Extract

Conclusion

Do “Arranged Marriages” Generate Novel Insights?

Marianne E. Krasny, Megan K. Halpern, Bruce V. Lewenstein, and Justin Dillon

As the chair of the Department of Natural Resources at Cornell University, I am reminded daily of the challenges of cross-disciplinary work. Our department’s scholarship ranges from mathematical modeling of wildlife and fish populations to the anthropology of climate change in indigenous communities, with forest soils, invasive species, human dimensions of gas shale development, urban social-ecological systems resilience, and environmental education thrown in. Most of us define ourselves according to our individual discipline—be it fisheries biology, environmental ethics, or ecosystems science—whereas a minority, including myself, consider ourselves broadly interdisciplinary given that our scholarship has integrated both the biological and social sciences. Yet, regardless of our differences, we are united by a common mission to collectively apply our individual expertise to the stewardship of natural resources.

In addition to defining departments or faculties such as my own, cross-disciplinarity can be an approach to research, including that designed to address environmental problems. As one example, I was recently invited by a faculty member who studies conservation genetics of oysters in the New ← 253 | 254 → York City estuary to provide a social sciences perspective on an investigation of the motivations of volunteers who help raise the young oysters for release. Often, cross-disciplinary work in academic departments emerges in response to specific funding opportunities or requests from state and federal agencies for help in solving...