Abstract
Much recent work on the nature, making, and reception of scientific knowledge and its variant disciplines—including geography—has drawn attention to the importance of the spatial setting (for summaries, see Finnegan, 2008; Livingstone, 1995, 2003; Naylor, 2005; Powell, 2007; Shapin, 1998; Smith & Agar, 1998; Withers, 2001, pp. 1–28; Withers, 2002). Some of this research investigates the diverse sites of science’s production, such as the ship (Sorrenson, 1996), the botanic garden (Spary, 2000), or the laboratory (Kohler, 2002). Some of it concentrates on the sites of science’s reception, including the different social spaces of scientific reading and translation (Rupke, 1999; Secord, 2000). Still other studies tackle questions to do with the mobility of science (Secord, 2004) and the performance of science, including its oratorical cultures and speech sites (Livingstone, 2007; Secord, 2007).
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Acknowledgment
I am grateful to the editors for the invitation to contribute an essay to this volume and to the referee for thoughtful comments on an earlier draft, to the Bodleian Library and the British Association for the Advancement of Science for permission to quote from documents in their care, and to the staff of numerous archives and university libraries holding BAAS material for their assistance. This paper is the result of an ESRC-funded research grant entitled “Geography and the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1831–1933” (ESRC Ref RES-000-23-0927), and it is a pleasure to acknowledge this support.
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Withers, C.W.J. (2010). Geographies of Science and Public Understanding? Exploring the Reception of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in Britain and in Ireland, c.1845–1939. In: Meusburger, P., Livingstone, D., Jöns, H. (eds) Geographies of Science. Knowledge and Space, vol 3. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-8611-2_10
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