BEYOND THE DISCIPLINARY BOUNDARIES: RADHAKAMAL MUKERJEE’S CONCEPTUALISATION OF TRANSDISCIPLINARITY.

Abstract

Radhakamal Mukerjee [1889-1968], one of the founding fathers of Indian
Sociology, is considered to be a pioneer in many fields of social sciences, especially in social
ecology, institutional economics and transdisciplinary approach. During his teaching time at
Lucknow university, he along with other intellectuals, shaped the department as the leading
teaching and research centre of sociology. While founding fathers in sociology in Europe in
the formative period were trying to make exclusive methods to define the discipline,
Radhakamal Mukerjee engaged in refuting and criticising such attempts. He went beyond the
uni-disciplinary, interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approach and argued that only a
transdisciplinary approach could understand human reality and social phenomenon. This
article, therefore, tries to locate his conceptualisation of transdisciplinarity from the
methodological point of view.