Klemun / Spring Expeditions as Experiments

Practising Observation and Documentation
1. Auflage 2016
ISBN: 978-1-137-58106-8
Verlag: Palgrave Macmillan UK
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: 1 - PDF Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 294 Seiten

Reihe: History (R0)

This collection focuses on different expeditions and their role in the process of knowledge acquisition from the eighteenth century onwards. It investigates various forms of scientific practice conducted during, after and before expeditions, and it places this discussion into the scientific context of experiments. In treating expeditions as experiments in a heuristic sense, we also propose that the expedition is a variation on the laboratory in which different practices can be conducted and where the transformation of uncertain into certain knowledge is tested. The experimental positioning of the expedition brings together an ensemble of techniques, strategies, material agents and social actors, and illuminates the steps leading from observation to facts and documentation. The chapters show the variety of scientific interests that motivated expeditions with their focus on natural history, geology, ichthyology, botany, zoology, helminthology, speleology, physical anthropology, oceanography, meteorology and magnetism.  

Autoren/Hrsg.

Klemun, Marianne

Spring, Ulrike

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1;Contents;6
2;Notes on Contributors;8
3;List of Figures;11
4;Chapter 1: Expeditions as Experiments: An Introduction;12
4.1;Introduction;12
4.2;Defining Scientific Expeditions;13
4.3;Expeditions as Experiments;18
4.4;Division of Work and Questions of Authority;28
4.5;Scientific Practices: Observation and Documentation;29
4.6;Notes;33
5;Chapter 2: An Idea Ahead of Its Time: Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Mobile Botanical Laboratory;37
5.1;Introduction;37
5.2;The Chemical-Experimental Moment;40
5.3;Instruments and Expeditions;42
5.4;The Mobile Botanical Laboratory;43
5.5;Organization;45
5.6;Expeditions Testing the Reports of Others;47
5.7;Conclusion;50
5.8;Notes;51
6;Chapter 3: Experiments and Evolving Frameworks of Scientific Exploration: Jean-André Peyssonnel’s Work on Coral;60
6.1;Introduction;60
6.2;Sources of a Lifelong but Forgotten Scientific Journey on Three Continents;63
6.3;Practical Knowledge Versus Erudition;65
6.4;Observations at Sea and Experiments in the Laboratory;67
6.5;A Pioneering Expedition to North Africa;69
6.6;Power and Authority;72
6.7;Rehabilitation;73
6.8;Conclusion;77
6.9;Notes;78
7;Chapter 4: Japanese Ichthyological Objects and Knowledge Gained in Contact Zones by the Krusenstern Expedition;82
7.1;Introduction;82
7.2;Historical Relations Between Japan and Russia;83
7.3;Scientific Mission of the Krusenstern Expedition;84
7.4;Contact Zones Between Japanese and Europeans;86
7.5;Fish Drawings and Different Perceptions of Fish;91
7.6;Natural Objects as Key for Producing Knowledge: The Langsdorff Collection;93
7.7;Making Use of Japanese Local Knowledge by Western Natural Historians;96
7.8;Producing Scientific Knowledge Based on the Collected Objects;99
7.9;Conclusion;100
7.10;Notes;101
8;Chapter 5: Naturalists at Work: Expeditions, Collections and the Creation of “Epistemic Things”;106
8.1;Making Discoveries;107
8.2;Specimens and Epistemic Things, Expeditions and Experiments;109
8.3;Working for the Museum;113
8.4;Travelling;114
8.5;Collecting;116
8.6;Preserving;118
8.7;Debating Nature;121
8.8;Adjusting Knowledge;123
8.9;Notes;125
9;Chapter 6: Mary Barber’s Expedition Journal: An Experimental Space to Voice Social Concerns;129
9.1;Reception of Women on Expeditions;129
9.2;Wanderings in Science and Society;130
9.3;Advocating for Women’s Rights;135
9.4;Constructing Social Order Through Plant Descriptions;135
9.5;Conclusion;142
9.6;Notes;143
10;Chapter 7: Materializing the Aurora Borealis: Carl Weyprecht and Scientific Documentation of the Arctic;149
10.1;Observing the Aurora;152
10.2;Documenting the Aurora;157
10.3;Materializing the Aurora;160
10.4;The Porous Borders of Science;164
10.5;Notes;166
11;Chapter 8: Going Deeper Underground: Social Cooperation in Early Twentieth-Century Cave Expeditions;171
11.1;Speleology—A Travelling Field of Science;171
11.2;Subterranean Expeditions: Semantics and Politics;173
11.3;Subterranean Expeditions as Social Ventures;176
11.4;Expedition of the Speleological Club of Vienna into the Gassel-Tropfsteinhöhle Cave;179
11.5;Austrian Academy of Science Expedition into the Eisriesenwelt Cave;183
11.6;Conclusion;188
11.7;Notes;190
12;Chapter 9: A Mutual Space? Stereo Photography on Viennese Anthropological Expeditions (1905–45);195
12.1;Introduction;195
12.2;Travel Instructions: Beyond the “Distorting Lens”;196
12.3;Salvage Space: Oceania (1904–6) and South Africa (1907–9);198
12.4;Atavistic Space: The Prisoner-of-War Camps of the First World War (1915–18);201
12.5;Hereditary Space: The German Enclave Marienfeld in Romania (1933–4);204
12.6;Total Space: The Prisoner-of-War Camps of the Second World War (1940–3);207
12.7;Double Take: A Mutual Space?;210
12.8;Notes;212
13;Chapter 10: Traditions, Networks and Deep-Sea Expeditions After 1945;221
13.1;Introduction;221
13.2;Continuing a Tradition of Deep-Sea Expeditions;223
13.3;Going Up, Going Down;229
13.4;Conclusion;236
13.5;Notes;238
14;Chapter 11: It Had to Be Us: Geological Practice, Scientific Authority and Politics in the Expedition to Goa (1960–1);243
14.1;Introduction;243
14.2;Setting the Stage;245
14.3;Arriving and Settling;246
14.4;Conducting Geological Fieldwork in Goa;247
14.5;Making Things Work;250
14.6;Assertion Manoeuvres by the Portuguese Geological Community;252
14.7;Final Remarks;253
14.8;Notes;256
15;Bibliography;262
16;Index;290