Since industrialization, groups of citizens have been stratified by labor categories and as a result, often by socio-economic class. Research was and to a great extent remains siloed from the rest of society, in its infamous “ivory tower”. Silos within the universities also exist. The advantage of this is that specialized research environments are formed and nursed so that deep expertise can be honed. The disadvantage is that scholars often remain sequestered from colleagues from other disciplines and from the society around them. 

Adrienne Mannov and Signe Sørensen discussing potential use-cases for a VR prototype at SECURE transdisciplinary workshop, December 2018

Problems are inherently transdisciplinary

The ways of the world are complex and problems do not present themselves in nicely sliced academic disciplines; they are by default transdisciplinary. 

In order to address big societal challenges, we need different perspectives, forms of expertise and logics. 

We highlight the transdisciplinary here because we wish to transcend the siloed ways of approaching challenges related to digitization, and we wish to transcend the walls of academia and include other-than-scientists in constructing the Cryptic Commons.

Therefore, we have invited various professionals to contribute to the building of this space, besides engineers, cryptographers, and anthropologists: VR animators, visual artists, graphic designers, video-makers, and philosophers. All efforts and perspectives are needed and welcome!

“First we have to disprove the ideal world.”

-signal processing engineer

The edges between points

Several words describe collaboration between disciplines: interdisciplinary, cross-disciplinary, transdisciplinary. Although they overlap, they have different implications for how problems are formulated, approached, and worked on. The trans in transdisciplinary work implies a tacking back and forth movement between disciplines. Leaning on geometry, it is the lines, connections, or edges between points that become important, rather than just the points connecting them. This way, each new idea recursively generates another new idea. 

“The anthropological claim here is that theory grows out of the real world. This is also the claim that our cryptography colleagues are making. This issue of trust is an in between thing.”

-social anthopologist

I trust that guy – I don’t trust you

Commonality across different meanings

“Trust”, “privacy”, “secure” and “ideal” are concepts with particular meanings in cryptography but also in the social sciences and the everyday lives in communities. Transdisciplinarity is needed to transcend misunderstandings and begin to construct a commonality across different meanings and their socio-technical consequences.

To learn more about transdisciplinary collaborations, we recommend that you read  “​​Cryptic Commonalities: Working Athwart Cryptography, Mathematics, and Anthropology” (2020) by Adrienne Mannov, Astrid O. Andersen, Maja Hojer Bruun. 

Since industrialization, groups of citizens have been stratified by labor categories and as a result, often by socio-economic class. Research was and to a great extent remains siloed from the rest of society, in its infamous “ivory tower”. Silos within the universities also exist. The advantage of this is that specialized research environments are formed and nursed so that deep expertise can be honed. The disadvantage is that scholars often remain sequestered from colleagues from other disciplines and from the society around them. 

Adrienne Mannov and Signe Sørensen discussing potential use-cases for a VR prototype at SECURE transdisciplinary workshop, December 2018

Problems are inherently transdisciplinary

The ways of the world are complex and problems do not present themselves in nicely sliced academic disciplines; they are by default transdisciplinary. 

In order to address big societal challenges, we need different perspectives, forms of expertise and logics. 

We highlight the transdisciplinary here because we wish to transcend the siloed ways of approaching challenges related to digitization, and we wish to transcend the walls of academia and include other-than-scientists in constructing the Cryptic Commons.

Therefore, we have invited various professionals to contribute to the building of this space, besides engineers, cryptographers, and anthropologists: VR animators, visual artists, graphic designers, video-makers, and philosophers. All efforts and perspectives are needed and welcome!

“First we have to disprove the ideal world.”

-signal processing engineer

The edges between points

Several words describe collaboration between disciplines: interdisciplinary, cross-disciplinary, transdisciplinary. Although they overlap, they have different implications for how problems are formulated, approached, and worked on. The trans in transdisciplinary work implies a tacking back and forth movement between disciplines. Leaning on geometry, it is the lines, connections, or edges between points that become important, rather than just the points connecting them. This way, each new idea recursively generates another new idea. 

“The anthropological claim here is that theory grows out of the real world. This is also the claim that our cryptography colleagues are making. This issue of trust is an in between thing.”

-social anthopologist

Commonality across different meanings

“Trust”, “privacy”, “secure” and “ideal” are concepts with particular meanings in cryptography but also in the social sciences and the everyday lives in communities. Transdisciplinarity is needed to transcend misunderstandings and begin to construct a commonality across different meanings and their socio-technical consequences.

To learn more about transdisciplinary collaborations, we recommend that you read  “​​Cryptic Commonalities: Working Athwart Cryptography, Mathematics, and Anthropology” (2020) by Adrienne Mannov, Astrid O. Andersen, Maja Hojer Bruun.