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 of 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.