Wetenschappelijk grensverkeer tussen discipline-vorming en ont-disciplinering

Abstract

This contribution was originally written as a lecture for a symposium of STEGON, the Foundation for research in the field of theology and religious studies. The theme of the symposium was: ‘Challenges to theology’ and it was concerned mainly with the increasing process of fragmentation and instrumentalization of research in the disciplines of theology and religious studies. The organization of the symposium was suggesting that in this context the autonomy of the theological discipline is at stake. The author puts this process in perspective and interprets it as a result of scientific border traffic and a multidisciplinary way of working. This border traffic can result in either ‘de-disciplinazation’ or the creation of a (new) discipline. This position in the discussion is elaborated in two ways. First there is the perspective from the discipline of history. There too the process of increasing border traffic between different disciplines and the process of the vanishing disciplinary boundaries are dominant. Changes in sources, in questions, and in methods are closely connected here and have led to various ways of multidisciplinary research. A very important point of evaluation is the question of ‘de-disciplinazation’ of this process of scientific border traffic and the multidisciplinary way of working. In the case of history, the question is whether the discipline is split up and the coherence removed, or on the contrary a positive process takes place in which the discipline can be renewed and can be liberated from old frameworks. Here, apart from substantial scientific elements, the author focuses on the institutional aspect: the contexts, places, organizations in which the researchers are working. Secondly, the problem of scientific border traffic and the connected aspect of desintegration of a discipline is concentrated in the study of liturgy. In the Dutch situation it is clear that in some important institutional contexts the autonomous position of the discipline is at stake. Here increasing border traffic also plays an important role. In the Dutch study of liturgy there is a well organized and structured process of scientific border traffic. The traditional boundaries of the discipline are put into perspective through multidisciplinary research, regarding themes and object on the one hand, and methods on the other. The researchers themselves find this stimulating and positive, and they do not fear for a fundamental desintegration of the study of liturgy as an autonomous discipline, or even a disciplina principalis. Nevertheless, there are signals from outside that this process of renewal and contacts with other disciplines provides arguments for subdividing the discipline. The contribution ends with some remarks on the social position and the relevance of the study of liturgy, on the individual position of the researcher when he/she is working in a multidisciplinary way, on the place and role of spirituality and (systematic) theology in the (sub)discipline (they can be both binding agent and obstacle for scientific border traffic), and on the danger for a new fixed canon of border traffic in the study of liturgy. Here the author emphasizes the principle of openess in research, openess regarding sources, themes and methods. In this context the important role of institutional contexts is again underscored. As a result of these observations the strategy for the study of liturgy in the Dutch situation is viewed as twofold: on the one hand attention to the existing fora and structures, and on the other hand attention to new multidisciplinary structures which sometimes have the character of ‘de-disciplinization’.