Life experience as catalyst for disciplinary communication - Adventures in Dialogue 1977-1985

An international dialogue project was initiated by Anne Buttimer (Clark University, Worcester, Mass., USA) and Torsten Hägerstrand (Lund University, Lund, Sweden) during academic year 1977-78, in an attempt to explore alternative approaches to communication between specialists in science and humanities, and also between professional experts and public interests. Video taped interviews with senior and retired scholars and professionals who shared insights from their own career experiences, focussing particularly on the “dream and reality” of their research, action, and/ or planning projects, constituted the core of this process. Interviews were shared with audiences of people from various academic and non-academic fields and were meant as catalysts for dialogue on issues of common concern, as well as evokers of critical self-reflection on the viewer’s own field of practice. Original interviews and audience responses were then to be shared with colleagues in other countries who might, in turn, send back the fruits of their own experiments. A wide range of individuals, mostly from Europe and America, participated in this process and over 100 recordings were made during the period 1978 to 1985. These recordings vary in quality and not all have been used in the systematic manner envisioned in the proposal. Their contents, however, have been explored as research data on questions regarding creativity and context, and the history of ideas and their concrete applications in society. These recordings should be regarded primarily as valuable archival material, potential catalysts for further dialogue, or resource bases for research on knowledge and lived experience. In many cases transcripts have been edited and printed, priority being placed on those recordings where technical quality is poor, or where studio permission for wider circulation has not been granted.