Interdisciplinary environmental inquiry

Interdisciplinarity is simultaneously well known and poorly understood. Although approached in different ways, it refers overall to research that draws upon varied disciplinary perspectives. This chapter reviews interdisciplinarity in the context of the quintessentially interdisciplinary field of 'environmental studies'. It begins by considering the main drivers for interdisciplinary research before turning to the question of what interdisciplinarity actually is. It concludes with some reflections on the challenges and joys of such knowledge production.