DECEMBER 1, 2001 / ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY � 471 A

Comment�

Hyperdisciplinarity and environmental studiesTo those of us in the environmental field, it goes withoutsaying that interdisciplinary studies are important. That iswhat we do. But to many people, interdisciplinary studiesare held in suspicion, and those who hold degrees in areassuch as environmental science are considered to be poorlytrained compared to those who hold degrees in the basicsciences. (Interestingly, those who hold degrees in envi-ronmental “studies” are judged to be inferior even bythose with degrees in environmental science, an exampleof disciplinary envy, some would say).

Judith Shapiro, the president of Barnard College, writesin the Chronicle of Higher Education (Feb. 23, 2001),“Much of what we label interdisciplinary is the productionof work that would be considered third-rate in the disci-pline of origin. . . .” While we can quibble with the mean-ing of the term “discipline of origin”, most of us know whatPresident Shapiro means. Too many papers in environ-mental journals can fairly be judged to be below the stan-dard of the field. But I contend that this is because theauthors of these papers have not made it clear that theirpurpose is something more than studying chemical phe-nomena. So, if they are simply doing environmental chem-istry (or biology, etc.) it is appropriate that their workshould be judged by the standards of the field of chemistry(or biology, etc.). For example, ES&T has been criticized inthe past for the level of papers that purport to investigatethe mechanisms of chemical reactions in the environmentor in engineered treatment processes, and those criticshave a point. If we are going to publish papers on mecha-nistic organic chemistry, then they should meet the stan-dards of the field of chemistry.

On the other hand, environmental science—and cer-tainly environmental studies—is not simply a superposi-tion of chemistry, physics, economics, or other study.Environmental studies is something more. It is the studyof a hyperdisciplinary subject of very large proportions,and that requires a different way of looking at what we aredoing. Roland Barthes, the French semiologist is reportedto have said in 1972, “In order to do interdisciplinary work,it is not enough to take a subject [Editor’s note: protectionof biodiversity] and to arrange two or three sciences

around it. Interdisciplinary study consists of creating anew object, which belongs to no one [Editor’s addition:discipline].” Barthes was primarily talking about the fieldof cultural studies, but the relevance to environmentalstudies is clear. The field of environmental studies differsfrom the fields from which we borrow basic knowledgeand tools in some fundamental way, probably because ofits complexity. That complexity cannot be comprehendedfully unless we force ourselves to study the system ratherthan to blindly focus on its parts.

There is now a new way of looking at complex fields ofknowledge based on the advent of computers in the fieldof information sciences. More specifically, our use of hy-pertext has made us realize that all of us are now able toapproach knowledge building in a different way than be-fore (refer to www.iisgp.ubc.ca/symposium/kkrug.htm).Through hypertext we are now able to move quicklythrough subjects of enormous complexity, moving fromone layer to the other in multidimensional intellectualspace, driven by what we have learned before and thatwhich we synthesize en route. In the process, we are ableto better appreciate the connections between the layers,more so than if we had stayed at a particular layer formore in-depth study. As we proceed through this process,the structure and character of the subject we have chosenbecome clearer, and we are less concerned with the micro-structure of one layer than with the emerging structure ofthe whole.

Environmental science and even more so, environmen-tal studies, is that type of hyperdiscipline. We must forceourselves to study it in ways that best reveal what it is,rather than allowing ourselves to be judged by the stan-dards of another pursuit.

William H. Glaze, Editor(bill_glaze@unc.edu)

© 2001 American Chemical Society