I’M in Bangkok, Thailand, this week to attend the International Association of the Study of Popular Music – Southeast Asian conference at the College of Music, Bansomdejchaopraya Rajabhat University.

Although I am not a part of the executive organising committee, I am a member of the association – made up of a ragtag group of researcher-academics and performer-academics – since the beginning of its inception in early 2019.

I offered to help the organising committee with some on-site public relations.

On the first day of the conference yesterday, I had a conversation with a fellow “interdisciplinary” academic – someone whose research interest is different from their field qualification – from Malaysia while guiding attendees towards the conference venue.

From the short informal conversation, several points about the concept of “interdisciplinary” are more of a pipe dream in Malaysian universities.

Malaysian universities are ‘skema’

“Skema” in Malay refers to someone or something that is conventional and rote. The term “interdisciplinary” is bandied about freely in universities in relation to the skills their students need to develop to be ready for the job market, and in relation to research endeavours by academics and researchers.

The reality on the ground is far different. Interdisciplinary academics and researchers often do not get the support needed to delve further into interdisciplinary research.

For example, an academic from a business faculty might have an interest in “pop yeh yeh music” from the 1960s and may have published his research findings in books and academic journals.

The research might not even be about the business of “pop yeh yeh music”. The academic himself might even be a noted researcher for his work in this area.

Chances are, however, that this academic’s pursuit is purely self-funded and that he would not have access to his faculty’s or even university’s research or conference funding.

Most administrators will probably reason that they are just following “policy” and miss the forest for the trees.

Failure to acknowledge an academic’s research outside of their faculty’s field only encourages systemic “skema” attitudes, thus sabotaging out-of-the-box thinking and innovation.

The best academics are interdisciplinary by nature.

University advertisements often sell the idea to prospective parents and students that the programmes they offer are taught by “experts” who will “prepare them for the industry.”

Universities in essence and principle are not factories to create labour for the workforce, yet politicians and bureaucrats often pass the buck to universities as if universities are solely responsible.

University management will of course kowtow to this narrative and discourse since politicians and bureaucrats are seen as the higher power, often at odds with academics and researchers in their respective universities.

This is one of the roots of the contentious issue about university rankings because rankings essentially exploit academic output for the sake of some imaginary race to the top of the charts, which is essentially just a form of marketing.

Not only that, but academics are also forced to mould or adapt their research interest towards their respective university’s supposed area of expertise.  

The reality is a lot of meaningful and innovative research and academic work is naturally interdisciplinary and academics who cross over into differing fields from their own should be encouraged instead of questioned.

Collaboration versus competition 

If you didn’t know it, universities now perceive other universities as competition, especially private ones. However, as times are hard financially for even public universities, the same narrative also applies.

Academics, on the other hand, cherish the interaction and sharing with academics from other universities collegially, which may also lead to research or even teaching collaborations. This is where the dominant narrative, and resistance to this narrative creates conflict between academics and the management of educational institutions.

This is why physical in-person conferences, preferably interdisciplinary ones, are important not only for networking but also for building genuine empathy and understanding that academics globally must deal with similar challenges in research and teaching.

However, most universities now have cut conference funding from their budgets, preferring academic publishing since that has a more immediate impact on rankings.

Most of the academics attending the same conference as me are self-funded because they are genuinely engaged and not key performance indicator-chasing. – July 26, 2024.  

* Azmyl Yunor is a touring underground recording artiste, and an academic in media and cultural studies. He has published articles on pop culture, subcultures and Malaysian cultural politics. He adheres to the three-chords-and-the-truth school of songwriting, and Woody Guthrie’s maxim “All you can write is what you see”. He is @azmyl on Twitter.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.