Panel Proposal, SIEF Conference, 2008
Exploring Europe through Science and Technology Exhibits
Science and technology are often seen as somehow 'outside' or 'above'
questions of place, community and social identity - in natural science
and sometimes even within ethnology. This panel seeks to challenge this
by looking at how 'Europe' - and other place-based identities within
Europe (e.g. national or local identities) - is imagined, produced and
consumed in public displays of science and technology. In doing so, we
conceive science and technology broadly. Case-studies might include,
for example, world fairs, zoos, trade-fairs or street-performances as
well as museums and science centres, and might address fields such as
anatomy, communications, economics, ethnology, industry, medicine,
natural history, political science or transport. We welcome historical
as well as contemporary examples.
We invite contributions from those who have studied relevant exhibits or
who are reflectively engaged in producing them. The kinds of questions
that contributions might address include: How are identity and place -
especially Europe - configured? What kinds of Europes are being
exhibited - or do other (especially national or civic) identities still
predominate? (How) do such exhibits challenge assumptions about
heritage, identity, and locality? Is there any struggle between
universalist conceptions of science and its 'localisation' or embedding
in identity-projects - and how is it resolved, or not? Do science and
technology (broadly conceived) as topics pose particular exhibitionary
challenges? What roles do European institutions or funding regimes play
in decisions about topic and focus? How do actual processes and demands
of exhibition-making - such as the necessity, for example, to address a
lay audience - shape the ways in which identity, science and technology
are addressed? Which particular exhibitionary strategies, practices or
technologies are enlisted - and with what effects? And what might be
done in future?
By bringing together contributors to explore these and related
questions, this panel aims to liberate the 'ethnological imagination' in
relation to science and technology museums.
Proposed format
Two 90 minute sessions, to include six substantive contributions plus an
introduction and one or two discussants.
Publication possibilities
We will seek publication as a special issue in one of the following
peer-refereed journals with which we have strong links: Anthropological
Journal of European Cultures, museum and society, Science as Culture.
Organisers
Barbara Wenk (Universities of Basel and Hamburg) [log in to unmask]
Morgan Meyer (University of Sheffield) [log in to unmask]
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Sharon Macdonald (University of Manchester) [log in to unmask]
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