Overview
- Examines a variety of case studies and demonstrates how expeditions have uniquely contributed to scientific understanding where the laboratory could not
- Presents the traditional expedition as a variation of the laboratory environment for scientific discoveries
- Explores the ways expeditions have contributed to modern scientific analysis
Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in the History of Science and Technology (PSHST)
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Table of contents (11 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Keywords
About this book
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.
Editors and Affiliations
About the editors
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.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Expeditions as Experiments
Book Subtitle: Practising Observation and Documentation
Editors: Marianne Klemun, Ulrike Spring
Series Title: Palgrave Studies in the History of Science and Technology
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58106-8
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan London
eBook Packages: History, History (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-137-58105-1Published: 20 December 2016
Softcover ISBN: 978-1-349-84534-7Published: 02 January 2019
eBook ISBN: 978-1-137-58106-8Published: 18 October 2016
Series ISSN: 2730-972X
Series E-ISSN: 2730-9738
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XI, 294
Number of Illustrations: 1 b/w illustrations, 5 illustrations in colour
Topics: History of Science, History of Technology