Conclusion: barriers to and promises of the interdisciplinary dialogue between psychology and history

Chapters published in this volume represent a collection of interdisciplinary explorations on topics of interest to both psychologists and historians. Our contributors represent an eclectic combination of established and emerging psychologists and historians, whose work represents only a small selection of the many schools of thought and methodological approaches within the two disciplines. Each has engaged with inter disciplinarity differently, in a way that transcends the established, conventional ways of thinking about interdisciplinary scholarship, namely appropriation, borrowing, translation and reduction. 1 Rather than offering a prescriptive guide about how to do interdisciplinarity, the present volume explores the possible forms that the dialogue between psychology and history can take. We shall conclude the book by discussing briefly three interrelated themes and areas of concern which run through the volume and which we see as important foundations for interdisciplinary conversation: epistemological critique, conceptual reflexivity and interdisciplinary communication.