General Information

STEP ("Science and Technology in the European Periphery") was founded in Barcelona in 1999, and gathers around 90 historians of science from all over Europe with a special interest in the role of Science and Technology in countries outside the "big three" (France, Germany, and Britain). The group held meetings in Lisbon (2000), on Scientific Travels; Aegina, Greece (2002), on textbooks and science teaching in the periphery; and Aarhus, Denmark (2004), on the role of history of science in the construction of nationals identities in peripheral countries.

Aims of the meeting

During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the creation of a public space for legitimisation of the scientific endeavour outside the hitherto secluded community of natural philosophers addressed a narrowly defined public, which belonged to the upper classes of society, the so-called gentlemen of science. Science began penetrating a wider public, nevertheless it remained confined to a small, privileged minority. It was during the nineteenth century that scientific activity became accessible to a public beyond an elitist sphere. And it was during that century that the term ‘popularisation of science’ was first coined, where behind ‘popular’ one could detect a wide and heterogeneous public that was not identified in a single group of people. Although ‘popular science’ is inherently public, we must distinguish it from the notion of ‘public science’ that usually accounts for the increasing proliferation of public demonstrations that date from the seventeenth century onwards.[1]

 Since a vast majority of peripheral countries in Europe have never had a Newton, a Darwin or an Einstein, the historical analysis of their scientific culture through the study of the spread of scientific ideas in the local contexts seems a more rewarding approach than a history based on the search of great luminaries. For what kind of audiences and what kind of images of science were spread by peripheral working scientists and early popularisers from the late eighteenth century, when the public sphere emerged, until the late twentieth century, characterized by a mass information society?

 Although the popularisation of science in the so-called ‘centres’ of Europe has received more attention from historians than that of the ‘peripheries’, comparative studies, might shed more light on the emergence of different scientific cultures. Popular science and technology in the European periphery is one of the fertile arenas for the study of the appropriation and use of scientific ideas and practices. By pointing out differences and similarities of the popularisation of science and technology in different countries, we might be able to build a more detailed account on our cultures of science through different levels of analysis. This will be the main aim for our next STEP meeting. 

The uses of popularisation of science and technology in the periphery

 Peripheral scientists, educated under the influence of the scientific elites of the centres, often favoured uncritical and hagiographic accounts. They perceived popularisation as a fundamental tool to strengthen the scientific culture of the country. Critical statements were usually considered dangerous for the success of this endeavour.[2] The intellectual authority of foreign experts was often uncritically accepted, and the core of science of the centre was automatically transmitted to a popularisation genre. The uncritical reception of science of the centre tinges popularisation in the periphery with supposed “non-political, neutral, objective accounts” that often praised international authority. From that perspective, first came the assimilation and spreading of science “as it is”, and only when the peripheral scientific culture reached enough maturity, did debate and open discussion on the issues involved appear.[3]

 As a result, popularisation in the periphery played an important role as a strategy for legitimating the main values and ideas of the scientific culture of the centre, to strengthen Hilgartner’s thesis on the dominant view that emphasizes the paradox of the use of a popular scientific genre to actually reinforce working scientists’ authority and intellectual control of the audiences.[4] In that sense, the success of the great names of the scientific centres could be precisely checked through the analysis of popularisation in the periphery.[5]

 The uncritical and hagiographical accounts offered to strengthen the scientific culture of the periphery. However, there are other agendas behind the popularisation of science as well. There are political agendas (i.e. in France the republicans sought through the popularisation of science to emancipate the public and promote a secular society), religious agendas (In France -again- Catholic writers saw in the popularisation the means to promote their ideas on the reconciliation of science and religion), metaphysical agendas (i.e. Flammarion’s popular astronomy aimed at supporting spiritualism), moralistic agendas etc. We should not forget the creative aspect of popularisation, and hence the independent nature of the process (not merely copying) going on in different local environments, including centres and peripheries. A local populariser talking, for instance, about Newton was not only explaining Newton's scientific achievements, but usually picked out those aspects which were relevant for science and scientific careers in his own locality.

 Were there other agendas in the popularisation of science and technology in the Periphery of Europe apart from promoting a scientific culture? Popularisation practices in the periphery are also historically relevant to analyse particular strategies of local political and economic elites. It informs us about strategies for the control of the public sphere in which science and technology plays an important role.[6] As we know, activities of provincial scientific societies across Europe from the Enlightenment onwards were often designed for the improvement of the arts and manufactures of a specific locality, but also for legitimating the social prestige and political control of the local elites. Moreover, popularisation in the periphery also played key roles in nationalist projects. Here, local
national science deserve our attention as these open up onto a range of issues that are central for our enterprise: gaining authority and resources for science and scientists, the role of scientists and other academics in creating or 'modernizing' nation states, etc.

 Along the nineteenth century, it was extended to the “necessary” control of the working classes through technical education plans, popular science courses, experiments and scientific literature: a “science for all” circulated widely in peripheral countries, often translating the great names of the popularisation of the centre (Flammarion, Figuier, Verne, Wells. etc.).[7] In addition, public health and hygiene campaigns required specific strategies for the appropriation and popularisation of medical theories to local habits and cultural values.

 Expert and lay culture in the periphery

 Peripheral scientists played a very important role in the making and circulation of scientific literature, but often without establishing a clear distinction between the works of the experts and the popular accounts, nor between savants and vulgarisateurs. Under the banner of the utilitarian virtues of science to be applied to arts and manufactures, academies, agricultural societies, libraries, clubs, etc., used to organise frequent open sessions that gathered a large range of audiences.[8] B. Bensaude and A. Rasmussen stated that popularisation in peripheral countries often does not make a clear distinction between the experts’ and the laymen accounts.[9] In their view, the transformation of a scientific journal into a popularisation periodical might be considered as a survival strategy in the fragile institutional contexts of the periphery.[10] As Terry Shinn and Richard Whitley clearly stated in their book Expository Science, even in leading scientific centres there is not a precise distinction between experts’ and laymen’s accounts. We are usually dealing with a continuum of communication strategies from top international research journals to very popular texts, without a defined epistemological frontier, which could be even subtler in the periphery.[11] Along the same line, in the periphery, the frontier between amateurs and professionals is harder to establish. We should not forget that popularisation was often perceived as an important income source for peripheral University professors with low salaries and poor institutional recognition. In other cases, however, professional scientists – medical doctors, in particular - expressed their reluctances to make science ‘too popular’.

 In that context we should take into account different actors, sites and practices of popularisation: popularisers, publishers, audiences, as well as the nature and content of popular science. There have been studies that have drawn more or less distinct lines between the different groups of popularisers (at least in the European centres):[12] a. Scientists who popularised science: This was a side activity beyond research and teaching that was generated by various motives. For example, for some scientists popularisation was a way to impose their own contested theories to society. (i.e. Pasteur vs. Pouchet); b. A second group of popularisers that was also distinct from the ‘professional’ popularisers was the one composed of engineers and technicians. Their interests were confined to their particular domain and the themes chosen were usually drawn from the industrial sector and the latest developments of technology. (i.e. in France see journals La vie souterraine and Les mines et les mineurs); c. Professional popularisers: They all came from very diverse backgrounds. However, all of them were prolific and talented writers with an intense interest in the sciences; an intriguing mixture of journalists, storytellers and, essayists.[13] Their interests usually extended to more than one scientific field. Their activities were also various and diversified. They directed journals of popular science, wrote and published articles in the general press, collaborated with publishing houses, produced their own books. Were there such or equivalent groups and sub-groups of popularisers in the periphery? How can we define the distinction between professional and occasional popularisers in our peripheral contexts?

 A popular lecture on agricultural chemistry for farmers is not merely about teaching, but also about convincing, transforming, modernising. In this process many actors are involved: the state or some local authority, farmers' associations, the food industry, local teachers or professional lecturers, university professors, wealthy and poor farmers, scientific societies, local elites, etc. Therefore, popularisation is not just an interaction between science and the public, but a complex interplay between a large number of actors.  

The historical sources of popular science and technology

 Writing the history of popularisation practices in the European periphery implies a necessary recovery of an enormous bibliographical heritage: popular scientific books, science fiction novels, popular scientific journals, articles in the everyday press, pamphlets, publications and archival material of national and international exhibitions, public celebrations and homage’s to local scientists, public debates on the acceptance or resistance to important theories such as Darwinism or even to controversial practices such as Phrenology. This will probably be a first step towards a more refined historiographical interpretation of the role that popular science has historically played in the periphery of Europe both in terms of appropriating the main scientific doctrines of the centres and also in relation to the interests of local political, economic and intellectual elites. 

The popularisation of science and technology in its printed form is closely related to the rise and development of the book. The history of the printed popular works co-evolved with the history of the press and publishing. During the mid-nineteenth-century, in the European centres, mass production reduced the price of books, making them accessible to a wider public, whereas new techniques of printing, such as the monotype and the linotype, as well as the development of illustration rendered books more attractive. This great diffusion of popular books should also be credited to the publishers who were also driven by a commercial logic. The mechanized production of printed material and its efficient diffusion thanks to the major improvements in the transport system, i.e. railways, were some of the effects of the industrial revolution. Was there an analogous development in the countries of the European periphery? What were the material constraints for the take off of the popularisation of science and technology?

 The mid-nineteenth-century witnessed the establishment of the popularisation of science and technology both as an emerging profession, and as a special section of the publishing activities of editorial houses. Publishing houses driven by the financial interest and following commercial strategies aimed at the enlargement of the market of popular science. Indicative are the gradual changes that occurred in the physical character of the popular science editions, which now tended to be more attractively laid-out and better illustrated with corresponding improvements in the quality of the paper and the binding. Moreover, a characteristic feature of the period was the diversification of the product, namely the edition of the same oeuvre in various formats, sold accordingly in various prices and addressed therefore to a heterogeneous public. What was the role of publishers in the periphery of Europe?

 Nevertheless, we should not forget that books were often destined for a particular bourgeois audience, which could exclude farmers or workers (or audiences in remote areas), who were reached by other means: oral lectures, meetings, free pamphlets, natural history museums, and botanical and zoological gardens, but also by school activities, scientific societies, inauguration of statues, trade fairs, etc. Local primary sources that inform us about these popularisation practices are also extremely valuable in our project.

 Questions

 The papers of our meeting analyse new case studies and answer some general questions such as:

1. What kind of images of science was spread in the periphery, and for what kind of audiences? In terms of ‘popular epistemology’, what do we know about the reaction of the audiences?

2. Which were the intended aims of popularisation and the criteria to legitimate it? Were there other agendas apart from promoting a scientific culture?

3. What about the distinction between expert and lay accounts in peripheral countries?

4. What made actors, sites and practices of popularisation specifically peripheral?

5. What can we say about the documentary evidences (primary sources) of popularisation in our peripheral countries?

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