Expeditions as Experiments (eBook)

Marianne Klemun is Professor of Modern History and, from 2006 to 2012, Vice Dean of the Faculty of Historical and Cultural Studies at the University of Vienna, Austria. Her publications include (as Guest Editor) ‘Moved Natural Objects: Spaces in Between’ in HOST - Journal of History of Science and Technology, Vol. 5 (2012). Ulrike Spring is Associate Professor of History at the Department of Social Sciences at Sogn og Fjordane University College, Norway, and Researcher in the project 'Making Sense of the Aurora' at the Department of History and Religious Studies at UiT – The Arctic University of Norway. 

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