Paper short abstract:

The present paper focus on interdisciplinarity in the science outreach context. With some frequency, activities in this domain bring together different epistemic cultures to address a common question or object. The place of these (brief) meetings in the dynamics of science is discussed.

Paper long abstract:

Bringing together different disciplines and epistemic cultures - within the natural sciences and often including the social sciences and the humanities - collaborations beyond disciplinary boundaries are a significant part of science outreach initiatives. The present paper explores the issue of interdisciplinarity in this context. Do these encounters play a role in the dynamics of knowledge production? Do they represent just a more or less circumstantial and transient effort? Do they embody a culture of collaboration? Addressing these questions, the analysis emerged from the involvement in organizing a few initiatives of this kind and is mainly a theoretical reflection. Outreach initiatives are part of the dynamics of a research area; in this sense, the practices of interdisciplinarity therein will be discussed in view of their framing within the broader scope of the dynamics of science.