ZusammenfassungDer Text schlägt vor, die Entwicklung kollaborativer audiovisueller Wissenspraktiken in der Anthropologie als situiertes und diffraktives Wissen zu verstehen (Haraway, Barad, Smith). Im Durchgang durch einige historische Stationen der Geschichte kollaborativer und partizipativer Projekte wird vorgeschlagen, dass kollaboratives Filmemachen nicht nur eine Dezentrierung einseitiger Autor:innenschaft und einseitiger Repräsentationsmodi ist, sondern auch eine medienspezifische Wissensform, die an soziale Kontexte gebunden und in diese eingebettet ist. Vor dem Hintergrund des Kolonialfilms werden Stationen der Abgrenzung und Versuche der Dekolonisierung des Films beschrieben. Aktuelle (...) Filmexperimente mit marginalisierten Gruppen haben ihren Ursprung in den „shared anthropologies“ (Rouch) und haben diesen Ansatz durch konsequentere Formen des power sharing in Indigenen Kollaborationen und im Fourth Cinema weiterentwickelt. Film kann so auch Amateur:innenwissenspraktiken in kollaborativen Forschungsprojekten abbilden. (shrink)

This article deals with the change in safety requirements and technological possibilities in the course of industrialization by looking at the establishment of street lighting in Bielefeld in the 19th century. As will be shown, the development from oil to gas lanterns coincided with a change in the security needs of the urban middle class. It was the technical possibilities of gas lighting to penetrate the urban space at night that made marginalized groups of people who were perceived as a (...) security risk visible. This, together with the bourgeois internalization of the disciplinary effects of light, made this infrastructure possible in Bielefeld. While the urban populations of the pre-modern and early 19th century were still skeptical or dismissive of lanterns, by the mid-19th century their installation was already part of decidedly urban bourgeois demands for more safety in the areas of personal, economic and traffic safety. The lantern thus changed from an instrument of pre-modern visibility to an instrument of constant visibility in the modern age, which at the same time led to new lines of conflict when the expansion and extension of lighting was not as comprehensive as demanded by the urban bourgeoisie. In addition to the changes and conjunctures of security needs in the course of industrialization, Bielefeld also shows that an internalization of the concept of sovereignty by no means meant the absence of conflict. On the basis of administrative acts and petitions, the history of Bielefeld’s street lighting is placed in a larger transformation of security, technology and urban spatial design from the perspective of historical security research, drawing on Foucoult’s concept of gouvernmentalité. The results show that the history of technology and infrastructure can significantly deepen and contextualize the findings of historical security research. The use and expectations of technology were an essential part of a new understanding of security, as well as the socially segmented organization of urban space through a sometimes precarious alliance of different groups of actors. (shrink)

With the emergence of Olympic internationalism, scholarly networking in East Central Europe came to be dominated by the idea of scholars representing their nations, which replaced the previously leading pattern of private elite scholars with extensive international contacts. This also formalised trans-border contacts, which became increasingly seen as international. In this article, we trace the relationship between these formal and informal networks from the late 19th century to the end of the socialist period, showing that even as formalisation grew, it (...) depended heavily on a variety of informal connections. Even during the period of socialism, when the state sought to control international exchange, scholars used informality to circumvent politically determined constraints. Nevertheless, these informal contacts were not outside the system, but were an integral part of it and depended on formal preconditions. Concentrating on Czechoslovak-Polish relations we argue that in addressing the issue of the relationship between the formal and the informal, a combination of sources must be used, which should then be scrutinised for the stories their authors wish to tell. While archival sources are used for the formal part, oral histories or memoirs reveal the informal part. In East Central Europe, formal sources are likely to ignore informality, especially when it was associated with illegality, whereas ego-documents, especially those produced after 1989, are likely to ignore or downplay connections to the state and overemphasise informality as a means of acting outside politics. Thus, writing the history of informality in socialist scholarship, not only in terms of international contacts but also in terms of everyday practices, is a way of developing counter-narratives to the state-centeredness of current research, which must be linked to a critical study of the contemporary memory of socialist scholarship that shapes the narratives told in oral history. (shrink)

This article examines the impact of the reporting practice andpaper technologieslike forms on reports that were later used for national morbidity statistics by studying the Swiss reporting system for infectious diseases between 1886 and 1921. Analysing the production processes of notifications shows the difficulties and solutions in the implementation of the statutory reporting process. Two disease outbreaks—a smallpox outbreak in Schaffhausen and a typhoid outbreak in the canton of Lucerne—serve as case studies. It is shown that reports are not only (...) objective representations of diseases, but also symbolize the medico-social interactions that produce them, timed by administrative tools like reporting forms and the act of reporting. This destabilises historical statistics and illustrates the complexity of the historical source material, as these interactions and their impact on reporting must be considered. These findings are further supported by examining the Swiss reporting system during the Spanish flu of 1918 and its failure to record influenza cases. (shrink)