Scientists' Expertise as Performance: Between State and Society, 1860-1960

256 Pages·2015·1.902 MB·English

by  Evert Peeters

SCIENTISTS’ EXPERTISE AS PERFORMANCE:
BETWEEN STATE AND SOCIETY, 1860–1960
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History and Philosophy of Technoscience
Series Editor: Alfr ed Nordmann
Titles in this Series
1 Error and Uncertainty in Scientifi c Practice
Marcel Boumans, Giora Hon and Arthur C. Petersen (eds)
2 Experiments in Practice
Astrid Schwarz
3 Philosophy, Computing and Information Science
Ruth Hagengruber and Uwe Riss (eds)
4 Spaceship Earth in the Environmental Age, 1960–1990
Sabine Höhler
5 Th e Future of Scientifi c Practice: ‘Bio-Techno-Logos’
Marta Bertolaso (ed.)
Forthcoming Titles
Th e Mysterious Science of the Sea, 1775–1943
Natascha Adamowsky
Standardization in Measurement: Philosophical, Historical and
Sociological Issues
Oliver Schlaudt and Lara Huber (eds)
Error and Uncertainty in Scientifi c Practice
Marcel Boumans, Giora Hon and Arthur C. Petersen (eds)
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SCIENTISTS’ EXPERTISE AS PERFORMANCE:

BETWEEN STATE AND SOCIETY, 1860–1960
Edited by
Joris Vandendriessche, Evert Peeters and Kaat Wils
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First published 2015 by Pickering & Chatto (Publishers) Limited
Published 2016 by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© Taylor & Franc is 2015
© Joris Vandendriessche, Evert Peeters and Kaat Wils 2015
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relevant copyright holders and to clear any relevant copyright issues.
Any omissions that come to their attention will be remedied in future editions.
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british library cataloguing in publication data
Scientists’ expertise as performance: between state and
society, 1860–1960. – (History and philosophy of technoscience)
1. Science – Social aspects – History. 2. Expertise – Social aspects – History.
I. Series II. Vandendriessche, Joris, editor. III. Peeters, Evert editor.
IV. Wils, Kaat editor.
303.4'83'09-dc23
ISBN-13: 978-1-84893-527-3 (hbk)
Typeset by Pickering & Chatto (Publishers) Limited

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CONTENTS
Acknowledgements vii
List of Contributors ix
List of Figures xv
Introduction: Performing Expertise – Joris Vandendriessche, Evert Peeters
and Kaat Wils 1
Part I: Setting the Scene – Experts and their Public
1 Ethnicity, Expertise and Authority: Th e Cases of Lewis Howard
Latimer, William Preece and John Tyndall – Graeme Gooday 15
2 Arbiters of Science: Expertise in Public Health in Nineteenth-
Century Belgian Medical Societies – Joris Vandendriessche 31
3 Borderless Nature: Experts and the Internationalization of Nature
Protection, 1890–1940 – Raf de Bont 49
Part II: Science as a Belief – Experts and Social Reform
4 Th e Hour of the Experts?: Refl ections on the Rise of Experts in
Interbellum Europe – Martin Kohlrausch 67
5 Th e Psychiatrist as the Leader of the Nation: Psycho-Political
Expertise aft er the German Revolution, 1918–19 – David Freis 81
6 Contested Modernity: A.G. Doiarenko and the Trajectories of
Agricultural Expertise in Late Imperial and Soviet Russia
– Katja Bruisch 99
Part III: Diplomatic Strategists – National Government and Expert Ambitions
7 Th e Rise of the Scientist-Diplomat within British Atomic Energy,
1945–55 – Martin Th eaker 115
8 Th e Reform Technocrats: Th e Strategists of the Swedish Welfare
State, 1930–60 – Per Lundin and Niklas Stenlås 135
Part IV: Objectifi cation – Expertise and its Discontents
9 Rationalization Comes to Rome: Expertise in Labour Management
at the Th ird International Congress, 1927
– Jennifer Karns Alexander 147
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vi Scientists’ Expertise as Performance: Between State and Society, 1860–1960
10 Scientifi c Expertise in Child Protection Policies and Juvenile
Justice Practices in Twentieth-Century Belgium – Margo De Koster
and David Niget 161
11 Expertise and Trust in Dutch Individual Health Care
– Frank Huisman 173
Notes 191
Index 233
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Th is volume is the result of the work of a group of historians who came from dif-
ferent subfi elds to the history of expertise. Its foundations were laid during the
international conference Between Autonomy and Engagement. Performances of
Scientifi c Expertise, 1860–1960 which took place in Leuven, Belgium, from 21
to 23 May 2012. Th e conference was organized by the Research Group Cultural
History since 1750 of the University of Leuven, and the Leuven Interdisciplinary
Platform for the Study of the Sciences (LIPSS). It was fi nanced by the Research
Foundation Flanders (FWO), the Faculty of Arts of the University of Leuven,
the Leuven OJO fund for the support of young researchers and the Academische
Stichting Leuven. We would like to thank all of the participants in the confer-
ence and in the LIPSS reading group on scientifi c expertise. Th eir refl ections
regarding the concept of ‘expertise’ have been invaluable in the further develop-
ment of the volume. We are grateful to the contributors to this volume for their
continuing intellectual engagement and their valuable suggestions during the
publishing process. We would like to express our gratitude to all those involved
in the process of creating, producing and fi nishing this book.
– vii –
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LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
Katja Bruisch is a research fellow at the German Historical Institute in Mos-
cow. Her fi elds of research include the history of science and knowledge with a
focus on the history of economic thought. She also has a strong interest in the
rural and environmental history of late Imperial and Soviet Russia. Her publica-
tions include Als das Dorf noch Zukunft war. Agrarismus und Expertise zwischen
Zarenreich und Sowjetunion (Köln et al.: Böhlau, 2014); Bol’shaia voina Rossii:
Sotsial’nyi poriadok, publichnaia kommunikatsiia i nasilie na rubezhe tsarskoi i
sovetskoi ėpokh (Moscow: Novoe Literaturnoe Obozrenie, 2014), co-edited
with N. Katzer, and ‘Historicizing Chaianov. Intellectual and Scientifi c Roots
of the Th eory of Peasant Economy’, in D. Müller and A. Harre (eds), Jahrbuch
für Geschichte des ländlichen Raums (Special Issue: Transforming Rural Societies.
Agrarian Property and Agrarianism in East Central Europe in the Nineteenth and
Twentieth Centuries, 2010), pp. 96–113.
Raf de Bont is Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at
Maastricht University. His research interest concerns the history of science in
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He has published particularly on sci-
entifi c ecology and nature protection, the relation between laboratory and fi eld
biology, the interaction between the social and the life sciences, and the repre-
sentation of science (and scientists) in culture at large. His latest book, Stations
in the Field: A History of Place-Based Animal Research, 1870–1930, will be pub-
lished in 2015 with the University of Chicago Press (Chicago, IL).
Margo De Koster is part-time Professor at the Criminology Department of
the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Lecturer in Historical Criminology at the Vrije
Universiteit Amsterdam and Vice-Coordinator of the Belgian research network
‘Justice & Populations: Th e Belgian Experience in International Perspective,
1795–2015’ (Belgian Science Policy Offi ce, 2012–17). She conducts historical-
criminological research on juvenile delinquency and juvenile justice, girls and
women in criminal justice, urban policing and transgressive uses of urban public
space. She is a member of the editorial board of the journal, Crime, History &
Societies / Crime, Histoire et Sociétés.
– ix –
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