mode 1/mode 2 and science museums
In the last issue of Nordisk Museologi (Journal of Nordic Museums and Museology), Kristian Hvidtfeldt Nielsen from the Steno Institute in Aarhus argues that science museums today are caught in a paradox.
On the one hand museums wish to establish two-way interactions with the public about science and its relations with culture and society in a mode-2 fashion, á la Gibbons et al. (1994) On the other hand, he says, science museums are often based on a mode-1 understanding of science, i.e., as academic, investigator-initiated and discipline-based knowledge production.
Nielsen finds this problematic, and — since he is apparently a supporter of mode-2 knowledge production — suggests that science museums ought to be recreated ”in interaction with similar transformation processes in the mode-2 society” (p. 40, my transl.) to emphasise the close interaction between science and society.
Apart from the un-historical and politically contested character of Gibbons et al.’s popular mode-1/mode-2 distinction, Nielsen’s suggestion is quite interesting. What would a mode-2 science museum actually look like? And more importantly: Who would be the owner and thus basically set the agenda? Can a mode-2 science museum be owned and administered by a university that (still) operates under mode-1 conditions?
Or is Nielsen actually suggesting that science museums should be transferred to business corporations or government organisations to enhance their focus on mode-2 knowledge production?
24 Apr 2007 Thomas
Ever since the publication of Gibbons et el. (1994), the distinction between mode-1 and -2 knowledge production has been a political tool - and, obviously, still is. Thinking about the science center as a site of mode-2 knowledge production and communication is perhaps not as easy as I had imagined. To me, the idea of the science as context-driven, problem-focused and interdisciplinary - as opposed to academic, investigator-initiated, and discipline-based - is not so much a vision for science museums in the furture as a way of capturing recent developments within the field of science museums and science centers, cf. Sharon Macdonald, 1998, “Supermarket science? Consumers and the public understanding of science” in S. Macdonald, ed., The Politics of Display (Routledge, London, 1998).
I accept Nowotny et al’s (2001) description of the advent of the mode-2 society and therefore believe that increasing mode-2-fication of science museums is necessary, even desirable. Does this entail venturing into new colloborations with non-scientific partners such as business corporations and government organizations? To a large extent, I think that is fairly unproblematic to state that these things have already happened. In the process, the “ownership” of the museum is decentered leaving museum managers and curators with uncertainty and possible destabilization.
However, I do not think that this necessarily is a bad thing. I think the museum faces the challenge of defining what it means to become more socially robust, i.e. how to engage a broader public - and not only as sponsors or audiences, but rather as a genuine museum public, i.e. groups of people concerned with and involved in the development of the museum.