audience, or they don’t have any original insights. In other words, they do not have anything new to contribute to the debate (or our knowledge of a situation).
With respect to the last idea, this is why we are frequently exposed to the recycling or repackaging of so much information; the recounting of the same experiences, shared by others, with no new insights. How do we protect ourselves from this old wine in new bottles experience. That is where peer review research is supposed to sort all this out. (All the stuff that has been said already should be identified by qualified reviewers, communicated to the editors, and filtered back to the paper submitters, so that only new insights are evaluated and communicated).
With respect to the approach that those who are most affected are in the best position to solve the problem, one need not look further than the long history of numerous social movements both in the United States and elsewhere to see how many orgs stumbled and fell, and it was not because of outside leadership.
Often referred to as authenticity politics, many important social causes are grappling with issues of credibility and leadership. In some circles there has been a reification and romanticization of lived experience and this has led to group and movement conflict, paralysis and dissolution. In other words, organizations, big and small, are sometimes prevented from carrying out their mission because of this preoccupation. I encourage these groups to think more clearly about the choices they are making, and not fall prey to thinking in black and white terms.
I’m not suggesting that people with lived experience can’t assist our knowledge of a domain, or nagging social problem, nor am I arguing for a conservative or parochial approach to knowledge claims, policy and legal development, nor organizational leadership, but I am asking social justice groups to be careful about what are often simplistic approaches to deny the input of people who may in fact be experts without lived experience. Although difficult to balance, the perspectives of lived experience and the approach of those without it, can work synergistically to create stronger research, mentorship, and activism (including public policy).
Photo: “Group Meeting,” by Michael Frank Franz
https://jeffreyianross.com/wp-content/uploads/15662925704_01d881e915_c.jpg533799Jeffrey Ian Rosshttps://jeffreyianross.com/wp-content/uploads/jeffrey-ian-ross-logo-04.pngJeffrey Ian Ross2021-03-23 22:39:502024-09-07 04:35:56Be mindful of the “lived experience fallacy” and its cousin, “those who are closest to the problem are in the best position to change it”
Despite its 2021 publication date, almost four months have passed since my Routledge Handbook of Street Culture was released. Thus now is probably as a good a time as any to reflect on the goals and process connected to this project.
In you want a definition, street culture refers to “the beliefs, dispositions, ideologies, informal rules, practices, styles, symbols, and values associated with, adopted by, and engaged in by individuals and organizations that spend a disproportionate amount of time on the streets of large urban centers” (Ross, 2018, p. 8). The scholarly use of the term street culture was popularized in 1999 through Elijah Anderson’s well known book Code of the Street, and was also adopted around that time in a number of popular magazines like Juxtapoz and Hypebeast. The term included elements of popular and urban culture ranging from graffiti, street art, street crime, music, fashion (like street wear), language, etc., etc.
Why a Handbook on Street Culture Now?
Over the past decade, a proliferation of handbooks have been commissioned and published by many of the major scholarly publishers. They vary in subject matter, quality, and price.
A handbook is supposed to be foundational. It synthesizes and circumscribes the extant knowledge in a particular field. It should have the most expert people writing the chapters, and each of these contributions should review and assess all information in that narrow chunk of the field that the writer is writing about. Rarely do handbooks include chapters that are predominately empirical pieces, which are the mainstay of scholarly journals.
Handbooks are primarily released in hardcover format, and while the audience for these books, is typically other experts and graduate students, these resources are usually purchased by libraries and sold at a higher price than most other academic books. Occasionally handbooks are published as paperbacks at a cheaper price. Increasingly they are released as e-books at an even lower cost. Also many of the publishers are making individual chapters available for purchase.
So why did I edit this handbook? In short, not only did the handbook grow out personal experiences, but street culture is a dominant cross-cutting theme in most of my scholarship, including the last handbook I did, the Routledge Handbook of Graffiti and Street Art.
I edited this book because I believed that I, with the assistance of carefully selected contributors, and the subjects that they wrote on, had something unique to say, that this subject matter was not easily accessible in the popular and scholarly literature, and that this information and perspectives should be shared with a wider audience and in this type of format.
What kinds of challenges did I experience organizing a handbook on Street Culture?
Some of the challenges of editing a handbook are inherent in doing an edited book, while others are specific to a handbook, and the last is with respect to the subject matter. One of the most important hurdles are identifying and working with experts who are willing to write the chapters, under strict deadlines.
It often takes a long time to identify appropriate authors, follow up with them, and then shape the content of their chapter. Scholars are usually very busy. Also important is having the right balance in terms of authors and approaches to the subject matter.
Wrapping up
I hope that the Routledge Handbook of Street Culture, is useful to people who are interested in the subject, and that it will inspire others to conduct additional scholarship in the field.
https://jeffreyianross.com/wp-content/uploads/Screenshot-2021-03-16-at-4.09.00-PM.jpg1087750Jeffrey Ian Rosshttps://jeffreyianross.com/wp-content/uploads/jeffrey-ian-ross-logo-04.pngJeffrey Ian Ross2021-03-16 20:50:042023-02-13 19:30:27Contextualizing the publication of my ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF STREET CULTURE
Why preferring individual social science disciplines is a bad practice: Two cheers for interdisciplinary approaches
/by Jeffrey Ian RossThe social science fields, more specifically the academic departments in which they are located, the ones I know best, are funky beasts. Although there is a demand for scholars who work in a specific area to do interesting research, there is also often a blind loyalty to hiring candidates who have graduated in the social science of the hiring department.
Not only do we see this process in academic hiring in general, but when scholars apply for grant funding, we are frequently compelled to select a traditional field with which to associate our research proposal.
Why does this social science orthodoxy exist?
In some respects, I understand it. Earning a doctorate in a field is a way to rationalize a profession. In many respects, it makes hiring and the distribution of resources decisions easier.
And in some situations when an academic program wants an expert to teach a narrow set of courses or to lead a specific program, say for example sociological theory, it might make sense for that teacher to hold a Ph.D. in that field.
Some professors, often older ones, fall on the sword of tradition. They argue that we need to train a future generation of Sociologists, Anthropologists, etc., and in order to do this, all new hires must have a Ph.D. in that field. And if we fail to do this, we will somehow dilute the knowledge base. Really? Is that true? Very few of the undergraduates we teach and mentor (our proverbial bread and butter) end up becoming professional anthropologists, geographers, sociologists, etc. So who are we kidding? Maybe the gatekeepers are trying to maintain an element of purity in their chosen social science field? It’s hard to tell.
I suspect that there are other reasons why this orthodoxy exists. First, there appears to be a conviction that anyone a department hires must have a basic grounding in the discipline in order to best help students seeking degrees. For example, hiring committees want a new hire to be able to teach an introductory class and to understand and support all of the different sub-areas.
Second, some disciplines have outdated stereotypes about scholars from other disciplines. In the social sciences, for example, some Anthropologists think Sociologists lack awareness of cultural matters. Criminal Justice and Criminology folks often stereotype Sociologists as a bunch of postmodernist nutjobs, and Sociologists frequently assume that Criminal Justice is way too conservative, and the departments they work in are little more than so-called “cop shops.”
Third, the territorialism we witness is rooted in the history of academia neglecting and underfunding the social sciences. I think much of this problem is economic in nature. Majors such as Psychology and Criminology attract more students, which creates power struggles and resentment, intensifying stereotypes and occasionally inspiring Criminologists in departments of Sociology to break off and create their own departments. In the competition for scarce resources on campus, the more the Economists, Historians, Sociologists, etc. can claim fealty to their disciplines and depict other departments as encroaching on their territory, the greater the likelihood they can maintain their financial status quo.
The reality is that scan almost any piece of scholarship and you will notice that social scientists of all stripes are citing literature from other disciplines all the time. That’s how arguments are made and supported and that is how we push a discipline further.
What are the negative effects of maintaining disciplinary orthodoxy?
A handful of outcomes come to mind. To begin with, requiring job applicants to have a Ph.D. in a singular field significantly limits the pool of appropriate candidates. In turn, this promotes tunnel vision with respect to the kinds of people we hire, the subjects we study, and the knowledge that we impart on our students. This stance is therefore both a parochial and narrow-minded.
Moreover, this approach does a disservice to our students, who might benefit from the tutelage of instructors who do really interesting interdisciplinary research. At its extreme, requiring people to hold a Ph.D. in a specific discipline is claustrophobic and xenophobic. It prevents scholars from experimenting and exploring subjects and literature that could be beneficial to their work.
It is simplistic to assume that just because someone has earned a Ph.D. in a particular social science field that they are automatically qualified to teach introductory subjects in that field. Many Ph.D. graduates help professors publish papers, and end up only knowing a very narrow range of knowledge in a particular academic field.
Championing inter- and multidisciplinary research
In reality, gone are the days when scholars could flip through the dominant journal in their field to find out what the latest research had to say about particular social and political problems. This is where inter- or multidisciplinary approaches to problems and questions come into play. Chairs, deans, and everyone up to the presidents of respected universities, sing the praises of collaborative and interdisciplinary research. Sometimes resources are invested in this approach to knowledge building and instruction. Interdisciplinary teams are necessary for securing most major grants as well, recognizing the importance of interdisciplinary research to answer important questions.
This is perhaps why we have seen, over the past four decades, a proliferation of departments, schools and colleges of Public Policy. This also explains why the large commissions examining various public policy challenges try to draw people from different disciplines.
Even Google Scholar does not have pre-set disciplines and leaves it up to researchers to identify the field that they think is most appropriate.
If I had to go out on a limb, I would argue that some of the most significant scholarly research in the world is interdisciplinary, and finding answers to interesting questions is what motivates most academics, not “contributing to the literature” of sociology, economics, etc. As a researcher, if all you do is restrict yourself to the scholarship in your field, then you have essentially inherited a straightjacket that may not result in much except wasting a lot of your time. The programs that are interesting and exciting, and that appear to be gaining enrollments are interdisciplinary: ones that not only combine the social sciences, but humanities too.
Conclusion
In many respects, social science disciplines, from Anthropology to Sociology, are best seen as temporary homes to hang one’s hat. But when they start putting up barriers to entrance, like requiring a Ph.D. in a specific field or excluding people who do not have a Ph.D. in a particular field, or not letting someone conduct research unless it primarily draws from the literature in a particular fiend, things become more limited and less defensible.
Sure, at certain critical times, we are going to have to find a place to call our academic home, but because most universities are configured into subdivisions, such as departments, divisions, schools, and colleges, the blind allegiance to a single discipline is misplaced.
Photo by vhines200
“mayhem in the ring”
Be mindful of the “lived experience fallacy” and its cousin, “those who are closest to the problem are in the best position to change it”
/by Jeffrey Ian RossOccasionally I hear and see the comment (also known as approach, axiom, principle, and statement), often in activist circles, that although somebody may be considered an expert on a subject (e.g., poverty, discrimination, criminal victimization, etc.), because they don’t have lived (or direct) experience of something (e.g., a problem, situation, series of events, persons, etc.), or they have not been significantly impacted, they are somehow unqualified to understand the problem, and their perceptions are suspect, not credible, or useless.
More damning, is the retort that the solutions and changes advocated by these “so-called experts,” should be not trusted and thus disregarded.
I believe that we are seeing an increase in this phenomenon (the dismissal of expert opinion that does not have the accompanied lived experience) in many academic domains such as criminal justice, disability studies, gender studies, racial and ethnic studies, social work, etc.
Enter the complementary principle of those who are closest to the problem, are in the best position to change it, as one of the frequent “solutions” to the failure to have people who have lived experience shaping the agendas of groups or constituencies that are negatively impacted.
This approach (i.e., those who are closest to the problem are in the best position to change it) is premised on the assumption that lived experience unequivocally imbues people with particular knowledge and insights and that they will be qualitatively better than the “so-called” experts to lead a relevant group, organization, social movement, etc.
Both of these axioms would be great, if only they were universally true.
Before continuing, both of these statements beg a number of questions including what is an expert, and who is doing the labelling, but this is a discussion best left for a different context.
Also, I’m not talking about cultural appropriation, nor am I referring to the situations such as the ones involving former George Washington University professor, Dr. Jessica Krug, nor former Spokane NAACP chapter president, Rachel Dolezal. In both of the latter cases these individuals, who were from white families, tried to pass themselves off as African-Americans.
Why are the two approaches summarized above suspect? There are many people who have lived experience, but were oblivious to the unique situations in which they were exposed, lack the ability to adequately analyze and communicate what they saw or experienced to a wider audience, or they don’t have any original insights. In other words, they do not have anything new to contribute to the debate (or our knowledge of a situation).
With respect to the last idea, this is why we are frequently exposed to the recycling or repackaging of so much information; the recounting of the same experiences, shared by others, with no new insights. How do we protect ourselves from this old wine in new bottles experience. That is where peer review research is supposed to sort all this out. (All the stuff that has been said already should be identified by qualified reviewers, communicated to the editors, and filtered back to the paper submitters, so that only new insights are evaluated and communicated).
With respect to the approach that those who are most affected are in the best position to solve the problem, one need not look further than the long history of numerous social movements both in the United States and elsewhere to see how many orgs stumbled and fell, and it was not because of outside leadership.
Often referred to as authenticity politics, many important social causes are grappling with issues of credibility and leadership. In some circles there has been a reification and romanticization of lived experience and this has led to group and movement conflict, paralysis and dissolution. In other words, organizations, big and small, are sometimes prevented from carrying out their mission because of this preoccupation. I encourage these groups to think more clearly about the choices they are making, and not fall prey to thinking in black and white terms.
I’m not suggesting that people with lived experience can’t assist our knowledge of a domain, or nagging social problem, nor am I arguing for a conservative or parochial approach to knowledge claims, policy and legal development, nor organizational leadership, but I am asking social justice groups to be careful about what are often simplistic approaches to deny the input of people who may in fact be experts without lived experience. Although difficult to balance, the perspectives of lived experience and the approach of those without it, can work synergistically to create stronger research, mentorship, and activism (including public policy).
Photo: “Group Meeting,” by Michael Frank Franz
Contextualizing the publication of my ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF STREET CULTURE
/by Jeffrey Ian RossDespite its 2021 publication date, almost four months have passed since my Routledge Handbook of Street Culture was released. Thus now is probably as a good a time as any to reflect on the goals and process connected to this project.
What is Street Culture?
In you want a definition, street culture refers to “the beliefs, dispositions, ideologies, informal rules, practices, styles, symbols, and values associated with, adopted by, and engaged in by individuals and organizations that spend a disproportionate amount of time on the streets of large urban centers” (Ross, 2018, p. 8). The scholarly use of the term street culture was popularized in 1999 through Elijah Anderson’s well known book Code of the Street, and was also adopted around that time in a number of popular magazines like Juxtapoz and Hypebeast. The term included elements of popular and urban culture ranging from graffiti, street art, street crime, music, fashion (like street wear), language, etc., etc.
Why a Handbook on Street Culture Now?
Over the past decade, a proliferation of handbooks have been commissioned and published by many of the major scholarly publishers. They vary in subject matter, quality, and price.
A handbook is supposed to be foundational. It synthesizes and circumscribes the extant knowledge in a particular field. It should have the most expert people writing the chapters, and each of these contributions should review and assess all information in that narrow chunk of the field that the writer is writing about. Rarely do handbooks include chapters that are predominately empirical pieces, which are the mainstay of scholarly journals.
Handbooks are primarily released in hardcover format, and while the audience for these books, is typically other experts and graduate students, these resources are usually purchased by libraries and sold at a higher price than most other academic books. Occasionally handbooks are published as paperbacks at a cheaper price. Increasingly they are released as e-books at an even lower cost. Also many of the publishers are making individual chapters available for purchase.
So why did I edit this handbook? In short, not only did the handbook grow out personal experiences, but street culture is a dominant cross-cutting theme in most of my scholarship, including the last handbook I did, the Routledge Handbook of Graffiti and Street Art.
I edited this book because I believed that I, with the assistance of carefully selected contributors, and the subjects that they wrote on, had something unique to say, that this subject matter was not easily accessible in the popular and scholarly literature, and that this information and perspectives should be shared with a wider audience and in this type of format.
What kinds of challenges did I experience organizing a handbook on Street Culture?
Some of the challenges of editing a handbook are inherent in doing an edited book, while others are specific to a handbook, and the last is with respect to the subject matter. One of the most important hurdles are identifying and working with experts who are willing to write the chapters, under strict deadlines.
Edited books, especially handbooks are a lot of work, not just for editors like myself, but for the contributors too. From the creation of the original idea, to subject and author selection, to editing of chapters, to publication.
It often takes a long time to identify appropriate authors, follow up with them, and then shape the content of their chapter. Scholars are usually very busy. Also important is having the right balance in terms of authors and approaches to the subject matter.
Wrapping up
I hope that the Routledge Handbook of Street Culture, is useful to people who are interested in the subject, and that it will inspire others to conduct additional scholarship in the field.