Transdisciplinary Generalism: Naming the epistemology and philosophy of the generalist

Background: Transdisciplinary research and generalist practice both face the task of integrating and discerning the value of knowledge across disciplinary and sectoral knowledge cultures. Transdisciplinarity and generalism also both offer philosophical and practical insights into the epistemology, ontology, axiology, and logic of seeing the ‘whole’. Although generalism is a skill that can be used in many settings from industry to education, the focus of this paper is the literature of the primary care setting (i.e., general practice or family medicine). Generalist philosophy and practice in the family medicine setting highly values whole person care that uses integrative and interpretive wisdom to include both biomedical and biographical forms of knowledge. Generalist researchers are often caught between reductionist (positivist) biomedical measures and social science (post-positivist) constructivist theories of knowing. Neither of these approaches, even when juxtaposed in mixed-methods research, approximate the complexity of the generalist clinical encounter. A theoretically robust research methodology is needed that acknowledges the complexity of interpreting these ways of knowing in research and clinical practice. Methods: A conceptual review of literature to define the alignment between (a) the philosophy and practice of generalism in primary care and (b) both the practical (Zurich) and philosophical or methodological (Nicolescuian) schools of transdisciplinarity. Results: The alignment between generalism and transdisciplinarity included their broad scope, relational process, complex knowledge management, humble attitude to knowing, and real-world outcome focus. Conclusion: The concurrence between these approaches to knowing is offered here as Transdisciplinary Generalism – a coherent epistemology for both primary care researchers and generalist clinicians to understand, enact, and research their own sophisticated craft of managing diverse forms of knowledge

From human anatomy to the global banking crisis : exploring Warwick Arts Centre’s commitment to artist-academic collaboration

This chapter examines the emergence of transdisciplinary learning out of two distinct but interrelated collaborative education projects commissioned by Warwick Arts Centre (WAC), UK. WAC invited eminent University of Warwick academics from the fields of biomedicine and economics into partnership with regional and national artists and theatre-makers to engage with young people living in socio-economically deprived and ethnically diverse areas of the city of Coventry. We argue that these projects could be indicative of radical challenges to conventional partnership-working in the Arts and Sciences and they could also signify the democratic, convivial potential of transdisciplinary approaches to research dissemination and public engagement strategies in the context of higher education

Ethical Ideologies in Purchasing Attitudes Towards Counterfeit Fashion Brands

Fashion brands offer iconic associations with the consumers about their personalities and approaches, which are beyond their basic need of product features. Counterfeit fashion brands are similar or confusingly similar copies of authentic fashion brands and these are typically available at a fraction of the original product price with lower quality. The purpose of this study was to measure Indian consumers’ ethical and other values based on various factors affecting the consumer-purchasing attitude of counterfeit fashion brands. The study determines important predictors of attitude towards counterfeits as fashion and brand consciousness and social impact. This study also supports the fact that attitude towards counterfeit fashion brands leads to ethical judgement and ideologies and is negatively influenced by consumer’s ethical consciousness. The findings of this study may benefit fashion brand marketers, producers and practitioners in their marketing communication to design their branding strategies in the Indian context

How Techniques of Neutralization Legitimize Norm- and Attitude-Inconsistent Consumer Behavior

In accordance with societal norms and values, consumers readily indicate their positive attitudes towards sustainability. However, they hardly take sustainability into account when engaging in exchange relationships with companies. To shed light on this paradox, this paper investigates whether defense mechanisms and the more specific concept of neutralization techniques can explain the discrepancy between societal norms and actual behavior. A multi-method qualitative research design provides rich insights into consumers' underlying cognitive processes and how they make sense of their attitude-behavior divergences. Drawing on the Ways Model of account-taking, which is advanced to a Cycle Model, the findings illustrate how neutralization strategies are used to legitimize inconsistencies between norm-conforming attitudes and actual behavior. Furthermore, the paper discusses how the repetitive reinforcement of neutralizing patterns and feedback loops between individuals and society are linked to the rise of anomic consumer behavior