Ioanna Antoniadou (University of Southampton; ia05@soton.ac.uk) and Vasko Démou (University of Southampton; vd1z07@soton.ac.uk)

Discussant: Yvonne Marshall (University of Southampton, UK)

The advantages of multidisciplinary approaches to the study of archaeologically-related topics are well-established and projects of the sort are increasingly encouraged within academia. Upon encountering multidisciplinarity for the first time however, researchers may find themselves in unfamiliar territories, faced with new theoretical and methodological, political, ethical or other obstacles and compromises.

How is it for a researcher trained in archaeology to be engaging in anthropology, computing, linguistics, the arts, etc. or how does an anthropologist, computer scientist, linguist, artist, etc. deal with the unfamiliar contexts s/he finds her/himself in, whilst facing epistemological and ontological difficulties that arise from being in between? How does this affect the outcomes of their research?

How are researchers involved in multidisciplinary projects perceived by others? To what extent is their work considered of equal academic value and depth as that of their colleagues?

This session aspires to bring together the experiences of scholars whose research lies in the, often uncharted, space between disciplines in order to investigate those theoretical, ethical, methodological, conflicts and dilemmas they encounter and re-think the role and function of disciplinary boundaries.

We would like to invite papers describing how such issues have contributed to or even inhibited the process of research. We wish to underline that the focus should not concern the outcome of individual multidisciplinary research, but the obstacles that arose in its course and the ways in which they were dealt with.