Paper short abstract:

Anthropologists have frequently engaged in interdisciplinary teaching and research. Nevertheless, recent institutional demands for increased interdisciplinarity raise questions about the implications of this development for the sustainability of anthropology as a distinct discipline.

Paper long abstract:

Anthropologists have cumulatively registered a long and varied history of working across the boundaries of their discipline with a range of academic and non-academic collaborators and interlocutors. Recently, however, the mounting of interdisciplinary undertakings in research and teaching has shifted from being a situational and optional arrangement to an institutional imperative within universities in Canada and elsewhere. This presentation will examine the implications of this shift for anthropologists.

What, indeed, are the types of claims and objectives furnished in support of this institutional demand for increased interdisciplinarity? How has interdisciplinary work shaped anthropology in the past, and why wouldn't anthropology be well placed to respond positively and to benefit from this new demand for interdisciplinarity? These and other questions concerning the diverse implications of increased interdisciplinarity will be examined with reference to the author's experience of teaching in multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary programs in Canada and of conducting ethnographic research in a field - namely, that of sport and childhood - that is located at the intersection of a number of disciplines and non-academic institutions. Can anthropology that is taught and practised in these settings retain its characteristic qualities? Can anthropology remain sustainable as a distinctive and vital discipline in a time of prescribed interdisciplinarity?