Modern Expeditions: Politics, actors and epistemologies of scientific travel since the nineteenth century

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Christian Kehrt, since 4/2022
• Subject Area: History of Science
• Term: from 2021 to 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 448536748

Expeditions to the deep sea and the sea floor, to the poles and the stratosphere, to deserts and rainforests, to Himalayan glaciers and to space combine spatial expansion and scientific questions. They produce images and narratives that show researchers and the public the historical relationships between humankind, civilization and nature. Such travel ventures lead to non-European spaces that are or seem to be inaccessible, unexplored, dangerous or unknown. However, these spaces are often inhabited, and Western travellers draw on the knowledge and manpower of the inhabitants, or turn them into objects of investigation themselves. In addition, research expeditions today are often big science: enormous technical, logistical and financial efforts are required to bring researchers to remote and extreme environments to collect and process large amounts of data and pursue a wide range of multidisciplinary research questions. “Expedition” thus refers, at the latest since High Modernity, to a thoroughly organised, specialised and often highly technical undertaking. A large number of historically investigated expeditions are faced with a lack of historical synthesis. Synopses are available so far with regard to certain regions or fields of knowledge. By concentrating on three thematic approaches, expeditions are understood as part of modern as well as contemporary and global history: First, we will examine the technopolitics of research expeditions of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Gabrielle Hecht uses the term “technopolitics” to describe how concrete forms and practices of technology, knowledge, and politics are shaped historically in an interdependent manner. Secondly, we will elaborate topoi and narratives that shape the public image of expeditions since the nineteenth century and turn them into media events. Third, we will examine the historical epistemology of research expeditions. For it is largely unclear how the production of (scientific) knowledge, the development of technology and the environments explored relate to one another.The network aims to achieve two results: Firstly, we will complete an English-language volume which will undergo a peer review. Secondly, we will discuss the historical perspectives anchored in the network with extra-university institutions. To this end, the network meetings will be organised in cooperation with a research institute that conducts or has conducted expeditions (German Archaeological Institute Berlin), an archive/library (Gotha Research Library) and a research museum (German Maritime Museum Bremerhaven).

• DFG Programme: Scientific Networks
• Ehemaliger Antragsteller: Dr. Eike-Christian Heine, until 3/2022