Astrid Schwarz

Lure of the “Yes”: The Seductive Power of Technoscience

What are the forces that determine the development, diffusion and appropriation of emerging technologies? This question becomes particularly pressing and particularly difficult to answer with respect to the current status of nanotechnology. This technoscientific enterprise is marked on the one hand by nearly unanimous endorsement and on the other hand by an apparent absence of power. The following reflections serve to address this challenge by suggesting a suitable theoretical framework that is needed at least to complement extant accounts of power implicit in current regimes of knowledge production. The proposed framework posits a seductively structured space of options. This space is unbounded, and demands no determinations, decisions, claims, or contestations.

The Political Economy of Technoscience

The paper considers how researchers manage matter and energy and how they negotiate space, surface area, and place. They are doing so either by accommodating themselves to limits or by seeking to overcome such limits. To describe this adequately we develop a notion of a political economy of science that follows the distinction by French philosopher Georges Bataille between restricted and general economics. We identify the first with sciences that are constituted by conservation laws whereas the second can be identified with the technosciences that appear to adopt a principle of non-conservation which is exemplified by the ambition to expand resources like “space” or “matter.” The image and theoretical representation of our blue planet is particularly suitable to follow this transgression because it embodies the ambivalence of conserving a limited whole by exceeding and surpassing it. While Heinrich Hertz or Thomas R. Malthus never leave the framework of strict accountancy and lawful nature, the promoters of nano- and ecotechnologies share the creative desire to design machinery, create artwork, expore the globe, or change society. They develop strategies of control that open up a boundless space of technical possibility.

The Fundamental Subdivisions of Ecology

The conceptual foundations of ecology were developed rather independently in different biological fields (McIntosh 1985; Jax 2000; Schwarz 2003), leading early on to an array of subdivisions within the emerging discipline. These subdivisions result in part from research traditions that go back beyond the formation of ecology as a science and in part from new distinctions arising out of specialisations and new emerging topics within ecology. One distinction that was especially important in shaping the character of ecology as a concept was that created between those scientific fields within ecology that dealt with individual organisms and those that dealt with groups of organisms, in particular the distinction between autecology and synecology and, later on, population ecology.

Etymology and Original Sources of the Term “Ecology“

The term “Oecologie” was coined by the German zoologist Ernst Haeckel in 1866 in his book Generelle Morphologie der Organismen. It derives from the Greek “οικοσ” (oikos; house, household, also dwelling place, family) and “λογοσ” (logos; word, language, language of reason).

History of Concepts for Ecology

The Handbook of Ecological Concepts is particularly interested in the ways in which ecological concepts are used. Its main concern is to trace the dynamics and continuity of concepts, that is, to analyse processes of conceptual transformation as well as strategies for rendering concepts robust in both current and historical ecological knowledge. Concepts are not discussed in terms of being either false or true but rather as being more or less appropriate to their intended task.

Prekäre Bilder: Visualisierung in den Umweltwissenschaften

Wir leben in einer Welt, in der Bilder eine geradezu uberwaltigende Prasenz und Attraktivitat haben. Bilder ziehen uns an und ein, Bilder verfuhren und sie leisten Uberzeugungsarbeit, Bilder konnen wahr sein und Bilder konnen lugen. All das gilt nicht nur fur die bebilderte Alltagswelt, sondern auch fur Bilder in der Wissenschaft und hier insbesondere fur solche Bilder, die aus dem engeren disziplinaren Kontext heraustreten und rekontextualisiert werden in anderen wissenschaftlichen, popularwissenschaftlichen oder auch kunstlerisch-asthetischen Zusammenhangen.

Alte Objekte, neue Dinge: Von Wissenschaft zu Technoscience

Was fur den vor einigen Jahren ausgerufenen iconic turn und die Bilder in den Wissenschaften beansprucht wird, liese sich auch fur einen ontological turn und die Dinge oder Forschungsgegenstande geltend machen: Dass die Bilder und die Dinge ins Zentrum kulturhistorischer, wissenschaftssoziologischer und -philosophischer Aufmerksamkeit rucken, verdankt sich nicht nur einem neu erwachten historischen und analytischen Feingefuhl, sondern auch einer aus historischer Sicht geradezu verbluffenden Prominenz der Bilder und der Dinge in der heutigen Forschungspraxis.

Early Ecology in the German-Speaking World Through WWII

The scientific practice and theory of ecology in the German-speaking world arose simultaneously yet independently of each other in different places and in relation to different subjects. The new disciplining perspective took in lakes and fish ponds as well as native forest, heath and mountain landscapes, though it also included the flora and fauna of tropical and arctic regions. “German-speaking world” refers here not so much to an area determined by its political or natural borders but rather by its linguistic boundaries. A lively exchange of publications, objects and individuals took place within this scientific world. Cities and regions belonging to different spheres of political influence were a part of this Sprachraum, which encompassed Zurich, Vienna, Prague, Budapest and Berlin, as well as Bohemia, Silesia and Prussia, the Rhineland and the Valais. Perfect examples of the commonplace exchanges that took place in what we call the “German-speaking world” of that time were the botanists Simon Schwendener and Gottlieb Haberlandt, who were decisive for the formation of physiological plant ecology (see below). Schwendener was born and educated in Switzerland and spent most of his working life in Germany (Tubingen and Berlin; prior to that in Basel, Switzerland); Haberlandt was born in Hungary, educated in Austria and worked for most of his life in Austria (Vienna and Graz), though at times also in Germany (Tubingen and Berlin). So if – for the sake of brevity – we speak of “German” ecology in this chapter, we mean this region as delimited by the common use of the German language as a means of communication.

The Early Period of Word and Concept Formation

The neologism “Oecologie” was coined by German zoologist Ernst Haeckel in 1866. His intention in doing so, however, was not to establish a discipline of “Oecologie” along with its own concepts, theories and practices. Haeckel himself never engaged in “ecological” research, but rather invented the word to identify a hitherto unnamed branch in his system of zoology.This is highlighted by the fact that Haeckel first used the term “Oecologie” in a diagrammatic representation before setting out to explicate it in words (Haeckel 1866, vol.1, p. 238). It was not until around the 1890s that ecology became a “self-conscious” enterprise. Prior to that, the term served more as a focal point to denote certain activities that had been undertaken in disciplines such as zoology, botany, physiology, geography and oceanography, which in turn constituted the diverse roots of what would later be known as “ecology”.

Structure of the Handbook

The Handbook of Ecological Concepts deals with fundamental terms that are or have been of theoretical relevance in scientific ecology. They are discussed using an approach that to some extent builds on the methodology of history of concepts. Approaches using such a methodology were developed during the second half of the twentieth century in various encyclopaedic projects in the fields of history, politics, musicology and philosophy, among others (for a more detailed account, see Schwarz, Chap. 3 this volume). Rather than providing simple definitions and explanations, these approaches seek to trace and reconstruct the dynamics of concept building and conceptual transformation. This is exactly what this Handbook aims to do and is also reflected in the structure of the first volume. The following thoughts are rather provisional but confidently assume that this first volume will be followed by other volumes that allow to unfold the already existing blueprint entirely.