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Science in Local Context: Interests, Identities, and Knowledge in the Construction of Russian Bacteriology

Issue 3 from 01.09.2001

Based on the study of the Odessa Bacteriological Station (OBS), the paper argues for a concept of local science as a useful analytical tool for understanding the construction of scientific knowledge in regional settings. In examining the Odessa-Paris nexus in the late 19th century, it focuses on the two principal aspects of knowledge construction, namely, the transfer of methods, experimental data, and materials from center to periphery and the local setting of relevant scientific practices. One of the oldest “Pasteur stations” established in Russia for the production and management of the first bacteriological therapeutic, the rabies vaccine. OBS provides a good case in point. The article describes its establishment as a result of negotiated agreement between the scientists, their patrons, and the public over the local utility of bacteriology. The reasons for establishing the station went far beyond the purely economic interests. In fact, bacteriology was perceived as having a wider social utility, embracing such aspects as enhancing the prestige of Odessa and strengthening connections with the West. The key figures in the establishment of OBS included Louis Pasteur, his prominent Russian students Il’ia Mechnikov and Nikolai Gamaleia, and leading members of the city parliament (Duma) and the regional administration (Zemstvo) Liudvig Marovskii and Nikolai Vel’koborskii. Marovskii and Vel’koborskii launched a successful public campaign in support of the station project; Mechnikov and Gamaleia transferred the technique of the vaccine production from Paris to Odessa, and adopted it to the local circumstances;finally, Pasteur’s authority was crucial for wining the acceptance of vaccination methods in Odessa and eventually in Russia as a whole. Thus, the bacteriological knowledge constructed at OBS represented a blending of Parisian and local techniques, microbe cultures, and other relevant instruments. Eventually, the relationships between the Pasteur Institute and OBS took on a reciprocal character: not only the station workers would depend on Pasteur’s advice and methods, but the Parisians would find the pool of experimental results and theoretical generalizations from Odessa to be valuable for refining their own bacteriological programs. Overall, the study indicates the importance of studying local science in its entire context embracing the “ecology” of all the relevant interests and knowledge in local settings.

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