‘Equal though different’: laboratories, museums and the institutional development of biology in late-Victorian Northern England

Kraft, Alison; Alberti, Samuel J.M.M.

doi:10.1016/s1369-8486(03)00025-6

Cited by 16 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…In particular, he refers to three subjects that shaped the main discussions that took place in Europe around biology: form (understood from cell theory and the development of individuals), function (from the idea of the "animal machine"), and transformation (with particular emphasis on the role of Darwin's ideas). More recently, in historiographical terms, the history of biology has focused on reconstructing localised episodes, both geographically (Alberti, 2001(Alberti, , 2005Kraft, Alberti, 2003) and theoretically (Morgan, 1980;Kraft, 2004;Erlingsson, 2009Erlingsson, , 2013Button, 2018). This paper intends to follow a historiographical line that, beyond seeking to understand biology in a broad sense, will attempt to reconstruct a scientific practice that emerged as part of the interaction between scientific and political interests in a specific geographical context, namely Great Britain in the second half of the nineteenth century.…”

Section: The Institutionalisation Of Biology In the Britishmentioning

confidence: 99%

The institutionalisation of biology in the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1866-1894

Caso

2022

Hist. cienc. saude-Manguinhos

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Biology, like most scientific disciplines, emerged in the nineteenth century. However, disciplinary institutionalisation processes are not linear; a concept can be proposed, but not develop. Biology originated in the presence of established traditions such as anatomy, physiology, botany, and zoology, which represent the thematic and practical diversity under which it was understood. Based on the records of the annual meetings of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, the process by which biology emerged will be described. We will also recount how the discipline underwent changes throughout the century, where contrasting methodologies and theories were emphasized at different times.

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Section: The Institutionalisation Of Biology In the Britishmentioning

confidence: 99%

The institutionalisation of biology in the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1866-1894

Caso

2022

Hist. cienc. saude-Manguinhos

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“…Livingstone (2003: 42) writes that the field, for instance, is 'an open space […] less easily defined, bounded, and policed than its intramural counterparts like the laboratory or the museum'. In a similar vein, it has been argued that 'cultural translation remains a persistent and pervasive possibility in the field sciences, far more than in the laboratory disciplines' and that relationships between professionals and amateurs in field sciences 'have almost no parallel in the laboratory sciences' (Kuklick and Kohler 1996: 4, see also Kraft and Alberti 2003). Perhaps, with the rise of synthetic biology and do-it-yourself biology, the laboratory can now also potentially become a place of 'cultural translation' between amateurs and professionals.…”

Section: Spaces and Boundaries Of Amateur Sciencementioning

confidence: 99%

Domesticating and democratizing science: A geography of do-it-yourself biology

Meyer

2013

Journal of Material Culture

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By turning private homes and community spaces into sites where biological experimentation can be carried out, do-it-yourself biology promises a democratization of science. This democratization is based upon material processes: efforts to increase the affordability, the accessibility and the mutability of scientific equipment can be observed. In particular, do-it-yourself biology relies on 'creative workarounds' around objects (to transform and combine them in novel ways) and around institutions (to circumvent established university-industry business linkages). By tinkering with objects and by sharing knowledge via various communicative deviceswebsites, blogs, wikis, forums, videosdo-ityourself biologists aim to create a new, collective and open economy of scientific equipment and render biology more accessible to citizens. A distinct form of individuality is constituted by providing people access, transforming them into active makers of science, making their bodies/aliments more knowable and demonstrating that one can do it oneself. Do-it-yourself biology thus offers a site for exploring the ethics, the boundaries and new forms of sociability for biology.

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“…Last, it is common to argue in the history of science that the museum used to be the characteristic locus of scholarship and research until the nineteenth century but that, over time, laboratories came to displace this role (Forgan 1994). Of course, the laboratory has not eclipsed the museum; rather it has supplemented it (Kraft and Alberti 2003), and there are still continuities between the museum and laboratory traditions. To put it another way, museums and laboratories are 'equal though different' (Kraft and Alberti 2003).…”

Section: ! "#*!mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Of course, the laboratory has not eclipsed the museum; rather it has supplemented it (Kraft and Alberti 2003), and there are still continuities between the museum and laboratory traditions. To put it another way, museums and laboratories are 'equal though different' (Kraft and Alberti 2003). One of the key differences is arguably the distance between the expert and the layperson, and between science and the public.…”

Section: ! "#*!mentioning

confidence: 99%

Researchers on display: moving the laboratory into the museum

Meyer

2011

Museum Management and Curatorship

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International audienceAn intriguing development is taking place in several European science museums: the move of university research laboratories into the space accessible to visitors. Seen as a means to encourage the public understanding of research and to render research practice more accessible to visitors, such laboratories-in-the-museum have been set up in museums in Munich, Berlin, Milan and Gothenburg. This paper is concerned with the changes that the laboratory undergoes through this relocation - namely a transformation of its social and material architecture; an extension of its object-world; and a change in, and multiplication of, the roles of researchers. The laboratory-in-the-museum not only represents, displays and explains a particular kind of space - the laboratory - but it is also designed to create space for dialogue and discussion between researchers and visitors

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‘Equal though different’: laboratories, museums and the institutional development of biology in late-Victorian Northern England

Cited by 16 publications

References 37 publications

The institutionalisation of biology in the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1866-1894

The institutionalisation of biology in the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1866-1894

Domesticating and democratizing science: A geography of do-it-yourself biology

Researchers on display: moving the laboratory into the museum

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