Abstract
Margo Wilson was a consummate scientist and an extraordinary person. In this short piece, we reflect on her qualities as a scholar and consider the nature of her legacy within the context of our three decades of work with her and Martin Daly, her personal and research partner. Within the broad context of the “sociology of knowledge,” we focus on the production of our joint publication about the perpetration of intimate partner violence and examine the challenges and benefits of working collaboratively across disciplines.
Keywords
Margo Wilson: The Scientist and the Person
Margo Wilson was an accomplished scientist in the best possible sense. As a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (FRSC), she represented a style that is often held up as an ideal of the scientist who is knowledgeable, enthusiastic, and generous in her or his research, committed to the advancement of his or her discipline, and encourages the work of colleagues and young scholars alike. In reality, this ideal is difficult to achieve but Margo somehow seemed to do all of this with ease and without the overinflated ego often seen in academia. She just seemed to “leave herself and her ego behind” as she reached out to others and expressed a genuine interest in them and their work. These qualities are all too rare in academia and elsewhere, but Margo just had them and they were an integral part of who she was, what she did, and how she did it. At the same time, she could be very challenging but without ever appearing “to challenge.” You knew you were being “nailed” by a scientist when she asked, “and what is your denominator?”. Margo found the work of others interesting, and had no difficulty in saying so, and she frequently had very inventive and creative suggestions to progress and enhance their work. After saying, “That is very ‘in-ter-est-ing’” (her unique way of saying “interesting”), she would often follow with the question, “have you thought about . .X. . .”, which usually contained a really good idea or a new slant that might be pursued. Ever the scientist with an engaging personality, Margo brought her infectious enthusiasm, inventiveness and humanity to the enterprise of research that is often thought to be distant or boring. With Margo, nothing could be further from the truth. Here, we shall recount our experiences of working with Margo Wilson that reveal both the challenges and the rewards of working across disciplines.
Increasingly, academic researchers are being encouraged to work in multidisciplinary teams as the lines that demarcate traditional disciplines are simultaneously blurred and blended by some while, at the same time, starkly defended by others. Cross-disciplinary work is now relatively commonplace as scholars attempt to bring the combined insights and knowledge of two or more disciplines to the joint task of examining a single issue or problem that is otherwise studied separately by each discipline and often in ignorance of the evidence and explanations produced by the other. For example, disciplines within the social sciences such as education, psychology, sociology, criminology and social work may combine their respective empirical knowledge and theoretical insights in a joint effort to increase the understanding of children who, for a variety of reasons, fail in school or begin to offend when very young. Similarly, disciplines within the physical sciences might combine efforts in order better to understand issues such as earthquakes or the conservation of scarce resources such as water or oil.
In addition to “cross-disciplinary” research, some scholars are now undertaking “transdisciplinary” research, which seeks to move beyond the approach of several traditional disciplines working jointly on a single project to one that seeks to blend the boundaries of those disciplines to the extent that they become a new unified approach. Here, some researchers are seeking to combine relevant knowledge from several traditional disciplines in order to form a new, combined knowledge about pressing issues ranging from climate change to gender violence (see the special issue on “Transdisciplinarity” in the journal Violence Against Women, in press, 2012, n.d.). All such efforts face the problems of communication, differential languages and definitions, conflicting or competing theoretical perspectives, potential obstacles to publication, and the prospects of failure. The broadening of vocabulary and vision as well as enhanced empirical knowledge and theoretical understandings are held out as possible rewards for the effort, but even the most limited of such efforts threaten traditional disciplines, temporarily de-skill researchers and scholars trained within them, consume enormous amounts of time, and always pose the possibility of failure. Nonetheless, this is increasingly the landscape to be traversed by researchers addressing the ever more complex issues of our times.
This special issue in honor of Margo Wilson provides a unique opportunity to focus on some of the issues and challenges associated with the process of working across disciplines. It is not possible to reflect on the entire body of work produced by Margo Wilson and her lifelong research colleague and personal partner, Martin Daly, but only to touch upon some of the issues that crossed our collective paths during nearly three decades of our acquaintance from the 1980s until Margo’s untimely death in 2009. For the most part, it is not possible to speak of the work of Margo Wilson without simultaneously referring to the work of Martin Daly. They were a research team with a seamless and blended perspective. Their combined skills certainly included those of wordsmith, statistician, and theoretical thinker, but it was not possible to say that Margo did “XX” while Martin did “XY.” Instead, they worked together to produce a blended knowledge that reflected the integration of their partnership. Thus, our tribute to the work of Margo Wilson is also a tribute to her joint work with Martin Daly. This is not to take away from either, but rather to reflect upon the strength of both together.
Our acquaintance with Wilson and Daly began in the 1980s, first as academic researchers who were total strangers from very different and relatively antagonistic disciplines but with a shared interest in the topic of violence against women, then as joint authors and, finally, as lifelong friends. Over time, we participated as “separate teams” in several focused meetings and conferences and contributed to special issues of journals and anthologies focusing on violence against women. We twice attempted to produce joint publications: One succeeded and the other did not. Here, the center piece is our jointly authored publication, “The myth of symmetry in marital violence” (Dobash, Dobash, Wilson, & Daly, 1992) which has, over time, become the most cited journal article of our respective careers. Both the successes and the failures in our numerous and varied engagements with Wilson and Daly contributed positively to our own separate and enduring research agendas. They provide lessons about the processes involved in interdisciplinary research, which is one of the legacies of our joint work and are presented here as a modest contribution in the broad tradition of the sociology of knowledge. 1
The Meeting and “Greeting” of Different Disciplines
Early in the study of violence against women, disciplines such as Sociology, Psychology, Criminology and History undertook various examinations of intimate partner violence and homicide, with each bringing its own unique theoretical perspective, terminology, methods of data collection, and differential focus. Initially, and in some respects still today, differing disciplines had strong “allergies” against one another, which could be very intense. Against such a backdrop, the theoretical perspective of Evolutionary Psychology posed by Wilson and Daly constituted an allergen within the collective nose of the social sciences. It is to their credit, both as scholars and as individuals, that instead of retreating to the relative calm and comfort of their home disciplines of evolutionary psychology and biology, they continued to present their research and theoretical ideas at conferences of other disciplines within the social sciences, some of which were very hostile to their perspective and to the conclusions they drew from their research findings. It was within this relatively “hot” academic context of the 1980s that we first met Wilson and Daly at a conference of the American Society of Criminology where we heard a presenter claim that women were as likely as men, maybe even more likely, to be the perpetrators of domestic violence. From different locations within the audience, we and they posed questions to the presenter about the validity of such claims, since they were not only counter-intuitive but also were not supported by a vast amount of extant evidence from numerous sources. We had never met, but found common ground in our respective critiques of the evidence and claims that were being presented. We were unaware that our respective critiques were drawn from the disparate academic disciplines of sociology and evolutionary psychology that were, for the most part, at war at that time. That knowledge would come later and would, in varying ways, remain an evolving part of the following years of our continuing discussions about violence against women. We left the conference hall without meeting the strangers with whom we had found common ground concerning the existing evidence about domestic violence. However, fleetingly we saw them again that evening as we crossed paths at a restaurant recommended for its good food. Unbeknownst to us, we had stumbled upon another common interest, and throughout the subsequent years we not only shared an interest in research about intimate partner violence and homicide and the scientific ideas and methods upon which they were based, but also an enjoyment of good food and good company. These were among many of the things we valued and shared over the years, and it may be that such personal factors contributed to our collective willingness to engage across disciplinary lines in the first place and to persevere in spite of the obstacles that are always involved in such efforts.
Symmetry or Asymmetry of Violence by Men and Women
Collaboration
The common ground found at that initial chance meeting led to a long conversation that lasted several years before eventually leading to a collaboration that resulted in a jointly authored publication reflecting on the extant empirical evidence concerning the continuing (some might say raging) debate about symmetry or asymmetry between men and women in the perpetration of non-lethal and lethal violence against an intimate partner. Crossing paths at subsequent conferences, we maintained a common interest in researching and understanding violence against women, and it seemed that some sort of collaboration might be possible. This would obviously require much longer and more intense and focused conversations than possible when attending conference meetings or dining together in conference cities.
We decided it would be interesting and important to examine in detail the theoretical, methodological and evidentiary basis of the claims regarding men’s and women’s violence in intimate relationships. To do this we needed to spend some time together, and Margo took on the task of finding the funding for two group meetings, one held in the United States and the other in Scotland. Before each meeting, we amassed research evidence about the perpetration of lethal and non-lethal violence by men and by women, which was subjected to critical examination at each meeting. This process involved a considerable amount of time and effort before each meeting, as well as lengthy discussions within them.
Publication
When the resulting article was finally completed, we considered where it might be published. Since much of the controversy was about findings from the United States, it seemed important to publish an analysis of this research in a U.S. based journal to increase the likelihood that it would be read by those undertaking similar research as well as by the consumers of such findings who were concerned about policies, practices, interventions, legislation, and law enforcement relating to violence against women. Based in Canada (Wilson & Daly) and Scotland (Dobash & Dobash), we were concerned that much of the evidence critiquing the notion of “symmetry” between men and women in the perpetration of violence between intimate partners inevitably reflected critically on some U.S. based academic research. How would a critique from “outsiders” be received by anonymous peer reviewers and/or journal editors who might wish to avoid controversy focused on this research? After an initial rejection by another journal, the article, The myth of sexual symmetry in marital violence, was published in Social Problems in 1992, and to this date it continues to be widely cited in reference to the controversy about the violence of men versus women in intimate relationships (Dobash, Dobash, Wilson, & Daly, 1992).
The order of authorship
The order of authorship of research publications can be very contentious within research groups and collaborators, since it often carries with it notions about who did what, the relative contribution of each author, and the relative status of each author. This was a publication of equals with equal contributions to the publication. Thus, what was to be done about the order of authorship? Tossing coins and drawing straws were considered, but it was Martin who devised a scheme that was random in nature with all possible combinations and permutations of the four names to be determined by a formula whereby each ordering of the four names was given a number with the outcome to be decided by the appearance of that number in the financial pages of a well-known newspaper on a specific date in the future. On the appointed day, the order was decided with Martin coming last preceded by Margo and the two of us at the front of the list. We never completely understood the formula used to determine the order and wonder to this day if Martin devised a scheme that would place the two of them at the end of the list rather than the front. 2 Whatever the outcome of the random selection of the order of authorship, no group effort could have been more equal than the one that resulted in the publication of that article.
Sources of Conflict Leading to Intimate Partner Violence and Homicide
Over the years, some of the topics of our continuing discussions just clicked into place with an almost effortless correspondence of evidence, ideas and understanding across disciplinary domains. Other topics became clearer after lengthy discussions, aided by an increasing understanding of the different academic languages being spoken and growing clarity about the specific topic under discussion. Still other topics continued to be debated. From the outset, there was considerable agreement about the importance of gender; that the usual direction of the violence was men against women; that the violence was purposeful; and that it was undertaken in order to obtain or reinforce male authority, power, and control in intimate relationships with women. However, we did not agree about the nature of the sources of conflict that were involved in violent relationships and in specific events of lethal and non-lethal violence by men against women intimate partners. We continued to puzzle over these questions for quite a long time. In retrospect, this may be attributed to the focus of our respective research (homicide vs. non-lethal violence), which shaped the different vantage points from which the importance of various sources of conflict were viewed.
Prior to our initial chance meeting, we had published our first book, Violence Against Wives (Dobash & Dobash, 1979), based on our research on intimate partner violence, and Daly and Wilson had published their landmark book, Homicide (Daly & Wilson, 1988), which cast a global net over time and space in the examination of various types of homicide including, but not restricted to, intimate partners. Their research indicated that intimate partner homicide of women by male partners was intrinsically and almost exclusively linked to issues associated with separation, fear of infidelity, possessiveness, and jealousy. For our part, we entered the conversation from the vantage point of our own research findings about non-lethal intimate partner violence with strong evidence indicating that, while men certainly used violence in the context of conflicts relating to jealousy and possessiveness, the conflicts also involved other issues relating to various aspects of daily life such as male authority, domestic work, money, and the like. Although finding common ground on the explanatory importance of conflicts associated with jealousy and possessiveness, we differed about the relative risk of violence associated with conflicts about other aspects of daily domestic life (see Dobash & Dobash, 1995; Wilson, Johnson, & Daly, 1995). In many respects, the conversation about the relative importance of various sources of conflict went on for such a long time because each pair had evidence from their own research in support of the relative risk of intimate partner violence or of intimate partner homicide associated with the various types of conflict. For Wilson and Daly, sources of conflict were restricted to issues such as possessiveness and jealousy, while for us they also included other issues of daily domestic life. Each was armed with supporting evidence, and each remained confident about the relative risk of various types of conflict leading to a violent outcome.
The factor that changed our long-lasting debate was a shift in the starting point of the conversation. Instead of beginning the discussion with a consideration of the various possible sources of conflict leading to the violent outcome (jealousy, housework and the like), we began instead with the violent outcome itself (homicide or non-lethal assault) and then considered the sources of conflict relative to each. Beginning with the outcome and working backward to the sources of conflict confirmed both that a broader spectrum of issues, including domestic work, was relevant when the outcome was assault, and that fewer sources of conflict were generally associated with a lethal outcome (Wilson & Daly, 1993a, 1993b). In retrospect, this might seem like a “du-uh” moment and lead to questions about why it took so long to arrive at this realization. To some extent, the answer may lie in a common and relatively unchallenged assumption that implicitly runs through much of this area of research: That intimate partner murder is usually, if not always, an incremental shift from a non-lethal to a lethal outcome that simply reflects more of the same rather than something different.
For us, the question about the relative importance of various sources of conflict leading to different violent outcomes persisted long after our conversations with Wilson and Daly had moved on to other topics. For us, a resolution to this question began to take shape only after we completed our Murder in Britain study and began to compare our data on intimate partner murder with our earlier data on non-lethal violence against women partners (Dobash, Dobash, Cavanagh, & Medina-Ariza, 2007). The sources of conflict related to murder were more restricted and primarily related to issues of jealousy, infidelity, separation, and new partners, whereas those related to non-lethal violence also included other issues such as domestic tasks and male authority. Further analysis of these data suggests that this holds true not only for intimate partner murderers with a history of abusing their partner prior to the murder, but also for those with no known history of non-lethal violence toward the woman partner prior to the murder (Dobash, Dobash, & Cavanagh, 2009). On reflection, it would appear that although everyone was “right” in these early discussions about the various sources of conflict leading to violent outcomes, the problem was that we were talking about different outcomes. Long after these initial conversations with Wilson & Daly, we continue to “burrow down” on these questions about intimate partner violence and homicide which has led to still further questions and new puzzles (Dobash & Dobash, 2011; 2012, n.d.).
United by Similar Findings While Divided by Disciplinary Perspectives and Different Languages
Throughout our relationship with Margo and Martin, many of our discussions involved sorting out the differing meanings of concepts and terminology used by each. Across academic disciplines, similar words often have different meanings, and different words are often used to refer to the same thing. Academic disciplines are often divided by the different definitions given to words held in common as well as by those “invented” by each in the effort to better describe issues of concern within the respective disciplines. Crossing the portals of different disciplines is often like making a journey into a foreign land with an unfamiliar language. Communication is often slow, difficult, and fraught with confusions that impede mutual understanding and the possibility of collaboration. Academics often have little time or patience in dealing with the “language” of others and thus remain in their own domain unaware of the worlds of others and untouched by them, but Wilson and Daly progressed through the academic worlds of criminology, anthropology, sociology, and others in their efforts to better understand homicide and, at the same time, to introduce some of their own concepts, ideas, and language into these different academic domains.
Some words and concepts that were once confined to only a few disciplines are now relatively familiar across disciplines because of the writings of Wilson and Daly. Terms such as “male sexual proprietariness” and “mate guarding” reflect in new terms the familiar specter of men’s sense of ownership and control of women partners and, at the same time, add a biological twist to what in other disciplines is seen as cultural (Wilson & Daly, 1998). Within many of these terms lies an interesting debate about the relative contribution of various wider explanatory frameworks to the understanding of homicide and non-lethal violence against women, as well as the various approaches to scientific research. In our early conversations, we often used terms such as logical positivism, empiricist and socialization before coming to a collective recognition of the different meanings and implications associated with the different academic languages being spoken. Although travel across academic disciplines, domains and languages definitely requires time and tolerance, it simultaneously offers the prospect of expanding theoretical insights and empirical knowledge. Certainly this marked our journey with Wilson and Daly.
Finally, our respective explanations of the orientations and actions relating to violence against women differed. We stressed the importance of sociocultural factors, whereas Wilson and Daly focused on the evolved psychology of the human male and sexual proprietariness. Yet even as each stressed a different source of the problem, we recognized the many factors we viewed as common to this form of violence. We viewed our differences in perspective as exciting challenges to be met in our respective work rather than as barriers not to be crossed.
Readers of this piece might ask if the respective duos ever quarreled or had a falling out. As with all strong relationships, the answer is both “yes” and “no.” “Yes” we did differ, but in the best and most interesting of ways, and no we did not “fall out” and cease to engage. This does not mean that we did not disagree, sometimes quite strongly, but that we did so from positions of mutual respect and when we “agreed to disagree” it was unspoken and we just carried on. Fundamentally, it was academically rewarding and a personal pleasure to have had the opportunity to engage with Margo Wilson as a colleague and a friend in our collective efforts to better understand violence against women.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Notes
Bios
Honorary distinguished visiting professors, School of Social Justice & Inquiry, Arizona State University, USA
Visiting professors, Centre for Law Crime & Justice, Law, School, Strathclyde University, Glasgow, Scotland.
They have published several books and numerous articles on non-lethal and lethal violence against women, and were coprincipal investigators on the Murder in Britain Study funded by the ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council), the Violent Men Study (funded by the Scottish Executive, Edinburgh, and the Home Office, London), and the Violence Against Women Study (funded by the Scottish Home and Health Dept [now, the Scottish Executive). Meetings of Dobash, Dobash, Wilson, and Daly were partially funded by the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Centre for a period of study at Villa Serbelloni, Bellagio, Lake Como, Italy, and The Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation of New York for meetings in Carmona and Madrid, Spain, and NATO for meetings in California and Scotland. Results from The Murder in Britain Study will appear in the book by Dobash & Dobash, When Men Murder Women (in press, Oxford University Press) which will focus on intimate partner murder, sexual murder, and the murder of older women.