Expeditions as Experiments [electronic resource] : Practising Observation and Documentation /
Klemun, Marianne.editor.
Spring, Ulrike.editor.
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.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
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.
Notes on Contributors; List of Figures; Chapter 1: Expeditions as Experiments: An Introduction; Introduction; Defining Scientific Expeditions; Expeditions as Experiments; Division of Work and Questions of Authority; Scientific Practices: Observation and Documentation; Notes; Chapter 2: An Idea Ahead of Its Time: Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Mobile Botanical Laboratory; Introduction; The Chemical-Experimental Moment; Instruments and Expeditions; The Mobile Botanical Laboratory; Organization; Expeditions Testing the Reports of Others; Conclusion; Notes.
Chapter 3: Experiments and Evolving Frameworks of Scientific Exploration: Jean-Andŕe Peyssonnel's Work on CoralIntroduction; Sources of a Lifelong but Forgotten Scientific Journey on Three Continents; Practical Knowledge Versus Erudition; Observations at Sea and Experiments in the Laboratory; A Pioneering Expedition to North Africa; Power and Authority; Rehabilitation; Conclusion; Notes; Chapter 4: Japanese Ichthyological Objects and Knowledge Gained in Contact Zones by the Krusenstern Expedition; Introduction; Historical Relations Between Japan and Russia.
Scientific Mission of the Krusenstern ExpeditionContact Zones Between Japanese and Europeans; Fish Drawings and Different Perceptions of Fish; Natural Objects as Key for Producing Knowledge: The Langsdorff Collection; Making Use of Japanese Local Knowledge by Western Natural Historians; Producing Scientific Knowledge Based on the Collected Objects; Conclusion; Notes; Chapter 5: Naturalists at Work: Expeditions, Collections and the Creation of "Epistemic Things"; Making Discoveries; Specimens and Epistemic Things, Expeditions and Experiments; Working for the Museum; Travelling; Collecting.
PreservingDebating Nature; Adjusting Knowledge; Notes; Chapter 6: Mary Barber's Expedition Journal: An Experimental Space to Voice Social Concerns; Reception of Women on Expeditions; Wanderings in Science and Society; Advocating for Women's Rights; Constructing Social Order Through Plant Descriptions; Conclusion; Notes; Chapter 7: Materializing the Aurora Borealis: Carl Weyprecht and Scientific Documentation of the Arctic; Observing the Aurora; Documenting the Aurora; Materializing the Aurora; The Porous Borders of Science; Notes.
Chapter 8: Going Deeper Underground: Social Cooperation in Early Twentieth-Century Cave ExpeditionsSpeleology-A Travelling Field of Science; Subterranean Expeditions: Semantics and Politics; Subterranean Expeditions as Social Ventures; Expedition of the Speleological Club of Vienna into the Gassel-Tropfsteinh ohle Cave; Austrian Academy of Science Expedition into the Eisriesenwelt Cave; Conclusion; Notes; Chapter 9: A Mutual Space? Stereo Photography on Viennese Anthropological Expeditions (1905-45); Introduction; Travel Instructions: Beyond the "Distorting Lens."
History.
Technology—History.
History of Science.
History of Technology.