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Interdisciplinary Methodology

The Narrating Complexity project emphasized the range of the research issues that are opened up to innovative lines of enquiry by a collaboration between narratologists and complexity scientists, whilst taking the methodology of that interdisciplinary collaboration largely for granted. But the methodology itself is an innovative departure, based upon a rejection of the presumption of consilience, or the synthesis of disciplinary perspectives, which is the usual pre-condition for interdisciplinary research. The Leverhulme International Network proposal "Narrative and Complex Systems: Developing and Interdisciplinary Methodology" provided for an extended practical demonstration of the benefits to be gained from the practice of non-consilient interdisciplinary dialogue first proposed in the "Incompatible Paradigms" proposal, and already subjected to a proof of principle in the 2012-13 NarCS workshops.

The methodological focus of the Leverhulme network proposal was complemented by a research project grant proposal, "Narrating Complexity: Communication, Culture, Conceptualization and Cognition," which focussed upon case-study explorations of the four quadrants of the  research domain already mapped out by the NarCS group.

The text of the proposals is available here: