In recent years, the history of science and adjacent fields have shifted from a focus on individual scientists and formal scientific societies to considering larger communities of practice as instrumental in making knowledge. At the same time, we have moved away from histories of individual scientific disciplines – such as physics, chemistry, and biology – to examinations of knowledge formation, construction and the co-mingling of different types of practices. As our understanding of science has moved into the field from the salon and laboratory, and as these fields have become increasingly varied and global, more and more individuals, objects, animals and plants, have been enrolled in the practice of making science. This workshop seeks to make visible 'the knowledge and skills of the people who had collected specimens for their masters or for the market … and the local meanings of objects wrenched from one context and reassigned to another'. [1]
In particular, the workshop will focus on the role of labour in making knowledge and scientific practice. This includes the labour of people who did not see themselves as 'scientists' or 'natural historians', such as sailors who collected natural-history specimens, artists who sketched plants and animals, and Indigenous peoples who, among other things, enabled scientific expeditions to survive in unfamiliar environments, operate their instruments and trace changes of climate. Additionally, we will consider papers examining the work of artists and artisans in both shaping and disseminating this knowledge. In so doing, we will address in conversations throughout the workshop methodological issues that present themselves with this expansion in the global reach of science and the corresponding expansion of the nature of scientific practice.
We invite submissions along the lines of the following questions, among others:
- How do we write these less-visible histories? How do archival concerns, including gaps, silences and absences, shape how this labour can be traced? What other sources outside of the archive can be enrolled in making everyday labour visible?
- How does tracing 'everyday' labour reveal the dis:connections and erasures in stories of global circulation and knowledge making?
- How does a focus on 'everyday' labour complicate older debates about professional and amateur contributions to scientific practice?
- How does a focus on communities and 'everyday' forms of labour help counter or reframe the 'great-man' or 'lone-genius' narratives still prevalent in the history of science and global knowledge making?
While primarily historical in its methodological focus, this workshop also welcomes contributions from adjacent disciplines, including art history, anthropology, geography and literary studies. Papers from both early career and more established researchers dealing with the questions about everyday labour and knowledge-making practices from the 17th to the 21st centuries in any part of the world are welcome.
The workshop will take place in person on 25 and 26 February 2026 at the Käte Hamburger Research Centre in Munich. Meals and accommodation will be provided for the duration of the workshop, and we may subsidise travel costs where required.
If you are interested in contributing a paper, please send your proposal (including your name, institutional affiliation, place of residence and title of the paper; abstract no longer than 500 words) and a one-page CV to the conveners at the following addresses by 15 October 2026: koslund@towson.edu and lachlan.fleetwood@gmail.com.
[1] Adriana Craciun and Mary Terrall, Curious Encounters: Voyaging, Collecting, and Making Knowledge in the Long Eighteenth Century (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2019), 12.