Specialization or Interdisciplinarity? This is the Dilemma…

If in 1603 the popular question was ‘to be or not to be?’, nowadays it is ‘to be specialised or to be interdisciplinary?’. Never was there a question of more woe than this in modern academia and, just as in the 17^th century, the answer to this dilemma is not a simple one. This is mainly due to the fact that both specialization and interdisciplinarity have pros and cons.

Being specialized in one subject or field might mean habitually working and operating in what we might define as an academic comfort zone characterized by familiarity with tools and methods, as well as with pre-acquired knowledges and pre-set terminologies. The idea of maintaining a research project within the safe boundaries of a single discipline’s identity can guarantee the researcher the confident use of the tools and the methodologies he/she is accustomed to. A specialized approach allows an in-depth analysis that is crucial for investigating a single discipline or a topic properly and in detail, so as to highlight every particular aspect of a given research area. This mono-disciplinary approach facilitates the specialization of the researcher who is so enabled to become a real expert on the topic under analysis; this results in identifying him/herself as a specialist of a limited, yet clearly defined, field of research within the academic environment.

However, the risks showcased by this approach might include a potentially narrow mindset, lack of innovation and, above all, the stagnancy of an existing status quo. This risk of stagnancy has gravely affected specialised studies where it is not infrequent to come across the same ideas and old-fashioned principles over and over again. What lies inert eventually triggers contempt and boredom. As a matter of fact, the drowsiness of specialisation has condemned it to be viewed with increasing suspicion.

Interdisciplinarity, as an innovative method of inquiry, has instead emerged as a compelling antidote to those problems of specialisation and it seems to be very fashionable in modern academia. Interdisciplinarity promises flexibility, openness to multifaceted and pioneering paths of research, and the acquisition of investigative tools in line with the current global context. As it has been rightly pointed out in Italian Studies: An Interdisciplinary Perspective, ‘Researchers today find themselves at a unique historical vantage point as a result of gains in interdisciplinary methodologies and perspectives […]’ (Brook, Mussgnug & Pieri 2017: 380). In other words, interdisciplinarity represents a new opportunity for researchers to highlight diverse aspects of the same topic by adopting methodologies from different subjects and assuming different perspectives. This approach can be useful to analyse a research theme from a 360-degree perspective, taking note of the complexity of contemporary reality, which is similarly multifaced. Nonetheless, interdisciplinary research risks appearing like a ‘no-man’s land’ in which the researcher inevitably faces the most diverse challenges related to their own identity, terminological ambiguity, and knowledge-superficiality, which might mine the solidity of the final result(s) in the study conducted.

Having acknowledged this, what type of pragmatic issues might an interdisciplinary and multi-medial approach to research cause? One of the outputs of a recent exchange of ideas at the first Interdisciplinary Summer School at Trinity College Dublin evidenced the confusion and common misunderstanding of a plethora of new terms and theories, including cross-border definitions that include different disciplines and media. Because these terms and theories may not have gained universal acceptance yet, researchers find themselves confronting a new challenging when developing terminology, which, while encouraging a dynamic research context, can also be perceived as somewhat unstable. This is especially the case when a research project is suspended between two or more countries, which consequently comprise diverse cultural contexts and points of reference.

In conclusion, it is clear that both approaches – the specialised and the interdisciplinary – have their good points. The dichotomy between a very well-known canonical methodological approach and a truly innovative one, characterized by flexibility and a speculative multiplicity, is complex and cannot be solved here. It represents a new challenge for contemporary and future academic debate, and indeed the ambivalence surrounding the different approaches helps academia to remain vital and active. Hence, the question still remains crucial and, undoubtedly, open to fresh talks.