Learning From Colleagues: an Introduction to Team Science.

Abstract

Anthropologists are increasingly present in schools of medicine, public health and health-related government roles. While trained as the "lone anthropologist," many find themselves working on multidisciplinary teams. "Team science" is collaborative, multidisciplinary work that frequently occurs in the fields of medicine and public health, where teams of researchers work together to solve a focused research problem. As anthropologists, we might be the only social scientist on a team of epistemologically distinct training, such as medicine or epidemiology. This special issue of Practicing Anthropology explores the collective experiences and insights of anthropologists working on these teams. Team science presents an opportunity for anthropological approaches to inform medicine and public health, with the potential to move this work from interdisciplinary to transdisciplinary collaborations. This new orientation raises the possibility of a "third knowledge," yielding new insights into complex health-related issues, at the intersection of the social and medical sciences. And finally, team science presents an opportunity for the professional development of anthropologists by expanding their social networks and the impacts of their work, well beyond anthropology.