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Problem-focused research 625
words, he risks attributing to them meanings which the sociologist did not
intend, which cannot but engender misunderstandings. Even less is there any
question of establishing a common vocabulary, a sort of Esperanto for the
use of specialists in the sciences of man: this would probably make for more
rather than less confusion and would certainly impoverish the attainments of
all. Every researcher must use his own specific vocabulary, without rejecting
anything of what is most proper to the progress of his analyses in the direction
of his particular concern. The important thing is not to speak the same language
but to understand the language of the others. Multidisciplinary problem-focused
research cannot mean the participation of all in everything, by which we mean
of all specialists in all aspects of the research. Once the framework of ultimate
concerns and common objectives is accepted, the autonomy of the various
specialists is a condition which is important to the value of their research and
without doubt an essential condition for the harmony of their relationships.
The picture of ‘organic solidarity’, defined by Durkheim as that of interdepend-
ence in diversity of functions and specialization in tasks, gives a very good
definition of this type of collaboration as opposed to ‘mechanical solidarity’
in which unity is born of fusion and levelling.
The perspectives must not be reversed: once the common aim is fixed it is
not at the beginning and in words that convergence must be established, but at
the end, in a comparison of the results obtained.
As Jean RBmy puts it, the problem of communications in a multidisciplinary
team is one of ‘transcoding’:
It is important that every member should have an adequate knowledge of the vocabu-
lary and viewpoint of the others, so that transcoding can be done, that is to say that he
must be capable of translating into the terms of his own discipline the deductions from
statements made by the others. Thus if the economist wishes to profit fully from the
results obtained from sociologists’ analyses of urban surroundings, explaining the rede-
ployment of the decision-making centres of enterprises in capital cities, he must be able
to transcode results into his own language. The range of these sociological analyses be-
comes truly enlightening for the economist when, starting with them, he discovers the
city as a form of a dimensional economy which does not postulate the fusion of compo-
nent units, but which is engendered by their juxtaposition in space. In this way he can
better place the city in relation to other forms of dimensional economy. These transcod-
ings permit a close integration of sociology and economics for the consideration of what
towns mean in devel0pment.7~
The example given is perhaps more related to interdisciplinary research than
to problem-focused research: in the latter the dialogue must aim, in a first
phase, at understanding and clearly perceiving what the results obtained in the
various disciplines imply for action, and in a second phase to establish judg-
ments of effectiveness in which these implications may be integrated.
Furthermore, it is an example of the collaboration of two disciplines. One
wonders to what extent the forms of bi-disciplinary association are not the
most convenient forms of association. Less prolific than some other multi-
disciplinary researches, they offer some of their advantages, while reducing
their difficulties to a minimum: such difficulties as the problems of co-ordinating
teamwork, problems of statuses and roles, and problems of language.