Radical Interdisciplinarity: Qualitative Refusal under Algorithmic Entropy

• In Event: Inquiries of Liberation: Creativity, Solidarity, and Resistance in Qualitative Research

Abstract

We explore the stakes of qualitative research under algorithmic entropy—curated academic chaos that disciplines knowledge through containment and fear. This manufactured disorder, marked by institutional precarity and political backlash, conceals a reconsolidation of the academy’s colonial and predictive defaults. We examine how researchers navigate pressures to self-censor or disappear by identifying two trajectories qualitative scholars may take: prophylactic obedience and radical interdisciplinarity. Drawing on our experiences, more-than-human metaphors, and the resistant practices of qualitative scholarship, we theorize radical interdisciplinarity as qualitative refusal—grounded in relation, creativity, rhythm, and rupture. We imagine methodological unruliness as a way to resist capture and hold contradiction, building a scholarly community capacious enough to remain ungovernable—even within the looping return of institutional control.

Authors

• Lorien S. Jordan, University of South Florida

• Shavawn Smith, Arkansas Archeological Survey

• Rachel Piontak, University of Arkansas at Fayetteville