5.2. Approaching research in a cross-disciplinary manner

By Roc Parés

Approaching research in a cross-disciplinary manner involves questioning the limits of knowledge:

-The limits of different fields of knowledge, which are constantly expanding.

-The limits of unexplored spaces between various fields of knowledge, which are constantly contracting.

-The limits between research and other processes that accompany it in the chain of value; education, experimentation, production, dissemination ,and reception.

-The limits between proprietary knowledge and knowledge commons.

-The limits between academic, corporate, and independent research.

-The limits between current regulations and values developed through social responsibility.

-The limits between the standardisation of disciplinary knowledge (for example: UNESCO nomenclature for fields of science and technology) and the epistemic areas of action they are associated with.

-The limits between knowledge transferability and the market economy funding the project.

-The limits between knowledge legibility and deficits in education.

The overcoming of these limits would imply a utopian scenario, close to the principles of freedom, equality, and fraternity of the French Revolution, and of the social emancipation that, in Catalonia, has direct precursors in the Escola Moderna and the work of Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia.

Not overcoming these limits leads to the privatisation of knowledge, social exclusion, and the hoarding of symbolic capital typical of enlightened despotism.