2017 Book MobilitiesOfKnowledge PDF

Heike Jöns · Peter Meusburger
Michael Heffernan
Editors
Klaus Tschira Symposia Knowledge and Space 10
Mobilities of
Knowledge
Knowledge and Space
Volume 10
Series editor
Peter Meusburger, Department of Geography, Heidelberg University, Heidelberg,
Germany
Knowledge and Space
This book series entitled “Knowledge and Space” is dedicated to topics dealing with
the production, dissemination, spatial distribution, and application of knowledge.
Recent work on the spatial dimension of knowledge, education, and science;
learning organizations; and creative milieus has underlined the importance of s patial
disparities and local contexts in the creation, legitimation, diffusion, and application
of new knowledge. These studies have shown that spatial disparities in knowledge
and creativity are not short-term transitional events but rather a fundamental
structural element of society and the economy.
The volumes in the series on Knowledge and Space cover a broad range of topics
relevant to all disciplines in the humanities and social sciences focusing on
knowledge, intellectual capital, and human capital: clashes of knowledge; milieus
of creativity; geographies of science; cultural memories; knowledge and the
economy; learning organizations; knowledge and power; ethnic and cultural

dimensions of knowledge; knowledge and action; and mobilities of k nowledge.
These topics are analyzed and discussed by scholars from a range of disciplines,
schools of thought, and academic cultures.
Knowledge and Space is the outcome of an agreement concluded by the Klaus
Tschira Foundation and Springer in 2006.
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/7568

Heike Jöns • Peter Meusburger
Michael Heffernan
Editors
Mobilities of Knowledge
Editors
Heike Jöns Peter Meusburger
Department of Geography Department of Geography
Loughborough University Heidelberg University
Loughborough, Leicestershire, Heidelberg, Germany
United Kingdom
Michael Heffernan
School of Geography
University of Nottingham
Nottingham, Nottinghamshire,
United Kingdom
ISSN 1877-9220
Knowledge and Space
ISBN 978-3-319-44653-0 ISBN 978-3-319-44654-7 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-44654-7
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016959460
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017. This book is published open access.
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Acknowledgments
The editors thank the Klaus Tschira Stiftung for funding the symposia and the
Knowledge and Space book series. The staff of the Klaus Tschira Stiftung and
Studio Villa Bosch have been crucially important for these symposia. Together with
all the authors in this volume, we are especially grateful to James Bell for his tire-
less dedication as technical editor. Volker Schniepp in the Department of Geography
at Heidelberg University and Mark Szegner in the Department of Geography at
Loughborough University were enormously helpful in ensuring that the figures and
maps met the publication standards. We also thank the students of Heidelberg
University’s Department of Geography who helped to organize the tenth sympo-
sium and prepare this publication, especially Helen Dorn, Claudia Kämper, Andreas
Kalström, Laura Krauß, Julia Lekander, Solveig Liekefett, Pia Liepe, Anna Mateja
Schmidt, Florence Wieder, and Angela Zissmann. We dedicate this volume to the
late Klaus Tschira (1940–2015) to express our sincere gratitude for his outstanding
long-term support of research and knowledge exchange in geography and associ-
ated disciplines.
v
Contents
1 Mobilities of Knowledge: An Introduction............................................ 1

Heike Jöns, Michael Heffernan, and Peter Meusburger
Part I Circulation, Transfer, and Adaptation

2 Spatial Mobility of Knowledge: Communicating Different
Categories of Knowledge......................................................................... 23
Peter Meusburger
3 Papermaking: The Historical Diffusion of an Ancient
Technique.................................................................................................. 51
Jonathan M. Bloom
4 Circulating Seditious Knowledge: The “Daring Absurdities,
Studied Misrepresentations, and Abominable Falsehoods”
of William Macintosh............................................................................... 67
Innes M. Keighren
5 Exploration as Knowledge Transfer: Exhibiting
Hidden Histories...................................................................................... 85
Felix Driver
6 The Imprecise Wanderings of a Precise Idea: The Travels
of Spatial Analysis.................................................................................... 105
Trevor Barnes and Carl Christian Abrahamsson
7 Knowledges in Disciplines and Cities: An Essay
on Relations Between Archaeology and Social Sciences....................... 123
Peter J. Taylor
vii
viii Contents
Part II Mediators, Networks, and Learning

8 Collaboration and Knowledge Exchange between
Scholars in Britain and the Empire, 1830–1914.................................... 141
Heather Ellis
9 Geographies of Selection: Academic Appointments
in the British Academic World, 1850–1939............................................ 157
Tamson Pietsch
10 The University of Cambridge, Academic Expertise,
and the British Empire, 1885–1962........................................................ 185
Heike Jöns
11 Geneva, 1919–1945: The Spatialities of Public
Internationalism and Global Networks................................................. 211
Madeleine Herren
12 The Spatial Mobility of Corporate Knowledge: Expatriation,
Global Talent, and the World City.......................................................... 227
Jonathan V. Beaverstock
13 Formal Education as a Facilitator of Migration
and Integration: A Case Study of Nigerian University
Graduates.................................................................................................. 247
Melanie Mbah
14 Trans-knowledge? Geography, Mobility,
and Knowledge in Transnational Education......................................... 269
Johanna L. Waters and Maggi Leung
The Klaus Tschira Stiftung............................................................................. 287
Index.................................................................................................................. 289
Contributors
Carl Christian Abrahamsson Department of Sociology and Human Geography,

University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
Trevor Barnes Department of Geography, University of British Columbia,
Vancouver, BC, Canada
Jonathan Beaverstock School of Economics, Finance and Management,
University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
Jonathan M. Bloom Fine Arts Department, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA,
USA
Felix Driver Department of Geography, Royal Holloway, University of London,
London, UK
Heather Ellis School of Education, The University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK
Michael Heffernan School of Geography, The University of Nottingham,
Nottingham, UK
Madeleine Herren Institute for European Global Studies, University of Basel,
Basel, Switzerland
Heike Jöns Department of Geography, Loughborough University, Loughborough,
UK
Innes M. Keighren Department of Geography, Royal Holloway, University of
London, London, UK
Maggi Leung Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Utrecht
University, Utrecht, The Netherlands
Melanie Mbah Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis (ITAS),
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany
ix
x Contributors
Peter Meusburger Department of Geography, Heidelberg University, Heidelberg,

Germany
Tamson Pietsch Department of History, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW,
Australia
Peter J. Taylor Department of Geography, Northumbria University, Newcastle
upon Tyne, UK
Johanna L. Waters Department of Human Geography, School of Geography and
the Environment, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
Chapter 1
Mobilities of Knowledge: An Introduction
Heike Jöns, Michael Heffernan, and Peter Meusburger
Wenn man sich zu den Gegenständen selbst begibt, hält man

nichts anderes eher für wahr, als bis man es selbst angeschaut
hat, so mag der Weg vielleicht langsamer sein, aber er ist auch
sicherer und reizender und der Stoff des Nachdenkens ebenso
unerschöpflich als die Menge der Gegenstände in der Natur.
If one betakes to the things themselves, one does not accept
anything else as truth unless one has looked at it oneself, so the
journey may be slower, but it is also more secure and alluring
and the intellectual nourishment equally inexhaustible as the
amount of things in nature.
(Wilhelm von Humboldt to Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi,
17 November 1788 quoted in Geier, 2009, pp. 93–94;
translation by authors).
This book examines how the geographical mobility of people, practices, institu-

tions, ideas, technologies, and things has impacted epistemic systems of knowledge.
The pivotal role of such mobilities in the acquisition, exchange, and generation of
knowledge is vividly exemplified by the well-known brothers Wilhelm and
Alexander von Humboldt, both of whom shaped cultural and intellectual life in
eighteenth and nineteenth century Europe. Educated at home by private tutors in
Berlin and nearby Tegel until their late teenage years, the Humboldt brothers stud-
ied at Frankfurt-on-Oder and Göttingen, where Wilhelm enrolled for law and
Alexander for public finance, before the latter moved to Freiberg to continue his
education in mineralogy and geology. During their time at university, the Humboldt
brothers undertook separate European tours on which they met leading intellectuals,
including the naturalist Georg Forster, veteran of James Cook’s Pacific explorations.
In 1789, Alexander toured the basalt landscapes of the Rhine, while Wilhelm
H. Jöns (*)
Department of Geography, Loughborough University, Loughborough, UK
e-mail: [email protected]
M. Heffernan
School of Geography, The University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK
P. Meusburger
Department of Geography, Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, Germany
© The Author(s) 2017 1

H. Jöns et al. (eds.), Mobilities of Knowledge, Knowledge and Space 10,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-44654-7_1
2 H. Jöns et al.
witnessed the early days of the French Revolution in Paris, recording his impres-
sions in a famous diary (Geier, 2009).
The travel experiences of the two brothers in this formative era had a discernible
impact on their characters, interests, and subsequent mobilities. Alexander became
one of the most accomplished and esteemed scientific travelers of the age, exploring
remote landscapes and environments, especially in Latin America, and transform-
ing the emerging disciplines of geography and the natural sciences (Rupke, 2005).
His brother meanwhile, residing in the cities of Jena, Paris, Rome, and Berlin
for most of his professional life, developed an essentially sedentary mode of human-
istic research in philosophy and linguistics that was interspersed with stints in the
Prussian diplomatic and educational civil service during which he established the
new University of Berlin more or less single-handedly in 1809–1810 (Anderson,
2004). Together the Humboldt brothers epitomize the important role of geographi-
cal mobility for education and learning, and how knowledge production in different
academic fields, or, more generally, the production of different types of knowledge,
implies varying degrees of mobile and sedentary professional lives.
The essays in this volume follow in the footsteps of the Humboldt brothers by
examining the role of geographical mobilities in the production and circulation of
knowledge in different historical and geographical contexts. We define mobility as
an entity’s change of position in a specific system (Bähr, 2010), whether this relates
to people, material things, or knowledge in geographical (King, 2012), social
(Bourdieu, 1986), and/or epistemological space (Barnett & Phipps, 2005). The book
Mobilities of Knowledge directs attention to geographical mobilities for knowledge
in the process of its production and of knowledge as part of its dissemination and
transfer, while stressing that geographical and epistemological movement across
different places and fields of knowledge are closely intertwined (Barnett & Phipps,
2005). Three key research questions inform the individual analyses in this book:
What role has geographical mobility played for the production and dissemination of
knowledge in different historical, geographical, and sectoral contexts? How have
different types of knowledge, as well as related practices and products, been trans-
ferred between individuals, institutions, and places? And to what extent have knowl-
edge and its mediators, as well as places of origin and destinations, been transformed
through geographical mobility and shaped by varying social, cultural, economic,
and political contexts?
The contributions to this book build on research about the creation, mobility,
reception, and geographical distribution of different types of knowledge in hitherto
largely separate fields of inquiry, such as organization theory, the history and geog-
raphy of science, the history of geography, migration studies, and the geographies
of education. They specifically add detailed case studies and conceptual consider-
ations to existing research in the geographies of science (e.g., Driver, 2001; Gregory,
2000; Heffernan, 1994; Keighren, Withers, & Bell, 2015; Livingstone, 2003;
McEwan, 2000; Meusburger, Livingstone, & Jöns, 2010; Powell, 2007; Simões,
Carneiro, & Diogo, 2003) and the migration of skilled people (e.g., Findlay &
Gould, 1989; Salt, 1997; Smith & Favell, 2006; Van Riemsdijk & Wang, 2016).
Scholars working in these areas have traced, analyzed, and critiqued the highly
uneven mobile spaces of knowledge production and dissemination at different
1 Mobilities of Knowledge: An Introduction 3
g eographical scales, focusing on professionals in high-tech industries (e.g., Harvey,

2009; Saxenian, 2006; Van Riemsdijk, 2014) and advanced producer services (e.g.,
Beaverstock, 2005; Beaverstock & Hall, 2012; Fechter & Walsh, 2012; Walsh,
2012), on researchers and academics (e.g., Ackers, 2005; Heffernan & Jöns, 2013;
Jöns, 2003; 2007, 2015; Leung, 2013; Pietsch, 2013; Storme, Faulconbridge,
Beaverstock, Derudder, & Witlox, 2016), and on international students (e.g., Alberts
& Hazen, 2013; Brooks & Waters, 2011; Findlay, King, Smith, Geddes, & Skeldon,
2012; Geddie, 2015; Holloway, O’Hara, & Pimlott-Wilson, 2012; King & Raghuram,
2013; Madge, Raghuram, & Noxolo, 2015; Waters, 2012).
Drawing on the work of the sociologist John Urry (2000, 2007), the social sci-
ences have recently developed a growing interest in everyday mobilities and the
underlying material and technological embodiment of human agency. Conceptualizing
social relationships as diverse connections at a distance, the emphasis of this research
has been directed at the circulations sustaining such social relationships through the
physical movement of people and multiple technologies of travel and communica-
tion (Sheller & Urry, 2006; Urry, 2007). Geographers have contributed to mobilities
research by focusing on the practices, experiences, and representations of previously
under-researched everyday mobilities across multiple scales, and their constitutive
infrastructures, such as railways, motorways, and airports (e.g., Adey, 2010;
Cresswell, 2006; Cresswell & Merriman, 2011; Merriman, 2012). Other authors
have used related ideas for enriching work on established forms of human mobility
and migration (e.g., Blunt, 2007; King, 2012; Storme et al., 2016; Waters, 2016),
even if the geographer Russell King (2012) remarked critically that “the mobilities
paradigm is so obviously about human movement over space and between places
that geographers take this subject matter for granted” (p. 143).
The case studies included in this book can usefully be situated within Urry’s
(2007) “five interdependent ‘mobilities’” (p. 47) that he considers to be co-
constitutive of social relationships over distances. This is because the chapters of
this volume focus variously on what Urry (2007, p. 47) identified as the “corporeal
travel of people” (e.g., chapter by Ellis); the “physical movement of objects” (e.g.,
chapter by Bloom); “imaginative travel” (e.g., chapter by Keighren); and “commu-
nicative travel” (e.g., chapter by Meusburger); while also addressing the role of
“virtual travel” in contemporary mobilities (e.g., chapter by Mbah). Interestingly,
Urry’s (2007) focus on the material and communicative constitution of mobility
systems seems to have led to the neglect of knowledge and concepts as the immate-
rial counterpart to material objects circulating in time and space. This resonates
with Jöns’s (2001, 2003, 2006) critique that actor-network theory has undervalued
the focus of social constructivism on human interests, beliefs, and prior knowledge
when stressing the material constitution of scientific knowledge production (see, in
particular, the debate between Bloor [1999] and Latour [1999]). Her subsequent
integration of these two complementary research foci in a “trinity of actants” out-
lines how both material and immaterial entities are produced, mediated, and trans-
formed through the practices of humans and other “dynamic hybrids”, including
non-human organisms and certain machines such as robots (Jöns, 2006), and thus
need all to be considered as mediators and outcomes of socio-cultural/material rela-
tionships (Jöns, 2001, 2003).
4 H. Jöns et al.
Drawing on these insights, we suggest adding a sixth dimension to Urry’s

(2007) interdependent forms of mobility—circulating knowledge, concepts, and
practices—as discussed in the chapter by Waters and Leung regarding the mobility
of university degree programs from the United Kingdom to Hong Kong. Waters
and Leung (2013) have shown that this form of transnational education has pro-
duced ambiguous results for Hong Kong graduates, with prospective employers in
Hong Kong often expecting them to have gained authentic British cultural and
linguistic experiences because they received a degree from a British university.
Offering the British university degree in Hong Kong does, however, rarely include
international mobility to the home university and thus fails to equip graduates with
important embodied skills that university studies in Britain would provide (see also
chapter by Waters and Leung). In a different case study context, Freytag (2003,
2016) has argued that the historically and ongoing underrepresentation of Hispanic
university students and academics in comparison to their non-Hispanic White
peers at the University of New Mexico, United States, can be explained by the
identity struggle most of them, and especially those from rural areas, face when
adjusting to Anglo-American educational practices and standards that tend to be at
odds with their Hispanic cultural ideals, practices, and value systems. In both
cases, the geographical movement of concepts and institutions—to Hong Kong
and to New Mexico—thus devalued local cultural experiences and created the need
for immobile local populations to adapt to the practices, knowledges, and values of
a mobile system of educational standards representing a largely unfamiliar cultural
context to them.
The suggestion to extend Urry’s (2007) interdependent mobilities from five to
six dimensions through the inclusion of mobile knowledge, (institutional) concepts,
and practices, as displayed in Table 1.1, can be justified in two ways. Firstly, this
revised set of dimensions covers themes and conceptual considerations in previous
research on travel, mobility, and migration conducted in geography and associated
fields about the nature, or ontology, of travelling entities that are represented in this
book (see also Jöns, 2006, 2007). Secondly, this conceptual move speaks to “the
open nature and strategic diversity of the mobilities field” (Faulconbridge & Hui,
2016, p. 1), thereby underlining its connectivity to a range of existing debates across
the social sciences and humanities. Such an open-ended approach to conceptual
debates informed by previous studies also helps to shed a slightly different light on
some of the novelty claims and hyperbole of the “new paradigm” language that
inform key writings on what Urry (2007) himself presented as the new “mobilities
paradigm” (p. 44). This is because recent work identifying with this agenda has
indeed extended the researchers’ gaze to previously under-researched scales and
themes in a rapidly diversifying intellectual debate about travel, mobility, and
migration, but at the same time this work has neglected links to well-established
lines of inquiry such as Castells’s (1996) concept of the “space of places” and the
“space of flows” (pp. 423–428) as the two main spatial logics of human societies
(see chapters by Taylor and Beaverstock). A closer engagement with this concept
and Castells’s (1996) three layers—the “material support of the space of flows”
(p. 412), namely “a circuit of electronic impulses” (p. 412), “its nodes and hubs”
Table 1.1 Six interdependent forms of mobility

Examples of
knowledge
No. Mobility of production Conceptual ideas Authors
1. Material things Samples, specimen, Economic capital Bourdieu (1986)
instruments, books and objectified cultural
capital
Immutable mobiles Latour (1987)
2. People, other Students, Cyborgs Haraway (1991)
organisms, and researchers, military Dynamic hybrids Jöns (2006)
robots dolphins, Mars
rover
3. Knowledge, Experiences, skills, Institutionalized Bourdieu (1986)
concepts, and institutions, forms and embodied cultural
practices of governance capital
Ideoscapes Appadurai
(1990)
4. Imaginations and Geographical Orientalism and Said (1978) and
representations imaginations, Eurocentrism Gregory (1998)
stereotypes, mental/ Symbolic capital Bourdieu (1984)
visual images, big
bang theory
5. Communication Speech, phone, Local buzz and global Bathelt et al.
letters, fax, text pipelines (2004)
messages, emails, Communicator– Meusburger
signals recipient model (2009)
6. Virtual information Internet browsing Technoscapes Appadurai
(1990)
Information technology Castells (1996)
revolution
Adapted from Urry, 2007, p. 47; Jöns, 2001, p. 118; Jöns, 2006, pp. 573–574 (Design by authors)
(p. 413; e.g., hi-tech parks, global cities), and “the spatial organization of the domi-
nant, managerial elites” (p. 415)—might have shed a different light on Urry’s
assessment that Castells’s (1996) “account is overly cognitivist” (Urry, 2007, p. 163)
and thus prevented a similar conceptual oversight of knowledge and concepts as in
one of its main sources of inspiration—actor-network theory (Jöns, 2006).
Building on a rich literature about knowledge production and dissemination in
different disciplines, we define the rather elusive concept of knowledge in agree-
ment with the sociologist Nico Stehr (1994) “as a capacity for social action” (p. 95).
This capacity can relate to codified (or explicit) knowledge as “the kinds of knowl-
edge that can be expressed formally in documents, blueprints, software, hardware,
etc.” (Dicken, 2015, p. 108), thus representing the know-what and know-why, or to
tacit (or implicit) knowledge as “the deeply personalized knowledge possessed by
individuals that is virtually impossible to make explicit and to communicate to oth-
ers through formal mechanisms” (Dicken, 2015, p. 108), also referred to as the
know-how and know-who (Williams & Balaz, 2008, p. 57; for a critical perspective
6 H. Jöns et al.
on this codified/tacit binary, see chapter by Meusburger). Accordingly, the eco-

nomic geographer Edward Malecki (2010) regards knowledge as being “more than
data and information…less than competence, expertise, creativity and, certainly,
wisdom…A simple view of knowledge, then, is that it is accumulated information
and prior knowledge, providing skills and insights that can be used in future con-
texts” (p. 498).
From a geographical perspective, Meusburger (2000) has argued that it is of
prime importance to differentiate between different types of knowledge and infor-
mation because these imply varying degrees of spatial concentration, availability,
and transferability, for example, when studying the spatial organization of work
places. He showed that in a vertical division of labor, jobs requiring expert knowl-
edge and highly skilled decision making are to be found at the upper level of orga-
nizational hierarchies and tend to be spatially concentrated, whereas low-skilled,
routine tasks in production and services are mostly situated at lower levels of orga-
nizational hierarchies and spatially more decentralized, thus giving rise to complex
spatial patterns of centers and peripheries that persist for a long time but also change
due to organizational restructuring and the migration of people with different sets of
skills (Meusburger, 1980, 2000).
According to Meusburger (2000, 2008), at least four types of knowledge and
information can be differentiated based on their spatial ontology: (a) secret knowl-
edge that is spatially most concentrated and not released as long as its control pro-
vides a competitive advantage and increased power; (b) tacit knowledge that is
spatially concentrated because it is embodied in a select number of often talented
and well-educated people—such as the Humboldt brothers—and requires advanced
skills and often face-to-face interactions to be fully understood; (c) codified knowl-
edge that is more widely available but also requires previous training to be taken on,
decoded, and employed further; and (d) information that is widely available and
highly mobile because it is easily articulated, disseminated, and understood without
(much) prior knowledge, with its distribution being as ubiquitous as the required
communication channels and infrastructure.
Depending on the degree of complexity and specific conditions at the site of both
producers and receivers, these different types of knowledge and information also
travel across space at varying speeds and are understood more or less easily by their
potential receivers. Successful transfer of knowledge and information largely
depends on the interest of knowledge producers to release knowledge and informa-
tion (free of charge) and their abilities and resources to create and finance infra-
structures and platforms required for such transfer to occur. The outcome is also
contingent on the receivers’ prior knowledge, level of information, access to com-
munication technologies and (temporary) knowledge clusters, and their ability and
willingness to accept received content that may conflict with their personal experi-
ences, values, and cultural identities—an aspect that is inextricably linked to that
information’s usefulness to those in power or those gaining power (Meusburger,
2000, 2008; and chapter by Meusburger).
Drawing on work about the role of travel for the production of knowledge across
the sciences and the humanities, Jöns (2003, 2007) found that the need for
g eographical mobility arises partly from the place-specificity of different research

practices and varies systematically along two dimensions: firstly, different degrees
of materiality and immateriality (hence their conceptual integration in a trinity of
actants); and secondly, different degrees of standardization. If the constitutive enti-
ties of knowledge-producing practices are characterized by a high degree of materi-
alities that cannot be moved easily, such as field sites, groups of people, events,
technical infrastructure, and archival documents, researchers may need to access
specific places for their research at least once, as was exemplified by Alexander von
Humboldt’s highly mobile life as a transcontinental scientific traveler. Those scien-
tists and scholars working primarily with immaterialities, such as theories, concepts,
and ideas, are, in contrast, as mobile as the physical vehicles of these immaterial
entities allow them to be (e.g., the researchers themselves, collaborators, computers,
books). This means that they could theoretically work in different locations but
often do not need to travel at all, and thus historically either conducted their research
at home or traveled for informal peer discussions (Heffernan & Jöns, 2013). In
Wilhelm von Humboldt’s professional life, this was expressed through his largely
sedentary humanistic research and writing in Jena, Paris, Rome, and Berlin.
In the case of a high degree of materiality, unstandardized physical field sites
may be unique and thus require access through research travel, whereas highly stan-
dardized laboratory equipment may be found at several sites accessible to the net-
works of science, thereby offering more choice in regard to the research location.
Within the theoretical sciences that show a higher degree of immateriality, research
practices range from highly standardized, thus more ubiquitous, discourses in the
natural and technical sciences (e.g., formulas) to less standardized, thus more place-
specific and individualized, argumentative-interpretative work in the arts and
humanities (e.g., writings building on a range of different authors and perspectives).
The resulting three-dimensional matrix on the spatial relations of different research
practices at different stages of the research process illustrates that the more immate-
rial and standardized the research practice, the lower is the place-specificity of one’s
work and the easier it would be to work at home or elsewhere; and the more material
and unstandardized the research practice, the higher is the need for geographical
mobility (Jöns, 2007).
Mobilities of knowledge thus vary substantially by the type of knowledge,
subject-specific research practices, and the stage of knowledge production and dis-
semination. This needs to be considered when comparing the chapters in this edited
book about mobilities of knowledge in different historical geographical contexts,
sectors, and practices of both past and present knowledge-based societies (Burke,
2000). Generic concepts explaining the close links between fixities and flows
(Cresswell, 2006), places and mobilities (Merriman, 2012), and centers and circula-
tions (Jöns, 2015) in the constitution of Foucault’s (1977) power/knowledge include
De Certeau’s (1986) notion of the “stockpiling” (p. 146) of knowledge through a
series of episodic circuits involving a repetitive going out into the world and return-
ing to a home base, where the accumulated knowledge and information are com-
bined and interwoven to coherent and often linear narratives. Crang (2003) pointed
out that Latour (1987) depicted this relationship in fairly similar ways when
8 H. Jöns et al.
d iscussing systematic “cycles of capitalization” in “centres of calculation” (p. 220)

that have multiplied since early modern times and contributed to the global diffu-
sion of European science, capitalism, and imperialism (see chapter by Jöns). The
latter can be understood as venues in which the production of new knowledge builds
upon the mobilization of heterogeneous resources that are subsequently systemized,
classified, combined, and transformed to create new intellectual arguments and
knowledge products.
Repeated circular movements have played a particular important role in the rise
of knowledge centers, but Jöns (2015) has further argued that both incoming and
outgoing circular, linear, and reciprocal movements can contribute to cumulative
processes of knowledge production in the host and the home institutions and thus
raise their centrality within local, regional, national, and global knowledge net-
works. The idea that multidirectional mobilities of knowledge can reinforce the
centrality of particular sites is particularly evident in Castells’s (1996) notion of the
“space of places” and the “space of flows” (pp. 423–428) because the movement of
mobilities within the constitutive circuits of electronic exchanges, as well as of the
flows of managerial elites between global cities, can be circular, linear, or recipro-
cal. The chapter by Taylor uses this theoretical framework to clarify controversial
debates in archaeology and the social sciences about the origins of cities and agri-
culture by pointing out that flow-based cities preceded the rise of place-based
agriculture.
Against these conceptual backgrounds, the peer-reviewed essays of this book are
grouped according to two different research foci on the mobilities of knowledge. In
the first part, authors examine the circulation, transfer, and adaptation of knowledge
and its constitutive (im)materialities with an emphasis on the inter-personal com-
munication process (chapter by Meusburger), techniques of papermaking (chapter
by Bloom), the production and circulation of a geographical text (chapter by
Keighren), indigenous knowledge in European exploration (chapter by Driver), the
genealogy of spatial analysis (chapter by Barnes and Abrahamsson), and different
disciplinary knowledges about the formation of cities and agriculture (chapter by
Taylor). In the second part, authors analyze the interplay of mediators, networks,
and learning by studying academic careers, travels, and collaborations for knowl-
edge production in the British empire (chapters by Ellis; Pietsch; Jöns), public inter-
nationalism in early twentieth century Geneva (chapter by Herren), the mobility of
corporate knowledge through expatriates in global cities (chapter by Beaverstock),
graduate mobility from the global south to the global north (chapter by Mbah), and
the mobility of higher education degree programs from Britain to Hong Kong (chap-
ter by Waters and Leung).
The transfer and adaptation of knowledge and ideas has traditionally centered on
human beings interacting in environments more or less instructive for such exchange
and has subsequently been mediated by different communication technologies.
Peter Meusburger’s chapter examines the microprocesses that shape the communi-
cation of different types of knowledges between a source of knowledge and its
potential recipient. Emphasis is on the reasons why the communication of different
types of knowledge and information is more or less successful and how this process
is shaped by different environments. Meusburger argues that a comparable level of

prior knowledge and expertise on the side of the source and the potential recipient
is crucial for successful knowledge transfer to occur, and that new communication
technologies have increased rather than decreased spatial inequalities in the access
to knowledge because only relatively standardized and lower value knowledge and
information are freely accessible and comprehensible, whereas higher value and
tacit knowledge require previous investment of time and money on the side of the
recipient in order to be fully understood and utilized. This problematizes the popu-
lar binary of implicit/explicit knowledge and means that not only knowledge sources
but especially competent receivers are spatially more concentrated than in the case
of lower value types of knowledge and information. By discussing several steps of
the communication process that can lead to misunderstandings, distortions, loss of
information, and an eventual failure of knowledge transfer, Meusburger’s outline of
a communication model opens up avenues for future research on knowledge trans-
fer in different empirical contexts.
Jonathan Bloom’s chapter provides a detailed account of the transfer of paper
and papermaking from central China, where it emerged c. 200 BCE, through mer-
cantile and missionary traffic via the Islamic lands to Europe in a journey that lasted
more than a millennium and was only completed by the 1500s. Bloom shows how
the nature of paper and the spatial diffusion of the material practice of papermaking
were shaped by the regional availability and cultural preference of raw materials
and also transformed in different local environments according to the most suitable
processing technologies such as human-, water-, or wind-powered paper mills,
thereby being mediated by both varying physical and cultural contexts. Bloom’s
account also discusses how paper replaced the more traditional writing materials
papyrus and parchment in the Arab Mediterranean lands, encouraging an extraordi-
nary period of flourishing book-learning and scholarship, and how the Europeans
subsequently adopted the technique of papermaking in such an efficient way that
they quickly supplanted Arab producers of paper in their home markets through
growing exports. By outlining the paradox that this longstanding and complex cul-
tural geography of papermaking was subsequently largely forgotten in Europe and
thus gave rise to the Eurocentric myth that the Chinese learned this technique from
the ancient Egyptians, Bloom highlights the need to interrogate popular discourses
and established bodies of knowledge through careful historical geographical
scholarship.
By the time of Innes Keighren’s case study on the production and circulation of
the book Travels in Europe, Asia, and Africa (1782), paper-made books had become
the main source in Britain and other European countries for informing wider publics
about different places near and afar. Keighren’s entertaining narrative traces how
this first extra-European travel account published by John Murray, Britain’s leading
publisher of travel accounts in the nineteenth century, was mediated, translated, and
received by multiple audiences in Britain, Ireland, Germany, and France. Keighren
unravels how critics suspected that this highly popular anonymous and politically
contentious account based on letters of the commercial traveler William Macintosh
had been covertly upgraded in style by an accomplished literary editor. He discusses
10 H. Jöns et al.
how this lowered the credibility of the book’s truth claims and impacted Murray’s
subsequent publishing practices but did not diminish the book’s overall success.
Within Britain, the book’s radical content in the form of a highly critical account of
Britain’s imperial rule in India, in particular of the East India Company, stimulated
harsh protest and refutation by offended colonial administrators, while it facilitated
its republishing in Dublin and translations into German and French because it
appealed to fellow humanists abroad. By arguing that the sophisticated strategies
employed for appropriating the presentation of Macintosh’s book to the needs of
diverse interest groups outside of Britain facilitated its travels but changed the
meaning of its political and geographical content through contextualization,
Keighren stresses that successful knowledge transfer between different cultural con-
texts requires epistemological adaptation.
Driver’s chapter discusses how conventional narratives of European exploration
can be critically interrogated by unearthing the hidden histories of exploration from
the archives. His chapter outlines some of the inclusive strategies that his team of
researchers developed in collaboration with exhibition designers and colleagues at
the Royal Geographical Society with the Institute of British Geographers (RGS-
IBG) when preparing the exhibit Hidden Histories of Exploration at the RGS-
IBG. The first strategy was to present the exhibit on two levels of the RGS-IBG in
order to enroll the interested public in active knowledge production through access
to the otherwise exclusive RGS-IBG research library. The second strategy aimed at
telling the stories of largely forgotten indigenous people and intermediaries in the
course of nineteenth and early twentieth century European explorations by valuing
their local support and contributions to the explorers’ growing knowledge and
expertise as much as that of the often well-known, and heroically commemorated
White explorers through the juxtaposition and naming of hitherto unnamed people
carrying equipment, taking photographs, and guiding the way through territory
familiar to them but not the explorers. Driver’s account shows that in the late nine-
teenth century, it often required unconventional voices, such as that of the British
colonial governor’s daughter, to document biographical details of supportive Swahili
women and to record their individuality and achievement in visual and textual form,
but that by the mid-twentieth century, partly on the initiative of local populations,
explorative knowledge production was increasingly portrayed as the collective
endeavor it had always been.
During the 1950s, a new paradigm emerged in university-based geographical
knowledge production—spatial analysis. The chapter by Trevor Barnes and
Christian Abrahamsson traces the recorded development of this mathematical
approach to the analysis of complex geographical configurations back to Alexandria
in ancient Greece. It was then prominently taken up in fifteenth-century Bologna,
mid-seventeenth century Amsterdam and late seventeenth-century Cambridge
before it gained popularity via Walter Christaller’s (1933) notion of central place
theory in Freiburg, Tartu, and Lund and began to shape Anglo-American human
geography, especially in Iowa and Seattle, during the 1950s and 1960s. Barnes and
Abrahamsson conceptualize their geographical history of ideas as place-based
knowledge production in creative milieus provided by heterotopias (Hetherington,
1997), truth spots (Gieryn, 2002), and centers of calculation (Latour, 1987) that are
linked with each other and to further places by diverse mobilities and circulations of
people, resources, and ideas. Their people-centered account confirms the important
role of academic mobility and migration for the international transfer of ideas, and
stresses two further conceptual points, namely that the spatial science approaches
transformed and evolved along the way and, as Burke (2000) has shown for early
modern intellectual movements, could only flourish at a new and a peripheral insti-
tution because these were not under the spell of the regional geography paradigm
and networks dominating human geography in the United States at the time.
Peter Taylor’s chapter challenges conventional disciplinary knowledges in
archaeology and the social sciences about the origins of cities, states, and agricul-
ture. Taylor argues that the path dependency of academic knowledge production
since the nineteenth century, when a division of labor between different university
disciplines emerged, has resulted in an emphasis on understanding the emergence of
states in the social sciences and agriculture in archaeology, thus leading to a neglect
of the significant role of cities as drivers of social change. With a flow-based con-
ceptualization of practical knowledge production in ancient trade networks that led
to the formation of trade hubs, which subsequently grew into cities, Taylor develops
the revolutionary argument that cities as centers of practical knowledge production
produced both place-based states and agriculture. By examining the formation of
disciplines in the nineteenth century, he explains that this reversal of prominent nar-
ratives in the social sciences and archaeology can only be proposed by an outsider
who has not been indoctrinated with the apparent truths of long-established and
reproduced disciplinary canons and can therefore interpret existing findings in a
novel way. Taylor’s chapter is thus a prime example of how a geographical perspec-
tive, which is open to epistemological pluralism because of its intradisciplinary
diversity (King, 2012), can productively link debates about academic and practical
knowledge production and help to question established truths produced within more
rigid disciplinary frameworks.
From the perspective of people as key mediators of knowledge production and
dissemination, the second set of essays demonstrates how important people’s
embeddedness within networks is for processes of learning, education, the produc-
tion of new knowledge, and professional careers. Heather Ellis’ chapter adds to
debates about the role of empire for the production of knowledge by interrogating
the extent to which British and other European academics identified with the British
imperial project when using its infrastructures for their research during the nine-
teenth and early twentieth centuries. By examining the travels and collaborations of
university scientists and scholars across the sciences and the humanities, she fleshes
out a diverse spectrum of constellations, ranging from those individuals who were
interested in supporting the cause of empire through their academic research, via
those who used imperial infrastructures for their work but also ventured out of
imperial territory if academic needs arose, to cosmopolitan academics propagating
scientific internationalism, and those who, in similar ways as Keighren’s William
Macintosh a century earlier, actively critiqued imperial practices. Ellis therefore
argues that the geographies of academic mobility and collaboration were not neces-
sarily linked to the researchers’ identification with wider political projects such as
12 H. Jöns et al.
British imperialism but often mediated by convenient transport and research infra-
structure. In her opinion, those more open-minded academics from Britain and else-
where, who made empire what she calls “a truly international space of research,”
would deserve more scholarly attention in future studies.
Pietsch’s chapter examines more permanent but still frequent moves of academ-
ics for university positions between Britain, its settler empire, and other colonies by
discussing the varying and changing nature and geographies of appointment prac-
tices at universities in Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India,
and South East Asia from the 1850s to 1940. Pietsch shows how in this period the
gradual professionalization of academic work, prominently marked by the appoint-
ment of the Royal Commissions on Oxford and Cambridge in 1850, 1872, and
1919, and its progressive specialization meant that appointment criteria evolved
from personal patronage and the word of scholarly gentlemen, via appointments
based on the assessment of a combination of merit, such as first-class examination
performance, and gentlemanly character through generalist selection committees, to
specialized assessment procedures based on a combination of discipline-specific
appointment committees, interviews, and personal knowledge about the candidates.
These changing appointment practices remained strongly grounded in personal sys-
tems of trust, but Pietsch outlines how their nature varied in different places by
cultural habits, forms of governance, and distance from Britain and became more
independent from the British motherland over time. The resulting geography of
imperial appointment practices based on British and antipodean alumni and friend-
ship networks saw a highly exclusionary, classed, gendered, and raced reproduction
of what Pietsch (2013) called the “British academic world” in settler universities,
leaving out women, Jewish, Indian, U.S. American, and non-British European
scholars, the latter two of whom constituted their own academic circuits (Honeck &
Meusburger, 2012).
Examining the changing geographies of academic travel from the University of
Cambridge across all disciplines from the 1880s to the 1950s enables Heike Jöns to
assess in her chapter the extent to which Cambridge academics travelled to different
parts of the British empire in comparison to other destinations. Her study shows how
imperial destinations were frequented more in the decades before 1945 than in the
one afterwards but consistently less than the emerging hegemonic research institu-
tions in the United States. These geographies varied not only by discipline and
research practice but also by different types of academic work because the United
States was most often visited for invited lectures, visiting posts, and research,
whereas colonial destinations attracted most academics for advisory work and
research, especially at the crisis-prone eve of decolonization that led to a postwar
shift of imperial travels from British India to British Africa. Jöns exemplifies the
close link between academic expertise, imperial governance, and friendship net-
works using the example of the most frequent overseas traveler from Cambridge in
the period of interest, Sir Frank Leonard Engledow, Drapers’ Professor of Agriculture
from 1930 to 1957. By advising colonial governments and corporate institutions on
tropical agriculture, Engledow contributed to Britain’s colonial reform movement of
the late 1930s, to African postwar empowerment through education, and to an
increasingly uneven integration of different parts of empire into British academic

networks. However, due to his focus on imperial networks and the tropics, he did not
participate in the growing Americanization and Europeanization of academic travel
from Cambridge after 1945. Drawing on Tilley (2011) and complementing Ellis’s
analysis, Jöns argues that because of Engledow’s ambivalent positionality, his aca-
demic advisory work both supported and undermined imperial rule.
Ambivalence is a concept that also features prominently in Madeleine Herren’s
analysis of the spatialities of public internationalism in interwar Geneva as she
argues that this characterized the international “spirit of Geneva” after World War I.
Herren’s innovative place-based analysis aims to trace the “local buzz” (Bathelt,
Maskell, & Malmberg, 2004) through accidental meetings between decision-mak-
ers of international organizations by analyzing the spatial arrangements of key insti-
tutions in relation to their workforces’ places of work and residence in the city. At
the heart of this cluster of public internationalism without diplomatic quarters
(because Bern was Switzerland’s capital) resided the Palace of Nations that opened
in 1938 as the new home of the League of Nations and functioned as a global meet-
ing point predestined for international knowledge transfer within its bar and assem-
bly hall. Based on the earlier presence of the International Committee of the Red
Cross, a range of humanitarian, pacifist, religious, and non-governmental organiza-
tions located nearby, thus constituting a spatial cluster of global expertise. Herren
argues that the spatial proximity of these European, non-European, and interna-
tional institutions, as well as the interspersed offices and private rooms of key deci-
sion-makers, suggests the existence of interactions, knowledge exchange, and
networks across organizational and political boundaries that are hitherto undocu-
mented and deserve further examination because of their likely explanatory power.
By maintaining that these contact zones not only involved civil servants and admin-
istrators but also a large number of “subaltern diplomats,” such as typists, transla-
tors, and drivers, as largely overlooked mediators of global discourses, who are
difficult to identify with established methods for researching transboundary net-
works, Herren opens up new avenues for geographically sensitive historical research.
Jonathan Beaverstock’s chapter unpacks the notion of expatriation, or interna-
tional assignments, as a form of labor mobility within and between firms as the most
efficient and cost-effective strategy for the international transfer of tacit knowledge
in the world economy. Drawing on conceptual resources developed in the field of
international human resource management since the 1960s, Beaverstock discusses
the importance of expatriation for transnational companies as a strategy to fill
vacancies in local labor markets; to enhance the skills, capital base, and careers of
their employees; to share knowledge and best practice between headquarters and
subsidiaries; to serve clients in co-location; and to offer tailor-made solutions to a
diverse set of clients. Even in an age of increasingly integrated information and
communication technologies, the transfer of tacit knowledge via face-to-face con-
tacts is of such importance that the volume of international business assignments
has been predicted to double in the decade 2010–2020. Due to the location of most
transnational companies in world cities, these are conceptualized as the nodes that
create, maintain, nurture, and develop global talent, especially in professional
14 H. Jöns et al.
s ervices, thus reproducing the centrality, competitiveness, and cosmopolitanism of

cities in the world city network. Beaverstock argues that expatriation as a form of
physical mobility of employees within and between transnational companies will
remain a key business strategy for the transfer of corporate knowledge within and
between firms, and with their clients, despite the growing importance of informa-
tion and communication technologies and shorter-term business travel, because
value and skills are embodied in employees who are pivotal for a business’s reputa-
tion, credentials, and successful employee-client relationships.
Melanie Mbah’s chapter directs attention to “the triple nexus of education,
migration, and integration” by analyzing the transnational migration experience of
highly skilled Nigerians in the three destination countries Germany, the United
Kingdom, and the United States as well as among the alumni of three Nigerian uni-
versities. Mbah identifies migration as a long-standing feature of Nigerian culture
linked to early forms of nomadism, British colonial policies, and a postwar surplus
of secondary school graduates as an important stimulus for migration. She shows
that education, in the form of both received formal education and desired further
higher education abroad, has been a key facilitator of migration, as have been often
idealistic imaginations of a better life abroad and large family networks at home and
abroad that have a vested interest in reproducing their cultural and financial capital
through transnationalism. Based on the analysis of migration drivers and experi-
ences, Mbah suggests two conceptual frameworks that help to understand the com-
plexity and dynamics of the migration and integration process. The first is a sixfold
typology of West African migrants that allows for multiple changes of status over
time through integration, return migration, and transnationalism and links specific
migrant types to typical knowledge flows between source and destination countries.
The second considers the personal and structural contexts that shape changing
migration aims at five moments of the migration and integration process, from ini-
tial considerations to different experiences in the destination countries. By discuss-
ing migration and integration as multidimensional and multidirectional, dynamic
and flexible processes generating changing desires for permanent, return, and shut-
tle migration, Mbah provides a much nuanced assessment of how the multiple
migration trajectories of highly skilled Nigerians to Europe and North America gen-
erate context-specific outcomes of brain drain, brain waste, brain gain, and brain
circulation.
Corporeal mobility is not the only strategy for gaining access to international
higher education. The chapter by Johanna Waters and Maggi Leung critically exam-
ines the types of knowledge and forms of capital transferred to immobile students
who enrolled in over 600 degree programs delivered in the second decade of the
twenty-first century by more than 35 U.K. universities at bachelor’s, master’s, and
PhD levels in Hong Kong’s higher education institutions. Drawing on Bourdieu’s
(1984, 1986) outline of economic, cultural, social, and symbolic forms of capital
that individuals can accumulate through socialization, interaction with others,
(birth) rights, education, work, and networking, Waters and Leung challenge the
widely promoted, conventional view that transnational education is unproblematic

by unravelling the ambivalences of transnational education programs. The main
problem they depict is that students’ prime interest in increasing their employability
is hampered because flying faculty programs, delivered by visiting U.K. academics,
may provide transnational social capital but often hinder students’ learning experi-
ence due to both their lacking English language skills and U.K. case studies irrele-
vant to the Hong Kongese context, whereas franchise programs delivered by locally
sourced lecturers might have been adjusted to more place-specific case studies but
often do not develop students’ English language skills as a main criterion for
employability in transnational companies because local lecturers tend to revert to
Cantonese. Waters and Leung thus argue that operating in a transcultural space
complicates the acquisition of cultural and social capital and requires educational
providers to pay much more attention to the complex geographies of knowledge
transfer and institutionalized cultural capital.
In conclusion, this collection of essays demonstrates the value of a profoundly
comparative historical geographical perspective on mobilities of knowledge that
covers case studies from the centuries before the common era to the present in a
variety of world regions and at the global scale in order to identify generic as well
as time- and place-specific practices and processes of knowledge production, dis-
semination, and transfer. Examples for generic processes are provided by the
insights that knowledge production and dissemination are constituted by diverse
circulations of people and (im)material resources, depend especially on prior skills,
mentors, informants, and support networks, and require the critical interrogation of
established truths and disciplinary narratives in the light of new empirical and con-
ceptual considerations (chapters by Driver, Taylor, Ellis, Jöns). Knowledge transfer,
which acknowledges the almost inevitable transformation of mobile knowledge,
necessitates specific interests and skills on the side of both the communicators and
recipients and the adaptation of the circulated knowledge to different contexts and
audiences (chapters by Meusburger, Bloom, Keighren, Barnes and Abrahamsson).
It is facilitated by face-to-face contacts in knowledge clusters such as cities as the
most complex and widely networked nodes in historical and contemporary spaces
of flows (chapters by Herren and Beaverstock) and proceeds relatively easily within
established epistemic communities and friendship networks, which explains the
social and epistemic reproduction of knowledge and careers in distinct classed,
raced, and gendered personal and cultural networks; complications mostly arise at
the intersection of different cultural and institutional practices and value systems
(chapters by Pietsch, Mbah, Waters and Leung). In the words of Wilhelm von
Humboldt, betaking “to the things themselves” is therefore a sustainable strategy
for producing context-specific empirical insights that should inform flexible con-
ceptual interpretations on the mobilities of knowledge—past, present, and future.
16 H. Jöns et al.
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Part I
Circulation, Transfer, and Adaptation
Chapter 2
Spatial Mobility of Knowledge:
Communicating Different Categories
of Knowledge
Peter Meusburger
[D]irect communication between the adherents of different

thought styles is impossible.
(Fleck 1935/1979, p. 36)
Learning processes, spatial mobility of knowledge, and, accordingly, the spatial dif-
fusion of social and technical innovations belong to the basic issues of human civi-
lizations. The exchange of knowledge and information over distances is an
indispensable prerequisite for the emergence, coordination, and functioning of com-
plex social systems based on division of labor. Knowledge exchange, education,
research, creativity, innovative activities, and in-migration of talent shape regional
economies and the global competitiveness of areas.
Unfortunately, a considerable part of research about knowledge spillovers,
knowledge sharing, knowledge exchange, knowledge management, knowledge
governance, and territorial knowledge dynamics oversimplifies the communication
process of various categories of knowledge. Many categories and grades of knowl-
edge are not as mobile in the spatial dimension as some authors assume. Depending
on the category of knowledge, the communication of knowledge1 between people,
institutions, different epistemic communities, and locations can be a highly com-
plex process. Very few authors seem to be interested in the questions of why the
transfer of knowledge from A to B did not come about, was delayed for years, or
failed; why various categories of knowledge travel at different speeds; why the
This chapter contains some arguments, paragraphs, and figures of an earlier publication
(Meusburger, P., 2009b). Those parts of this paper published in 2009 are reprinted with permission
of the editors of disP—The Planning Review.
1
It will be shown in later paragraphs that only information or messages can be transmitted. It
depends on the recipient whether he or she is able to understand the information and integrate it
into the existing knowledge base. Nevertheless, the expression “knowledge” is used in order to
refer to the existing literature.
P. Meusburger (*)
Department of Geography, Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, Germany

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-44654-7_2
24 P. Meusburger
mobility of higher grades of knowledge is so selective in the spatial dimension; and

which factors, interventions, language barriers, and psychological processes pre-
vent, impede, or modify the communication process between the sources of knowl-
edge and the recipients of information.
In order to avoid misunderstandings about the mobility of knowledge, it is neces-
sary to distinguish different categories of knowledge transfer, such as the mobility
of persons; knowledge exchange between scholars; knowledge transfer where the
use of knowledge is regulated by contracts, formal technology-transfer agreements,
intellectual property rights or bureaucratic instructions; processes of exploration in
which indigenous knowledge was absorbed into European systems of knowledge
and intermediaries such as guides, brokers, explorers, and interpreters played a sig-
nificant role in the process of translation (Gregory, 2000; see chapter by Driver in
this volume). Premediated knowledge exchange and knowledge exchange bound by
contract have to be distinguished from unintended and discretionary knowledge
transfer.
Figure 2.1 shows two diametrically opposed categories of the spatial dissemina-
tion of knowledge: Collaborative knowledge sharing between cooperating eco-
nomic agents in which case the owner of knowledge has an exclusive right to exploit
that substantive knowledge for monetary profit and is willing to sell it; and discre-
tionary knowledge dissemination in which case it is not clear from the outset who
will be able and willing to absorb and use the publically available knowledge.
Collaborative knowledge sharing within organizations or between cooperating units
of different social systems and the role of spatial, cognitive, organizational, and
institutional proximity (for details see James, Vissers, Larsson, & Dahlström, 2016;
Tsai, 2001; Vissers & Dankbaar, 2016) are only part of the story. Therefore, research
results about collaborative knowledge sharing should not be seen as universally
applicable; they represent cases of knowledge transfer that are relatively straightfor-
ward and easily described. The most unambiguous and traceable transfers of knowl-
edge are those in which someone has an exclusive right to exploit his or her
substantive knowledge2 (in this case a private good) for monetary profit (Crevoisier,
2016, pp. 191–192) and is willing to sell it. In such cases “a precise description of
the content of knowledge is a prerequisite for its mobility” (Crevoisier, 2016,
p. 195), and the use of the knowledge is regulated by contracts, formal technology
transfer-agreements, or intellectual property rights. Economic actors will only pay
for patents or intellectual property rights if they fully understand the contents of the
knowledge and are convinced of its usefulness and value. Discretionary knowledge
dissemination is a much more complex communication process. Caught in a cross-
fire of influences, it seems to be a greater scientific challenge from a geographer’s
point of view than collaborative knowledge sharing.
Summing up, communication processes of certain categories of knowledge may
encounter a lot of impediments, misunderstandings, resistance, contingencies, and
2
“From an economic point of view, substantive knowledge is a resource…which is under the con-
trol of an actor (generally a firm) who holds exclusivity and can therefore derive income from it”
(Crevoisier, 2016, p. 194). “Consequently, rules for the sharing of knowledge become vital to its
continued existence and development” (p. 194).
2 Spatial Mobility of Knowledge: Communicating Different Categories of Knowledge 25
Collaborative Knowledge Discretionary Knowledge

Sharing Dissemination
The owner of the knowledge The owner or communicator of

has an exclusive right to exploit the knowledge has no exclusive
that substantive knowledge for right to exploit that knowledge.
monetary profit and is willing to
sell it.
The use of the knowledge is The knowledge is publicly

regulated by contracts, formal available. Its distribution is not
technology-transfer agreements, restricted by contracts or
intellectual property rights or regulations. It is not clear from
bureaucratic instructions. the outset who will absorb and
use the knowledge.
The owner or communicator of
the knowledge has no influence
on how that knowledge is used
by others or on the way it is
interpreted elsewhere.
The communication of the The grade of knowledge

knowledge is easy. The owner available for transfer and the
and buyer of knowledge have absorptive capacities and will of
a comparable level of prior the potential receptors
knowledge and expertise. determine the spatial distribution
Economic actors will only pay of knowledge.
for patents or intellectual Knowledge dissemination will
property rights if they fully fail in many cases, because the
understand the contents of the potential addressees of infor-
knowledge and are convinced mation or the users of that
of its usefulness and value. knowledge might not have the
language skills, expertise, prior
knowledge and cognitive
capacities necessary to
understand, evaluate, and use
the available information.
Knowledge sharing between This category of knowledge

cooperating economic agents transfer is difficult to trace.
is unambiguous and traceable.
Fig. 2.1 Two diametrically opposed categories of knowledge transfer (Design by author)
26 P. Meusburger
pitfalls.3 In order to avoid misunderstandings and inadequate generalizations,

scholars should specify more clearly which categories of knowledge they are talk-
ing about and between whom, for which purpose, and under which external condi-
tions the knowledge in question is communicated. So-called low grade, routine
knowledge (e.g., the result of a soccer match or the price of a good) can be spread
globally in seconds. Other categories of knowledge are place-based or bound to
particular contexts; they will remain local or indigenous knowledge and will never
(or seldom) be transferred to different (social) environments (for details see
Antweiler, 2016; Nüsser & Baghel, 2016; Senft, 2016; Sillitoe, 2016). Some con-
tents of knowledge will be kept secret as long as possible or necessary. Another
group of knowledge categories such as scientific knowledge or specialized profes-
sional knowledge will only be understood, applied, accepted, or replicated at a
small number of places where experienced and knowledgeable experts or “absorp-
tive capacities” (Cohen & Levinthal, 1990) are available.
In this chapter I focus on the questions of why the communication process
between a source of knowledge and potential receivers of information may fail or be
delayed; why the dissemination of high grade knowledge is so selective, and why
many agents (social systems) fail in their evaluation of which kind of knowledge
might become valuable for them. In the first part, I discuss some of the assumptions
and premises that are often leading to narrow conclusions about the mobility of
knowledge. In the second section I propose a likely more adequate and more realis-
tic communicator-recipient model that focuses especially on the steps in which the
communication process between two agents may fail because part of the informa-
tion is withheld, not understood, distorted, or rejected as untrue or useless.
hortcomings and Disputable Assumptions in Research

S
About the Mobility of Knowledge
ree Access to Knowledge Is Not Equivalent to Acquisition

F
of Knowledge
A large part of authors doing research on knowledge spin-offs, knowledge

spillovers,4 knowledge sharing, knowledge flows, or spatial innovation systems
focuses predominantly on coordinated, organized, or stipulated knowledge sharing
3
The difficulty of communicating, understanding, and interpreting a text is a main issue of herme-
neutics. “Our relation to the speech of others, or to the texts of the past, is not one of mutual respect
and interaction. It is a relationship in which we have to fight against misunderstanding…, one in
which the focus on communality in language provides but a harmful illusion” (Ramberg & Gjesdal,
2005/2014, sec. 8, para. 3).
4
Fershtman and Gandal (2011) distinguish between direct and indirect spillovers. “Direct con-
tributor spillovers exist whenever there are knowledge spillovers between contributors who are
directly connected, that is they work together on the same project. (ii) Indirect contributor spill-
within an organization, a community of practice, or an epistemic community;

respectively on knowledge exchange among a network of customers and suppliers
or between cooperating firms (for an overview of the research see Bathelt, Malmberg,
& Maskell, 2004; Butzin & Widmaier, 2016; Crevoisier & Jeannerat, 2009;
Crevoisier, 2016; Fershtman & Gandal, 2011; Fischer, 2001; Fischer, Scherngell, &
Jansenberger, 2006; Foss, Husted, & Michailova, 2010; Glückler, 2007, 2013;
Grabher & Ibert, 2006; Grabher, Ibert, & Flohr, 2008; Henderson, 2007; Huber,
2012; Jaffe, Trajtenberg, & Henderson, 1993; James, Vissers, Larsson, & Dahlström,
2016; Jeannerat & Crevoisier, 2016; Malmberg & Maskell, 2002; Oinas & Malecki,
2002; Scherngell, 2007; Vissers & Dankbaar, 2016).
Within a thick network “which is supported by close social interactions and by
institutions building trust and encouraging informal relations among actors” (Huber,
2012, p. 110; see also Breschi & Malerba, 2001, pp. 819–820) and within an epis-
temic community whose members command a comparable level of prior knowledge
and expertise, communication of knowledge and local learning processes seem to
be comparatively unproblematic.
It is a popular idea that firms located in clusters benefit from local knowledge spillovers:
knowledge created by a local agent can be accessed and used by other agents without mar-
ket interaction and financial compensation for the producer of the knowledge. (Huber,
2012, p. 108)
The basic idea of knowledge spin-offs or spillover is “that the creation of new
knowledge by one firm has positive external effects on the knowledge production
activities of other firms, either because knowledge cannot be kept secret, or because
patents do not guarantee full protection from imitation” (Karlsson & Manduchi,
2001, p. 110). Fischer (2001) speaks of knowledge spillovers when “knowledge
created by one firm can be used by another without compensation or with compen-
sation less than the value of the knowledge” (p. 204). In the last couple of years, an
increasing number of authors found that “in an innovative technology cluster local
knowledge spillovers and territorial learning might not be as widespread as the lit-
erature tends to suggest” (Huber, 2012, p. 114; see also the critiques of Breschi &
Lissoni, 2001a, b; Breschi & Malerba, 2001; Foss et al., 2010; Karlsson & Manduchi,
2001). Communication and dissemination of particular scientific or technical
knowledge will only be successful when the source of knowledge and the recipient
of information have a comparable level of prior knowledge and expertise, when they
speak a common language,5 and share common goals, interests, and “thought styles”
(in the sense of Fleck, 1935/1979, pp. 99, 142; see also Trenn & Merton, 1979,
p. 159). In reality, agents and firms differ greatly in their knowledge and expertise,
their ability to learn, their competence to interpret signs and data, and their
inventiveness.
overs exist whenever there are knowledge spillovers between contributors who are not directly
connected” (p. 77).
5
According to Gadamer, “human being…is a being in language. It is through language that the
world is opened up for us. We learn to know the world by learning to master a language” (as para-
phrased in Ramberg & Gjesdal, 2005/2014, sec. 5, para. 3).
28 P. Meusburger
The assumption that new and valuable knowledge will be taken up with benevo-
lence or great enthusiasm is naïve. Even within the same epistemic community, new
knowledge is not disseminated inherently; it may be criticized, rejected, or just
ignored. Studies on the history of science offer many examples showing that it may
take years or decades for path-breaking new paradigms and seminal new research
results to be taken up by other scholars of the same research field, let alone those of
neighboring disciplines. An easy access to globally available scientific publications
is not at all tantamount to the mobility of the knowledge presented in those publica-
tions. This refers not only to the humanities and social sciences, sometimes called
“fragmented adhocracies” (Whitley, 1984a, p. 776; Whitley, 1984b, p. 34; see also
Froese & Mevissen, 2016, pp. 35–37) that tend “to produce rather diffuse and broad
contributions to general intellectual problems which are subject to contrasting inter-
pretations and evaluations” (Whitley, 1984b, p. 36), but also to the hard sciences.
The so-called Semmelweis reflex—a metaphor for the reflex-like tendency to reject
new theories, new methods, new research questions or new knowledge because they
contradict dominant paradigms, established norms or beliefs—is also widespread in
the sciences.6
Research on the mobility of knowledge should focus more on the complexity of
communication processes. Scholars should ask why pathbreaking new research
results or technical inventions may be ignored, contested, and declined for long
periods of time in spite of their great medical, technical, or economic usefulness.
They should also pay more attention to the fact that in a competitive world there are
many situations in which agents and organizations need to acquire external knowl-
edge that is not voluntarily offered or shared by others. In such cases, agents need
6
A number of famous scientists had the impression of coming up against a brick wall when they
first published their outstanding scientific results. It took more than 30 years for the significance of
Gregor Mendel’s (1822–1884) genetics to be recognized. The pathbreaking findings of Ignaz
Semmelweis (1818–1865) about childbed fever (published in 1847 and 1848) were repudiated by
professors of medicine until the late 1860s. Alfred Wegener’s (1880–1930) theory of continental
drift (1912) continued to be attacked by his colleagues until the early 1960s. Even Nobel Prize
winners had to wait for many years until their research gained the recognition of their colleagues.
Physiologist Albrecht Kossel (1863–1927) was one of three Heidelberg physiologists who estab-
lished biochemistry as a key subject of the life sciences. Kossel was awarded the Nobel Prize in
Medicine in 1910 for his contributions to knowledge about the “chemistry of the cell nucleus”. His
research laid the foundation for biochemistry and molecular biology and was unique in its effect
on the development of the life sciences. Efforts to make biochemistry an independent discipline at
Heidelberg University were continually interrupted not only by outside circumstances (World War
I and II) but also by dissent from the professors inside the fields of chemistry and medicine. It was
not until 1961 that the first full professor of physiological chemistry was appointed at Heidelberg
university (Schafmeier, Franke-Schaub, Schirmer, & Brunner, 2012, p. 223). Harald zur Hausen
(born 1936), Heidelberg’s Nobel Prize winner in medicine in 2008 (for details see Mager, 2012)
started his seminal research about human papillomavirus 6 in 1972. In 1976, he published the
hypothesis that human papillomavirus plays an important role in the cause of cervical cancer. His
work on papillomaviruses and cervical cancer received a great deal of scientific criticism, and
sparked a major scientific controversy with other scientists favoring herpes simplex as a cause for
cervical cancer. It took some 10 years for zur Hausen’s research results to become widely accepted
by his colleagues (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harald_zur_Hausen).
the cognitive capacity and experience to interpret data, signs, and patterns; to antici-
pate grassroots developments; to draw conclusions from incomplete information; to
disclose secrets; to evaluate the potential of new ideas; to foresee new markets; to
invent new techniques; and to explore unknown grounds by crossing disciplinary
borders.
he Impact of New Information and Communication

T
Technologies on the Mobility of Knowledge
Some of the problematic assumptions about the mobility of knowledge can be

traced back to the opinion that the social and economic impacts of new communica-
tion technologies are clear and unambiguous, that various means of telecommunica-
tion will substantially reduce the amount of face-to-face contacts and therefore
diminish the role of centers. This misjudgment has a long history. At the end of
nineteenth century, the Bell Company advertised the telephone with the argument
that it would decrease the need for business travel because many discussions, nego-
tiations, and decisions would no longer need face-to-face contacts. It was expected
that power and decision making could be more decentralized and cities would lose
part of their location advantages. However, the Bell Company was one of the first to
centralize its decision making after introducing the phone.7
Similar forecasts were made after the introduction of the Internet and other elec-
tronic communication. Some observers (Cairncross, 1997; Knoke, 1996; Naisbitt,
1982; Negroponte, 1995; Relph, 1976; Toffler, 1980) went as far as to predict that
advances in electronic communication would lead to an almost unbounded mobility
of knowledge. Anyone using the Internet would have access to the knowledge he or
she needed. Others criticized this theoretical position as early as the 1970s and
1980s (Short, Williams, & Christie, 1976; Meusburger, 1980, pp. 105–107). They
argued that new information technologies would primarily facilitate access to freely
offered, easily understandable information but not replace the need for face-to-face
contacts among high-level decisions makers. Almost any proliferation of new com-
munication devices increased the division of labor, promoted further differentiation
of complex social systems, and made some aspects of face-to-face contacts dispens-
able—although it simultaneously created a large new demand for them.
Many new means of communication (script, paper, printing machine, telephone,
Internet, and so on) benefited in the first phase of their dissemination primarily
those in power and created new inequalities concerning the access to knowledge
(see chapter by Bloor in this book). New telecommunication technologies also con-
tributed to the spatial bifurcation of skills; to a further spatial concentration of work-
places affiliated with high-level decision making in regional, national, and global
Personal information of Jean Gottmann (Oxford) in March 1977.

7
30 P. Meusburger
centers8; and to a decentralization of routine activities in low-cost peripheries

(Meusburger, 1980, 1998, 2000, 2008; Meusburger, Koch, & Christmann, 2011).
It is true that communication devices improved access to information; they
changed the structure, size, and complexity of organizations and the ways in which
social systems and networks were coordinated and governed in space. But none of
these inventions ever abolished the spatial concentration of power or c entral-peripheral
disparities pertaining to the production, dissemination, and use of high-level knowl-
edge. On the contrary, the knowledge gap between better and less educated seg-
ments of society (Tichenor, Donohue, & Olien, 1970) and the research gap between
the global centers and peripheries increased. Studies about the spatial distribution of
Nobel Prize winners (Mager, 2012) or about worldwide scientific collaborations of
research centers (see Raditsch, 2012, p. 289; Seltmann, 2012, p. 284) belong to the
most convincing evidence for the selectivity of knowledge exchange.
When it comes to the mobility of high-grade knowledge, some authors seem to
focus too much on the technically imaginable and to overlook relations between
power and knowledge; asymmetric power relations between top and base or center
and periphery of a social system; and spatial disparities of literacy, educational
achievement, and international reputation of research. They underestimate emo-
tional and psychological aspects of communication, the role of mutual trust, the
symbolic meaning of places, and the importance of nonverbal communication.
What is possible from a technical point of view (e.g., decentralization of decision
making in social systems) may not be feasible because of human preferences and
psychological processes.
When asking in which situations communication technologies may replace face-
to-face contacts, it is necessary to distinguish between different categories of con-
tacts, for example, between orientation contacts, planning contacts, and routine
contacts; between internal (within the social system) and external contacts (with
other social systems); and between face-to-face contacts and indirect contacts (via
letter, phone, email, etc.). This was already being emphasized in the 1970s and early
1980s by Goddard (1971), Goddard and Morris (1976), Goddard and Pye (1977),
and others. However, most of these categorical distinctions seem to be neglected
nowadays.
The importance of face-to-face contacts and the possibility of replacing them
with indirect contacts (e.g., letters, phone, emails) depend on the type and grade of
knowledge (information) that has to be transferred from A to B, on the relations
between the persons communicating with each other (cooperation or competition,
trust or distrust, friend or stranger), on the degree of uncertainty a person or social
system is exposed to in the external environment, and on many other issues dis-
cussed in organization theory and human geography (for details see Bathelt &
Glückler, 2011; Goddard, 1971; Goddard & Morris, 1976; Goddard & Pye, 1977;
Mintzberg, 1979; Storper & Venables, 2004).
8
The term center is not defined in a topographic sense but from the viewpoint of organization
theory. A center is the place where the highest authority of a social system is located (Gottmann,
1980; Strassoldo, 1980).
There is no doubt that digital information systems provide new opportunities for
the internal sharing and joint utilization of voluntarily offered, easily understand-
able information, especially within organizations or supply chains, between a head-
quarters and its spatially dispersed production and customer bases. Communication
partners who trust each other and have a long history of successful cooperation will
exchange most of their routine information by indirect contacts. However, indirect
contacts are seldom used when the degree of uncertainty and risk is high and the
degree of mutual trust still low; when communication has to be kept secret; or when
hazardous cooperation has to be cautiously prepared. Motivation, mutual trust, and
persuasion9 are easier achieved by face-to-face contacts than by letters or other
forms of indirect communication.
A large part of information needed for crucial decision making in risky situations
is not stored in databases and not shared via phone or email but is predominantly
acquired via face-to-face contacts between highly experienced experts and top
decision-makers of different organizations. In such situations nonverbal communi-
cation, careful observation of facial expressions of conversational partners, and
interpretation of signs and patterns in the environment become very important.
However, by the time agents or units of different social systems have come to trust
each other and are cooperating well, or the processes of research, design, and pro-
duction are ready to be formalized and standardized, many face-to-face contacts
have become routine and replaceable with electronic communication.
I s Codified Knowledge a Public Good and a Tradable

Commodity? The Necessity to Distinguish Between Knowledge
and Information
For many years, economists regarded codified knowledge as a public good and a
tradable commodity. This premise is almost inalienable to neoclassical economic
theory, but highly questionable. Knowledge is only a public good—in the economic
sense—if it can be used without additional costs. Knowledge is only tradable if pos-
sible recipients are able to understand and use the offered information. “[A]chieving
understanding is the initial step in a transfer process that ends when the recipient is
able to use the shared knowledge in his or her area of expertise or domain”
(Tortoriello, Reagans, & McEvily, 2012, pp. 1025–1026). Scholars supporting the
assumption that knowledge is a tradable commodity should not forget to mention
the number of persons who are able to take advantage of a particular kind of knowl-
edge. It makes a difference whether a scientific publication is understood by 100,
10,000, or 500 million people and whether these persons are randomly distributed
in space or concentrated in a few places (e.g., research laboratories).
For details about successful persuasion see Cialdini (2008).

9
32 P. Meusburger
The premise that codified knowledge is a public good and a tradable commodity
is justified by two arguments. Some economists argue that new knowledge cannot
be kept secret and becomes public in the long term. However, this argument over-
looks the fact that in highly competitive situations, success or failure in achieving a
certain goal does not depend on knowledge or information per se but on a short lead
in knowledge, on receiving information, acquiring skills, or installing new tech-
nologies earlier than competitors.10 In most cases it is the earlier availability of
specialized, unique, or rare knowledge that makes one social system, institution, or
region more successful than the other (for details see Liebeskind, 1996, p. 98;
Meusburger, 2013, p. 37).
The second argument used by economists to defend their premise is that knowl-
edge and information are more or less the same, that a large part of knowledge can
be codified, and that codified knowledge can almost completely be transformed into
information easily transferable to other agents (a detailed discussion is provided by
Ancori, Bureth, & Cohendet, 2000, p. 256; Cowan, David, & Foray, 2000, p. 221;
Spinner, 1994). Ancori et al. (2000) explained why the codification of knowledge is
a major concern of economists and why they find it difficult to give up their claim
that there is (almost) no difference between codified knowledge and information. To
be treated as an economic good with discernible and measurable characteristics,
knowledge must be put into a form that can be exchanged, and that form is informa-
tion. This view has been challenged not only by work in sociology of science
(Callon et al., 1999; Collins, 1983), geography of knowledge (Livingstone, 1995,
2000, 2002, 2003; Meusburger, 1998, 2008), philosophy (Abel, 2004; Gadamer,
1960/1999), and communication theory but also by some economists (Amin &
Cohendet, 2004; Ancori et al., 2000). Cohendet and Steinmüller (2001) present a
number of arguments why a clear distinction between knowledge and information
is indispensable.
The fact that codified knowledge is made public or available for free does not
mean that it is understood, accepted, or used by all those who have access to the
information and could profit from it. The quality and accuracy of codifying knowl-
edge or the accessibility of information is only one side of the coin. The other side
concerns the cognitive abilities, goals, interests, motivation, attention, emotions,
ideology, and prejudices of the (potential) recipients of information and the milieus
they are embedded in.11 It should not be taken for granted that all the potential
receivers have the cognitive capacity and willingness to use the available informa-
tion to their benefit. If information is published in Chinese characters, Gujarati, or
cuneiform script, billions of people having access to this information via the Internet
10
In the financial system or the stock market an information lead or delay of seconds or minutes
may decide whether people earn or lose money; for news agencies a lead of 1 h may be decisive;
for scientists, days or weeks may determine whether their publication is regarded as pioneering
work or not.
11
The importance of knowledge milieus or discipline-specific contexts for knowledge transfers and
research is discussed by Fleck (1935/1979), Froese and Mevissen (2016), Matthiesen (2009,
2013), Meusburger (2009a, 2015b), and others.
For Lorentzian (2+1)-gravity with vanishing cosmological constant, each element λ ∈

π1 (M) is associated with two canonical Wilson loop observables which are the fundamental
physical observables of the theory. It is shown in [16, 17] that they generate via the Poisson
bracket the two fundamental transformations that change the geometry of the (2+1)-spacetime,
grafting and earthquake performed simultaneously on all surfaces of constant cosmological
time. These canonical Wilson loop observables, in the following referred to as ‘mass’ mλ and
‘spin’ sλ of λ ∈ π1 (M), are obtained by applying the functions m, s : I SO0+ (2, 1) → R
b b
m : (en Jb
, a) → |n|, s : (en Jb
, a) → a n̂, (2.29)
to the holonomy along λ. Note that they are closely related to the traces of the Poincaré-valued
holonomies. Using the (1, 1) representation (2.4) one finds
b 1 b
Tr(en Jb
) = 2 cosh m(en Jb , a) ,
2
(2.30)
b 1 b b
Tr(en Jb
· a c Jc ) = sinh m(en Jb , a) · s(en Jb , a).
2
It has been shown that the mass and spin observables associated with all elements of the
fundamental group π1 (Sg ) ∼
= form a complete set of observables. Their values determine
the spacetime uniquely and they parametrize the physical phase space (2.27) of the theory.
Fig. 2.2 The ability to read an information does not mean to understand it (Source of the text:
Meusburger, C., 2009, p. 11)
will not be able to read it. A certain type or content of knowledge may be perfectly
codified in equations, published in international journals, and well understood by 50
to 100 theoretical physicists, but the rest of the world population may just not have
acquired the prior knowledge12 necessary to read and understand the mathematical
equations and to integrate this new information in their own knowledge base.
This discrepancy between knowledge and information can be demonstrated by
Fig. 2.2. This paragraph is taken from a paper published in an important interna-
tional journal available on the Internet, where billions of people have access to it. It
uses two codes—the English language and mathematical formulas. English is the
most widespread language in the world, and although the mathematical formulas
may be understood by less people, they can be learned in a reasonable amount of
time. However, the mastery of these two codes does not mean that readers will be
able to understand the message presented in this information and to integrate it into
their knowledge base. They can only understand the offered information if they
have studied and gathered research experience in special fields of theoretical phys-
ics. One needs prior knowledge to understand the information offered in Fig. 2.2.
From the viewpoint of the producer (source) of new knowledge, the boundary
between information and knowledge might become blurred. With regard to the
recipient of a message, the difference between knowledge and information becomes
quite distinct. As soon as the communication process occurs between two individu-
The term Vorwissen (here translated as prior knowledge) draws on Gadamer’s (1960/1999) term
12
Vorverständnis (prior understanding).

34 P. Meusburger
als, the distinction between knowledge and information becomes indispensable.

Receiving information is in many cases not equivalent with gaining knowledge. The
higher the grade of knowledge, the clearer the discrepancy between knowledge and
information becomes from the viewpoint of the receivers of information. Making
information available is not tantamount to disseminating knowledge. A scientific
publication may be available worldwide and free of charge, but the proportion of the
population being able to understand the semantic meaning of the information may
be less than one per million. Knowledge does not move from A to B if people at
place B do not understand the information offered to them.
Therefore, I question the assumption shared by Fujita, Krugman, and Venables
(1999), Maskell and Malmberg (1999), and many others that the more codified or
the more public the knowledge involved, the more mobile it is and that knowledge,
once codified, is almost instantly available to all firms at zero cost regardless of their
location. Their assumption is only valid for easily understandable information that
has little value in economic competition.
Nominal and Ordinal Differentiations of Knowledge
Metaphors such as knowledge spillovers or knowledge flows are misleading for

various reasons. They suggest that codified knowledge or information disseminate
like a liquid once they are no longer secret. Liquids spilling out of a bowl or flowing
on a plain affect first the proximate and finally the distant agents. Most categories of
knowledge do not follow a linear diffusion model as the liquid metaphor suggests.
In order to avoid misunderstandings, studies on the mobility of knowledge
should always specify which categories of knowledge are being addressed.
Knowledge embodied in people has to be distinguished from knowledge presented
in publications and knowledge integrated in machines. Knowledge sharing within
organizations or between cooperating units should be distinguished from knowl-
edge acquisition in a risky and competitive external environment. Codified routine
knowledge storable in databases has to be distinguished from intuition, foresight,
and competence based on years of experience and learning. Knowledge exchange
between experts in the same domain (e.g., between the owner and user of a patent
or between two molecular biologists doing research about the same topic) has to be
discerned from communication between expert and layperson.
Most categorizations of knowledge used so far—for example, the distinctions
between codified and tacit knowledge; explicit and implicit knowledge; analytical,
synthetic, and symbolic knowledge (Asheim, 2007); factual knowledge13 and orien-
13
Factual knowledge is needed in order to analyze a situation as precisely as possible and to offer
solutions to technical or scientific problems. Depending on the task to be solved, it may consist of
scientific knowledge, domain-specific expertise, professional skills, familiarity with codes (foreign
languages, mathematical equations) and theoretical concepts, or various cognitive abilities, such as
the skills of perceiving problems earlier than others or evaluating situations in a more realistic way
tation knowledge14 (Meusburger, 2015a); or between substantive and significant

knowledge (Crevoisier, 2016)—are nominal distinctions. Some of these
distinctions—those between codified and tacit or implicit15 and explicit knowl-
edge—are quite problematic. What is implicit knowledge for one person or at one
point in time can be perfectly explicit for another person or at some other time. It is
not possible to draw a generally valid line between tacit and codified knowledge.
Some authors view codified and tacit knowledge as essentially complementary
because all forms of codified knowledge require tacit knowledge to be useful
(Ancori et al., 2000, p. 257). Knowledge may remain tacit just because the source
and recipient have no skills of how to codify a specific sort of knowledge (Ancori
et al., 2000, pp. 273–274; Baumard, 1999; Collins, 2001).
In spite of the fact that the concept of tacit knowledge is widely discussed (see
Ancori et al., 2000; Baumard, 1999; Collins, 2001; Cowan et al., 2000; Gertler,
2003; Lam, 2000; Polanyi, 1967; Reber, 1993), “the terminology and meaning of
‘tacitness’ in the economics literature [have] drifted far from its original epistemo-
logical and psychological moorings [and have] become unproductively amorphous”
(Cowan et al., 2000, p. 213). Some authors use the concept of tacit knowledge as a
kind of umbrella term for nonverbal knowledge that cannot be articulated by using
linguistic expressions (e.g., the competence to play violin or to ski) and nonpropo-
sitional knowledge (e.g., knowing how to understand a bodily movement).16 In sum-
mary, “The concept…of knowledge tacitness has been stretched too far for being
still useful” (Breschi & Lissoni, 2001b, p. 262).
In addition to nominal categorizations of knowledge, ordinal categorizations of
knowledge17 focusing on different grades of knowledge are needed as well. It has
already been mentioned that certain types of information can only be read and
than others. Factual knowledge searches for and relies on a kind of truth that can be empirically
tested and rejected.
14
Orientation knowledge provides a point of moral reference; it declares what is good or evil, right
and wrong. It may consist of, for example, religious and ideological convictions, prejudices and
stereotypes, national myths, political legends, loyalty to a community, or cultural traditions.
Orientation knowledge creates collective memories and sustains the internal cohesion and motiva-
tion of a social system; it mobilizes loyalty.
With regard to the individual actor, it is evident that there is no clear boundary between factual
and orientation knowledge. Both knowledge systems intermingle with each other. However, on the
level of large and complex organizations, a clear functional differentiation between factual knowl-
edge and orientation knowledge can be observed. Experts of factual knowledge have other tasks,
need different training and skills, and use other methods than experts of orientation knowledge do
(for details see Meusburger, 2015a).
15
According to the philosopher Abel (2004), “tacit knowledge means those aspects of knowing
that are implicit in situations of perceiving, speaking, thinking and acting, but are not made explicit,
are not disclosed at surface” (p. 322).
16
A number of authors argue, ironically, that the meaning and functioning of tacit knowledge usu-
ally remains tacit (Martin & Sunley, 2003, p. 17; Huber, 2012, p. 109).
17
Another example of an ordinal categorization of knowledge has been presented by Willke (1998,
p. 172) who discriminated between “simple knowledge” (observations of first order) and “reflexive
knowledge” (observations of second order).
36 P. Meusburger
understood by people having a certain degree of prior knowledge at their disposal.

The acquisition of this prior knowledge may take days, months, or many years and
is associated with costs.18 Prior knowledge may refer to learning a foreign language,
graduating in a scientific discipline, doing research about a specific topic for many
years, gaining experience in a profession or community of practice for more than 10
years, improving one’s cognitive skills and creativity, or just become literate.
It is possible to categorize knowledge in an ordinal scale according to the cogni-
tive capacities, efforts, time, and costs needed to acquire it. High grades of knowl-
edge demanding well-developed cognitive skills, years of study, research,
professional training, and experience to be understood by the recipients of the infor-
mation have to be distinguished from lower grades of knowledge, requiring much
less educational achievement, less professional skills, and less experience to be
understood, and from everyday routine knowledge easily understood by almost any-
body. Such an ordinal differentiation of knowledge seems to be indispensable when
it comes to the spatial dissemination of various categories of knowledge.
n Attempt to Construct a More Realistic Communication

A
Model
When studying the communication and spatial dissemination of different categories

of knowledge it is first necessary to consider both the cognitive processes of a com-
municator and potential recipients of information and the intervening obstacles and
learning loops within the communication process. In this chapter, the emphasis is on
microprocesses of communication, on factors that influence the knowledge transfer
between individuals, such as the role of cognitive skills, competencies, interests,
needs, motivation, beliefs, and ideologies. This micro scale of communication is the
basis for communication links on the macro scale, for example, between institu-
tions. As Foss et al. (2010) have pointed out,
macro–macro links are, methodologically speaking, shorthand for a more complex sub-
structure of individual action and interaction. For example, organizational structure never
directly impacts organizational performance; it may well effect, but only indirectly, namely
through influencing individual conditions, actions and interactions. (p. 464)
In order to reduce the complexity of the communication process between person

X in place A and person Y in place B, I propose a model focusing on some of the
factors crucial to the process of knowledge exchange between communicator and
recipient that can interrupt, distort, delay, modify, or stop it. They include at a
minimum
• the willingness of person X to share his or her knowledge with others,
• the ability of person X to verbalize and codify his or her knowledge,
Among others, Foss et al. (2010) mentioned “that costs of sharing and integrating knowledge
18
differ as a function of the characteristics of knowledge” (p. 468).

• the degree of attention, reputation, and visibility of the platform where the infor-
mation is first or predominantly presented,
• the code in which an information is written,
• the communication channel (and type of contact) used to transmit the
information,
• the place- or context-dependent chances of recipient Y to receive the information
in time,
• the ability of recipient Y to read the used code,
• the prior knowledge19 or cognitive and absorptive capacities needed by Y to
understand the information and integrate it into his or her knowledge base (rule-
based processing of information, reflective system),20
• the willingness (motivation) of the recipient to accept the new information (asso-
ciative processing of information, impulsive system), and
• the pressure and control of the social environment, knowledge milieu, and cul-
ture the recipient of an information is exposed to.21
Each stage of the communication process has a high degree of actor-, commu-
nity-, and place-dependent contingency and can act like a filter,22 letting some infor-
mation pass in its original meaning and withholding, transforming, or distorting
other information. In this context, the term filter is used as a metaphor for various
cognitive processes, mind-sets, thought-styles,23 and power relations that influence
19
Prior knowledge is not something people possess; it is something they constantly develop in a
way similar to the knowledge spiral described by Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995, p. 71). Such learn-
ing processes may encompass personal experience, professional training, graduation in a scientific
discipline, or encultured knowledge (Blackler, 2002) arising from socialization and acculturation
in specific cultural settings or shaped by stable relationships in organizational routines and inter-
personal relationships. Prior knowledge also includes latent subconscious experience and
intuition.
20
In recent years many social and cognitive psychologists have proposed that social behavior is
controlled by two interacting systems—the reflective and the impulsive system—that follow dif-
ferent operating principles (for an overview of the literature see Krishna & Strack, 2017; Smith &
DeCoster, 2000; Strack & Deutsch, 2004, 2007). “The reflective system generates behavioral deci-
sions that are based on knowledge about facts and values, whereas the impulsive system elicits
behavior through associative links and motivational orientations” (Strack & Deutsch, 2004,
p. 220).
21
It goes without saying that both the communicator and recipient of information are embedded in
and influenced by contexts and spatial relations that affect the generation and diffusion of knowl-
edge. However, this topic has already been discussed elsewhere (Meusburger, 2008, 2009a, 2013,
2015a, b) and will not be repeated here.
22
The concept of filter has already been used by Fiedler and Wänke (2009), Shera (1970) and
Wagner and Sternberg (1987). “Knowledge…is the consequence of a filtering process; the process
of filtering…facts through the ethical system or the intellectual system, or the system of scholar-
ship…of the individual who receives it” (Shera, 1970, p. 96). In a similar way, Meusburger (1998)
and Andrews and Delahaye (2000) examine the influence of the psychological filter on knowledge
processes. Psychological determinants of individual engagement in knowledge sharing are also
examined by Osterloh and Frey (2000).
23
Fleck (1935/1979) defines “thought style as the readiness for directed perception and appropriate
assimilation of what has been perceived” (p. 142). In a more detailed definition he describes
38 P. Meusburger
the selectivity and direction of the perception, processing, evaluation, and interpre-
tation of incoming information and the enactment of knowledge into practice. At
each step of the communication process, selective perception, loss of information,
misunderstandings, distortions, and misrepresentations are possible. The effects of
these filters and other cultural, social, and psychological factors and processes are
the most important reason why certain grades and contents of knowledge circulate
only between particular people and places and bypass others, why the dispersion of
particular research results is delayed for many years, and why certain categories of
knowledge travel at different speeds and very selectively in the spatial dimension.
Any visualized model runs the risk of being misunderstood as a description of
static relations and mechanistic interactions. In reality, these processes and steps of
communication are not arranged sequentially as depicted in Fig. 2.3. They must be
conceived of as interactive learning loops that incorporate cognitive skills, intellec-
tual capacities, interests, motives, and prejudice of agents; organizational structures,
strategic visions, resources, and work practices of social systems (institutions); and
cultural influences, power relations, and spatial contexts.
The first step in the communication process is clarifying whether and to what
extent a producer (communicator) of new knowledge is willing to share his or her
knowledge. Andrews and Delahaye (2000); Cabrera, Collins, and Salgado (2006);
and others identified various psychological, organizational, and system-related
determinants of individual engagement in knowledge sharing. Scholars and other
holders of valuable knowledge “actively make decisions about what knowledge
they would share with whom, when” (Andrews & Delahaye, 2000, p. 803). In many
situations, it may be wise or an advantage to leave competitors or opponents uncer-
tain about one’s knowledge and goals. A new bargain is normally made public only
after it has been signed. Particular scientific results may be shared only if scholars
trust their colleagues or after the research results have been published or patented.
Scholars, inventors, journalists, and other agents want to retain the ownership of
their ideas. In the interviews conducted by Andrews and Delahaye (2000), “scien-
tists spoke of the enormous personal impact of sharing knowledge unwisely: they
could be swallowed up, cut out of the chain, and risked losing credit, visibility, first
authorship, and a place on the patent” (p. 803).
The act of keeping knowledge secret, or restricting access to it, has a long tradi-
tion in human history because it provides the owner of secret knowledge competi-
tive advantages or privileges. Many religions had their holy or secret knowledge
that priests or shamans passed on only to chosen successors; some religions had
temple precincts and sanctums that only priests were allowed to enter. In modern
“thought style as [the readiness for] directed perception, with corresponding mental and objective
assimilation of what has been so perceived. It is characterized by common features in the problems
of interest to a thought collective, by the judgment which the thought collective considers evident,
and by the methods which it applies as a means of cognition. The thought style may also be accom-
panied by a technical and literary style characteristic of the given system of knowledge” (Fleck,
1935/1979, p. 99).
Generator or Communicator Loss and Distortion of Information Recipient of Information
of Knowledge
Factors that Influ- Factors that Influ-
ence the Diffusion ence the Acquisition
of Knowledge of Knowledge
Nonverbal
Knowledge, Implicit
Knowledge
Information that the
Recipient Obtains,
Knowledge Understands, Approves
Made Available to of, Processes, and
the Public Integrates into His or Her
Existing Knowledge
Base
Knowledge Kept
Secret
Contextual Factors
Code and Channels of Influence
of Transmission
Ability to Articulate Impulse Filter of Factual Filter of Orientation

and Codify Impact and Reputa- Knowledge Knowledge
Knowledge tion of Platform on Cognitive Capacities, Ideologies, Prejudice, Tradi-
which Information Is Domain-specific Know- tions, Stereotypes, Emo-
Presented; Rhetoric, ledge, Skills, Experience, tions, Prescriptive Assump-
Persuasions Skills of and Expertise tions, Cultural Identity
Communicator, Is information understood? Is information accepted?
Coalition with Power Is its content assessed?
Cognitive Processes Reflective System Impulsive System

Learning Loops
2 Spatial Mobility of Knowledge: Communicating Different Categories of Knowledge
Cognitive Processes
Learning Loops, Knowledge Spirals
39
Fig. 2.3 Factors influencing the communication process between communicator and recipient (Design by author)
40 P. Meusburger
society, billions of dollars are spent to conduct or prevent industrial or military

espionage.
The second question affecting the communication process is whether and to what
extent a producer of new knowledge is able to articulate that knowledge in lan-
guage, signs, and gestures; to codify it; to transform it into physical objects (e.g.,
scientific instruments, machines); or to demonstrate and teach his or her superior
competence in other ways. It is common knowledge that a person knows more than
he or she is able to articulate to someone else.
No matter how a given case may be described, the description is always a simplification
permeated with apodictic and graphic elements. Every communication and, indeed, all
nomenclature tends to make any item of knowledge more exoteric and popular. Otherwise
each word would require a footnote to assign limitations and provide explanations. Each
word of the footnote would need in turn a second word pyramid. (Fleck, 1935/1979, p. 114)
The third issue concerns the code in which new information is transformed.
Different producers of knowledge are proficient in or prefer different codes. Some
codes are understood by a large number of people; others, by only a few. A manu-
script published in Estonian has fewer potential readers than a publication in
English. The learning of a code may be costly and time consuming. Knowing a code
“will discriminate between those who can grasp the meaning of the messages, and
those who cannot (or at least have to sink in very high costs to learn…the code-
book)” (Breschi & Lissoni, 2001b, p. 262).
The fourth factor that can enhance or confine dispersion of knowledge concerns
the platforms on which (new) knowledge is presented. Experts, scientists, profes-
sionals, and other sources of knowledge require a platform of attention that effec-
tively puts them in the spotlight and promotes their results and ideas in the relevant
media. Different platforms achieve impulses of varying strength; they have dissimi-
lar reputations, credibility, visibility, and audibility and therefore attract unequal
attention. Because people’s memory and information-processing capacities are lim-
ited, their attention is selective and a scarce resource (Franck, 1998). Selectivity in
perception determines what is learned and kept in memory and what is excluded.
Judgment of significance is neither impartial nor spatially invariant. Considering
today’s flood of information, the contents of a message or its usefulness for society
are often less important for its wide diffusion than the platform on which it is pre-
sented. Manipulating the access to platforms of varying importance is an effective
instrument of executing power.
The fifth factor concerns the channel or medium (TV news, scientific journal,
book, lecture at university, Internet) through which new information is made public.
Different media of transmission reach different audiences and have unequal ranges
of coverage. In authoritarian states most of the media channels are controlled by
institutions of political power; therefore, specific messages will not be distributed.
The next three steps of the communication process concern the potential recipi-
ents of information. Most studies on knowledge transfer overemphasize the pro-
vider and codifier of knowledge and assume that potential recipients will understand,
accept, and use the knowledge available to them. In reality, the sources and trans-
mitters of knowledge have limited influence on the extent to which their knowledge
is accepted and processed or on the way it is interpreted elsewhere.
The first question is whether a recipient has the resources or technical devices to
receive the new information in time and to communicate with others. Millions of
people have no access to the Internet, and even more will never have a chance to use
a university library or access e-journals. If the resources to receive a message are
available, the next question is whether the recipient is able to read the code in which
it is written. At the beginning of the twenty-first century some 900 million people
were illiterate. Most western scholars are not proficient in Chinese, Arabic, or
Hebrew letters. Some are quite helpless when it comes to mathematical or chemical
formula. In science and the humanities, language barriers are among the most severe
impediments for the exchange of knowledge (for details see Paasi, 2015).24
A recipient may indeed be able to read incoming knowledge, but it nonetheless
has to pass at least three more filters before it has been successfully processed and
incorporated into that person’s existing knowledge base. The first is the recipient’s
level of factual knowledge, the second his or her decision about the usefulness or
relevance of the new information, and the third his or her orientation knowledge.
Even after a recipient has received knowledge from an external source, he must still figure
out how to use it. The recipient must appraise, adapt, and ultimately “transform” whatever
he has learned from the source in order for it to be useful in his work context. (Tortoriello
et al., 2012, p. 1026)
The filter of factual knowledge decides whether a person is able to understand

the semantic meaning of the incoming information, to evaluate its importance and
shortcomings, to recognize its usefulness and far-reaching implications for his or
her needs and goals, to integrate it into his or her knowledge base, and to transform
the knowledge into action. The evaluation of the usefulness of knowledge is a func-
tion of prior knowledge, but is also influenced by context- and discipline-specific
factors (for details see Froese & Mevissen, 2016). Experts in different domains,
with different levels of expertise and different strategic interests, may evaluate new
incoming information disparately. Persons who have not completed years of study
and research in molecular biology or theoretical physics have little or no use for the
scientific publications available in those fields. Most agents are searching for
domain-specific knowledge, with knowledge of other domains being regarded irrel-
evant and useless. Knowledge acquired in order to survive in polar regions is not
expedient for nomads in a desert.
Even between scholars in the same discipline, communication can falter when
individuals adhere to different thought styles or thought communities or do not have
the discursive openness necessary to accept colleagues’ new methods or theories.25
24
International journals of the humanities and social sciences are full of monolingual lists of refer-
ences, in spite of the fact that some of the most important publications of the relevant research field
have been published in other languages.
25
“[O]nly in [discursive] openness are new truths able to emerge, truths that are not simply a yield-
ing of one position to another, but a genuine preservation of the insight contained in either”
(Ramberg & Gjesdal, 2014, sec. 9, para. 6).
42 P. Meusburger
“The greater the difference between two thought styles, the more inhibited will be
the communication of ideas” (Fleck, 1935/1979, p. 109). In extreme cases, the
thought style “constrains the individual by determining ‘what can be thought in no
other way.’ Whole eras will then be ruled by this thought constraint” (p. 99).
The organic exclusiveness of every thought commune goes hand in hand with a stylized
limitation upon the problems admitted. It is always necessary to ignore or reject many
problems as trifling or meaningless. Modern science also distinguishes “real problems”
from useless “bogus problems.” This creates specialized valuation and characteristic intol-
erance, which are features shared by all exclusive communities. (p. 104)
A thought style can influence the perception and interpretation of information and
in extreme cases it can constrain, inhibit, and determine the way of thinking.
Under the influence of a thought style one cannot think in any other way. It also excludes
alternative modes of perception. Accordingly, no proper communication can arise between
different thought styles. A thought style functions at such a fundamental level that the indi-
vidual seems generally unaware of it. It exerts a compulsive force upon his thinking, so that
he normally remains unconscious both of the thought style as such and of its constraining
character. Yet such a style can be revealed in practice by an examination of how it is applied.
The existence of stable thought collectives suggests the presence of a rather permanent
thought style. (Trenn & Merton, 1979, p. 159)
The third filter for incoming information concerns orientation knowledge and
spontaneous impulses. Orientation knowledge normally is equated with religious,
cultural, and ideological knowledge. However, some theoretical concepts and para-
digms used in scientific disciplines also prove to be based on prejudice, preconcep-
tion, and jaundice. The obstinate adherence to a specific scientific paradigm or
school of thought can entail the same detrimental effects as ideological prejudice.26
Orientation knowledge has a bearing on whether new information is emotionally or
ideologically rejected, whether it is compatible with the recipient’s self-perception,
emotions, and identity. Information may be rejected because it questions the recipi-
ent’s own research or thought style, because it shatters the reputation of a thought
community, a scientific school, or scientific approach a person is associated with.
Decisions to accept or repudiate new information may occur mindlessly or auto-
matically; that is, “without directing much attention to the utility of an outcome, a
person may act the way he or she has acted many times before” (Strack & Deutsch,
2004, p. 220).
The dichotomy between factual knowledge and orientation knowledge can be
enhanced by the dichotomy of reflexive and impulsive thought. In recent years,
psychologists proposed that social behavior is the effect of two interacting systems
of information processing or two modes of judgment—the reflective system and the
impulsive system—that follow different operating principles (for an overview of the
26
Followers of traditional neoclassical theory argued for decades that the homo oeconomicus acts
in a more or less homogeneous space and has access to the information needed for rational deci-
sion-making. In the last 20 or 30 years, most of these ideas were largely discredited, not only in
science studies, geography of knowledge, or actor-network theory, but also in evolutionary eco-
nomics, behavioral economics, the concepts of bounded rationality, new theories of the firm, or the
strategic management approach.
literature see Krishna & Strack, 2016; Smith & DeCoster, 2000; Strack & Deutsch,
2004, 2007). The reflective system is determined by deliberate thought and gener-
ates decisions that are based on knowledge about facts and values. It operates
according to propositional principles; it is flexible, effortful, slow, requires motiva-
tion, and its operation is typically conscious. It is driven by working memory
resources, which sets limits for its capacity for information processing. The impul-
sive system operates according to associative principles; it is inflexible, effortless,
always active, and may operate unconsciously. The impulsive system can be seen as
long-term memory and therefore has functionally unlimited capacity (Strack &
Deutsch, 2004, pp. 220–223; Krishna & Strack, 2016).
The reflective system requires a high amount of cognitive capacity.... In contrast, the impul-
sive system requires little cognitive capacity and may control behavior under suboptimal
conditions. As a consequence, processes of the reflective system are disturbed more easily
than those of the impulsive system (Strack & Deutsch, 2004, p. 223)
Conclusion
An in-depth model of the communication process between a source of knowledge

and recipient of information is the foundation of any research about the mobility of
different categories of knowledge. The spatial diffusion of knowledge depends both
on the willingness of the producer to share his or her knowledge and the skills,
experiences, and cognitive processes of the potential recipients of information.
Research on knowledge-spillovers, knowledge-sharing, or territorial knowledge
dynamics has focused more or less on successful cases of learning and knowledge
exchange. It seldom asked the question why the diffusion of knowledge within clus-
ters or networks failed.
This paper shows that the category, grade, and content of knowledge; the code
and channels of transmission; the prior knowledge of potential recipients; and some
other factors decide about the speed and target locations of the spatial diffusion of
knowledge. It explains why large proportions of high-grade knowledge (certain sci-
entific results) can only be spread to a small number of target locations. Only very
simple, everyday low-grade knowledge can be communicated in a way that it
reaches large parts of the world in a short period of time and at no or little cost. Even
some types of low-grade knowledge can get lost at one of the steps of the commu-
nication model or not run unchanged through the communication process.
The communication model presented in this chapter can be extended by includ-
ing the role and impact of institutional, cultural, and political contexts. Possible
recipients of information are embedded in and influenced by different institutions,
cultural contexts (Chen, Sun, & McQueen, 2010; Lucas, 2006), knowledge environ-
ments (Meusburger, 2015b), KnowledgeScapes (Matthiesen, 2009, 2013), business
ecologies (Grabher et al., 2008), networks (Glückler, 2007, 2013; Grabher & Ibert,
2006), institutional logics (Battilana, 2006; Suddaby, Elsbach, Greenwood, Meyer,
& Zilber, 2010), citation cartels (Paasi, 2015), and, not to forget, world views and
44 P. Meusburger
ideologies. Such institutions, contexts, or milieus may screen out certain informa-
tion, show preferences for particular results, dispose taboos, exert censorship, and
apply pressure on their members.
The model can be further amended by issues of how knowledge is legitimated;
how individual knowledge becomes collective knowledge of an organization; how
knowledge is transformed into organizational routines and structures; how the pro-
cessing of information is modified by the presence of others; how the communica-
tion process is influenced by an organization’s size and hierarchic structure; and to
what extent knowledge governance “can influence the processes of using, sharing,
integrating, and creating knowledge in preferred directions and towards preferred
levels” (Foss et al., 2010, p. 456; see also Spender, 2005).
Acknowledgement I am grateful to David Antal for his elegant translation and editing of this
chapter.
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the material.
Chapter 3
Papermaking: The Historical Diffusion
of an Ancient Technique
Jonathan M. Bloom
Paper was invented in China in the centuries before Christ and carried by Buddhist
monks throughout East and Central Asia (Tsien, 1985), where Muslim Arabs
encountered it in the eighth century CE. Muslims carried paper and papermaking to
the Mediterranean region, and European Christians there learned how to make it by
the twelfth century. Europeans not only forgot their debt to Muslim papermakers but
also remained ignorant of paper’s origins in China, so that when they first encoun-
tered Chinese paper in the sixteenth century, they thought that the Chinese must
have learned the art of papermaking from the ancient Egyptians! Europeans then
carried paper and papermaking, along with printing, throughout the globe. While
the history of paper has traditionally been overshadowed by the history of printing,
the spread of paper and papermaking is arguably equally important, for this rela-
tively permanent, cheap, and flexible material not only encouraged the spread of
written culture across the globe but also transformed many other human activities.
This paper studies mobilities of knowledge from the perspective of paper making
by examining how and when this technique diffused from China across Eurasia to
the Mediterranean region and from there to the rest of Europe in the period between
600 and 1500. The main factors that enhanced and impeded this spatial diffusion of
knowledge were the availability of raw materials and the adoption of differing tech-
nologies, but the roles of mediating aspects such as religion, trade, emigration,
imports, and exports will also be discussed.
J.M. Bloom (*)

Fine Arts Department, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, USA

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-44654-7_3
52 J.M. Bloom
The Early Diffusion of Papermaking
Paper is a mat of cellulose fibers that have been beaten in the presence of water, col-
lected on a screen, and dried. The manufacture of paper requires only cellulose,
which can be extracted from various types of plants or textile waste, and fresh water
for processing the fibers, as well as a screen on which to collect them. In principle
paper can be made virtually anywhere, and the relative simplicity of the technique
allowed cultures and individuals wide variation in the actual materials and specific
processes used to make paper, depending on what was locally available and what
was known. That said, making good paper is an art. Warmer and drier conditions are
preferable for papermaking, as the fibers must be beaten wet, the papermaker has to
put his hands in the vat, and the water has to drip and evaporate from the formed
sheets, but paper can be made successfully even in often cold and damp climates,
such as Holland, where it began to be made in the late sixteenth century.
In the warm and humid regions of China where paper was invented, papermakers
made their product principally from bast fibers collected directly from semi-tropical
plants and shrubs, but it could equally be made from the cellulose in linen and cot-
ton rags, old ropes, and other textile waste, a process that was adopted in the harsher
and drier climates of Central Asia (Hoernle, 1903), where it was used not only by
the Buddhists who had introduced paper to the region but also by local merchants
and bureaucrats. After Muslims conquered Central Asia in the late seventh century,
their burgeoning bureaucracy quickly began to use paper for record-keeping because
it was relatively cheap, plentiful, and writing on it could not be erased without
detection.
The Replacement of Papyrus and Parchment
By the late eighth century paper was being manufactured in Baghdad, the capital of
the Abbasid caliphate in central Iraq, and its use and manufacture was soon dissemi-
nated throughout the empire. Paper was introduced to Syria ca. 800, and it quickly
spread throughout the Arab Mediterranean lands replacing papyrus and parchment,
the two portable and flexible writing supports that had been used in the region for
millennia.
Papyrus was made from the stalks of a reed that grew primarily along the banks
of the Nile River in Egypt. The fresh stalks were cut into lengths, sliced into strips,
laid in two overlapping layers at right angles to each other, pressed together, and
dried. Individual sheets could be glued together to form rolls and scrolls, the form
in which papyrus was normally used. Papyrus rolls had been made from ca. 3000
BCE and exported from Egypt to Greece and other Mediterranean lands. While the
papyrus reed could grow in other warm riparian environments, only in Egypt did the
plant grow thick enough to make the production of writing materials practical, so its
production remained an Egyptian monopoly for about four millennia.
3 Papermaking: The Historical Diffusion of an Ancient Technique 53
The other flexible writing support used in antiquity was parchment, from the
Latin pergamena, referring to the city of Pergamon in western Anatolia. It is a taut,
stiff and relatively inelastic material made from skins, primarily from sheep and
goats, that have been soaked in water and lime, scraped of their hair and fat, and
dried under tension. The Roman author Pliny claimed that parchment had been
invented in the second century BCE when Eumenes II Soter, ruler of Pergamon, had
to invent a new writing material because the Ptolemies of Egypt, jealous of
Pergamon’s growing library, had embargoed shipments of papyrus. Other Classical
sources, however, indicate that parchment and leather had been the principal writing
media in the lands east of the Mediterranean. The Jews, of course, have since ancient
times used parchment rolls for copies of the Torah, and parchment is known to have
been used in western Central Asia in early Islamic times (Khan, 2007). The east-
ward spread of this material was limited, however, by the westward spread of
Buddhism, which abhorred using the skins of dead animals for writing.
The Romans initially regarded parchment as inferior to papyrus, a writing material
sanctioned by some 3000 years of use throughout the Mediterranean basin, and they
deemed it suitable only for use in notebooks, not rolls. Although parchment was much
more expensive than papyrus—primarily because the animal had to be killed to make
a sheet—it did have the great advantage that it could be made anywhere if appropriate
animals were available, or effectively everywhere. It also did not fray or split when
folded, a distinct advantage as the codex form of book, previously used only for wooden
tablets coated with wax and used for temporary note-taking, became more popular with
the coming of Christianity (Roberts & Skeat, 1983). Parchment also survived better in
a wider range of climatic conditions, particularly humidity, although direct contact with
water would cause a parchment sheet to cockle and be irreparably damaged.
Medieval European and Byzantine chanceries continued to use papyrus for as
long as it remained available. The great Belgian historian Henri Pirenne (1954/2001)
thought that papyrus disappeared from Gaul as a result of the Arab conquests of
North Africa, which supposedly interrupted Mediterranean trade (pp. 169–170), but
the papal chancery in Rome continued to use papyrus until the eleventh century
(McCormick, 2001, pp. 704–708), indicating that the trade in papyrus continued
despite the Arab conquests. By the middle of the ninth century, however, the papal
writing office began stockpiling supplies, because Egyptians began to produce more
paper than papyrus. Archaeology confirms the shift from writing on papyrus to
paper in the Islamic lands, and by the thirteenth century a traveler to Egypt explic-
itly declared that the manufacture of papyrus was quite forgotten.
Cultural Geographies of Papermaking
The widespread availability of paper encouraged an extraordinary culture of book-

learning throughout the Muslim lands that was unparalleled in contemporary
Christendom, which continued to rely on relatively expensive parchment, thereby
restricting the number of writers and readers (Bloom, 2001). Nevertheless, cultural
54 J.M. Bloom
factors affected the diffusion of its manufacture over space and time. For example,
Chinese Buddhist monks and missionaries carried paper and papermaking at an
early date to Korea, Japan, and Vietnam, and they must also have simultaneously
brought that knowledge to India, for they went there to collect and copy original
Buddhist texts. Yet paper does not seem to have been used or manufactured in India
until well after the region was conquered by Muslims in the late twelfth century,
presumably because Indian writers were perfectly happy with using palm leaves,
the traditional support for writing on the subcontinent (Soteriou, 1999) (Fig. 3.1).
Similarly, the Byzantines surely knew of paper by the ninth century, for Christians
in Damascus were using paper as soon as Muslims (Perria, 1983–1984), but they
did not really start using it in earnest until centuries later (Oikonomidès, 1977).
They must have felt that parchment was more durable than paper, for a document
written in 1118 states that the original copy of a convent’s charter was to be pre-
served on parchment in the church of Hagia Sophia, while paper copies were to be
kept in the convent itself. From the late twelfth century, however, paper manuscripts
became increasingly common in Byzantium, although there is little evidence that
paper was ever made there before the Ottomans took the city in 1453 (Kâgitçi, 1963,
p. 37). Finally, Muslim merchants from North Africa crossed the Sahara to West
Africa, introducing Islam to the region by the year 1000. As elsewhere, Muslims
surely introduced books and book learning along with their religion, but despite the
abundance of the necessary materials no paper was made in the region until the
twentieth century, suggesting that the nature of the Muslim community in the region
was fundamentally different from that found elsewhere (Bloom, 2008).
Spatial Adaptations in the Technology of Papermaking
The transformation of raw plants or textile waste into a pulp of cellulose fibers suit-
able for papermaking requires not only the raw materials but also a considerable
amount of physical effort and time. The fibers are first washed to clean them and
then soaked, fermented, and/or cooked to soften them; they are then beaten in water
until they break down into a uniform pulp (stuff) that can be suspended in water for
the actual formation of the sheet. Papermaking therefore requires an adequate and
steady supply of pure water for manufacture. As the only way of bleaching fibers
before the discovery of chlorine in the eighteenth century was to expose them to the
sun, the preparation of white paper required either clean white fibers or a sunny
climate. Many early Arab papers are decidedly tan or even brown.
Zhi, the Chinese word for paper, was defined in a Chinese dictionary compiled
around the first century CE as “a mat of refuse fibers.” The Chinese character for zhi
[紙] bears the silk radical at its left and the right part indicates the pronunciation.
Since such processes as the treatment of refuse silk, the reuse of old fibers in quilted
clothes, and the washing of hemp and linen rags are attested in China as early as the
sixth or fifth century BCE, it is possible that someone accidentally left wet refuse
fibers on a mat and let them dry, from which somebody got the idea of deliberately
3 Papermaking: The Historical Diffusion of an Ancient Technique
Fig. 3.1 The diffusion of paper making across Eurasia (Design by author; cartography by V. Schniepp)
55
56 J.M. Bloom
forming them into a thin sheet. As silk fibers, however, have neither the physical nor
chemical properties of cellulose that are essential to papermaking, true paper could
not have been made from silk refuse.
Paper Mills
After the fibers had been collected, sorted, washed, and fermented, the physical
breakdown of the cellulose fibers into a pulp was initially accomplished using a
heavy wooden pestle in a stone mortar. From an early date, however, this time-
consuming and arduous process was mechanized, whether by using human-powered
trip mills, water-powered hammer mills, or perhaps animal-powered edge mills,
particularly as papermakers made increasing quantities of paper. Pulp for paper was
normally produced by pounding the raw material rather than grinding it between
stones, although some authors have speculated that Muslim papermakers reduced
rags to pulp by grinding them in an edge mill, in which the edge of a circular mill-
stone rolls around a central pivot in a stone trough. An edge mill, however, would
not have allowed the papermaker to sufficiently control the beating process upon
which the quality of the finished paper depended. The cellulose fibers had to be
broken down sufficiently to become hydrated, meaning that the outer layers of the
fibers partially detach as microfibrils, causing water molecules to attach themselves
to the exposed hydrogen atoms of the cellulose microfibrils. As the paper sheet is
formed, the cellulose fibers combine physically and chemically to give the material
its characteristic strength (Bloom, 2001, pp. 3–4).
Pounding mills could, in principle, be powered by human energy (a man could
lift the pestle with his arms or step on and off a pivoted beam attached to the end of
a pestle), but in practice they were usually powered by water. The Chinese had used
water power for industrial purposes by the first century CE and used vertical under-
shot wheels to pound raw materials as early as the third century, whether as stamp
mills (in which a rotating axle lifts cams) or hammer mills (in which cams depress
the pivoted lever-arms of trip hammers). This type of mill was used in China to husk
rice and is attested in Western Europe in the Middle Ages before ca. 1000, where it
was used to full, or felt, woolen cloth. Such mills are also attested in eleventh-
century Iran, where they were used to crush ores and flax for paper (Hill, 1993,
p. 112), suggesting that the technology diffused across Eurasia.
Water-powered mills with both horizontal and vertical wheels had been used
throughout the Roman Empire, and these technologies were not lost with the coming
of Islam (Lucas, 2006; Wilson, 1995). As by the tenth century Islam also carried the
cultivation of rice, as well as the need to husk it, from Iraq, where it had been culti-
vated in pre-Islamic times, to the Iberian peninsula, it seems logical to conclude that
the milling technology traveled with the cultivation of rice (The Encyclopaedia of
Islam, 1960–, s.v. “Ruzz” by D. Waines). Although there is no hard evidence that the
water-powered paper mills that are noted in twelfth-century Spain were of Islamic
origin, there is no reason to believe that they were not (Hill, 1993, p. 113). This var-
ied evidence suggests, therefore, that water-powered hammer mills spread around
the Mediterranean along with Islam and the manufacture of paper, if not also the
cultivation of rice. The need for waterpower to power mills also explains why paper
mills in the Islamic lands were invariably found alongside rivers and streams, not just
lakes and ponds that could provide fresh water for papermaking itself. For example,
from the ninth-century geographers note the existence of paper mills outside the
walls of Damascus on a branch of the Barada river. Other paper mills existed in the
cities of Hama and Tripoli, but there were none at Aleppo because no stream was
strong enough to power the mills (Elisséeff, 1967, pp. 868–869). An Andalusian
geographer who visited Egypt in the 1240s remarked that paper mills were confined
to Fustat along the Nile and not found in Cairo itself, which was built on higher—and
drier—ground (Al-Maqrizī, 1853, p. 1:366; Goitein, 1967–1994, p. 1:81 & fn. 2).
Although the great rivers of the Islamic heartlands such as the Nile, the Tigris,
and the Euphrates were able to provide sufficient waterpower for milling, they flow
relatively slowly, carrying water from distant mountains across great expanses of
relatively flat and arid land. Elsewhere in the region, smaller rivers and streams
might flow only intermittently after seasonal rains. In contrast, European rivers and
streams, although smaller, flowed faster and stronger over more rugged terrain.
Europeans were able to harness the greater and more constant potential energy in
their waterpower more efficiently than Near Easterners and North Africans, princi-
pally because they used overshot (rather than undershot) water-wheels to power
their mills and they were also technological innovators. Italian papermakers
arranged their stampers in batteries, so that the rags were transformed into a finely
and evenly beaten pulp by passing successively from one stamper to another,
and they furnished the ends of their stampers with spikes to reduce rags to pulp
more efficiently (Barrett, 2012).
In the Netherlands the absence of the fast-flowing streams characteristic of other
papermaking centers led to the invention of the Hollander beater in the seventeenth
century. Powered by wind, the Hollander beater reduced rags to fibers by beating
them between a ridged cylinder and a bedplate set within an oval tub or tank. The
rags circulated continuously through the beater, reducing to a pulp in a mere frac-
tion of the time it would have taken in a stamper mill (Bloom, 2001, pp. 217–218).
Although a Hollander beater could be used carefully to produce a paper equal in
quality to that produced by stampers, in the hands of an incompetent papermaker it
was much easier to spoil an otherwise good fiber by overbeating. Because of its
efficiency, the machine was widely adopted, although it did not entirely replace
stampers. Its introduction accompanied a tremendous upsurge in demand for paper
and the results were not always of the highest quality (Barrett, 2012).
58 J.M. Bloom
Raw Material Used for Papermaking
Although the Chinese character for paper suggests that its discovery was related to
textile waste, for centuries the Chinese had used bast fibers extracted from such
semi-tropical plants as paper-mulberry (Brousonnetia papyrifer), hemp, jute, rattan,
and bamboo for papermaking, and papermakers in East Asia followed suit. For
example Japanese papermakers typically used kozo, mitsumata, gampi, and other
plants that provided long fibers, which when seen under a microscope resemble
“buttered spaghetti” (Barrett, 1983/1992, p. 21.) and give the paper its characteristic
strength and feel. Such plants did not grow in the arid climate of Central Asia, how-
ever, and papermakers there apparently discovered (or rediscovered) not only that
paper could be made from rags and waste from textiles made from such plants as
cotton, flax, and hemp, but that it was easier to make paper out of fibers that had
already been processed and bleached in the sun. Muslim Arab papermakers conse-
quently learned to make paper from both bast fibers and rags.
Cotton, whose fibers are almost pure cellulose, was much less commonly grown
in medieval Islamic times than was linen or hemp, as it flourished in only a few
regions, including Central Asia, Iran, Palestine, and Yemen (Amar, 2002; Bulliet,
2009; Lamm, 1937). Cotton therefore played a relatively insignificant role in paper-
making until the eighteenth century, when great quantities of Indian cottons were
imported into Europe and cotton rags made into paper. Egypt, for example, only
began to grow cotton in the nineteenth century when the American Civil War dis-
rupted supplies to British mills. But the myth of cotton paper has persisted because
Byzantine sources termed Arab paper bambuxinon, bombuxinon, and bambaxeron,
and sometimes in late texts as Bambaxeros kartis. Nineteenth-century scholars
thought the terms referred to bombax (which can mean cotton or silk in Greek), and
supposed that these bombycin papers had been made from cotton or silk fibers. The
term bambuxinon in fact refers to the Syrian city of Manbij (known in Greek as
Bambyke), located northwest of Raqqa on the Sajur river, whose abundant supply
of water encouraged the manufacture of paper there at least from the tenth century
(The Encyclopaedia of Islam, 1960-, s.v. “Manbidj” by N. Eliséeff).
One of the few medieval accounts of Arab papermaking anywhere survives in the
treatise on making books by the Zirid prince al-Mu‘izz ibn Badis (r. 1016–1062)
(Levey, 1962, pp. 39–40). Ibn Badis’s text, however, is remarkably inaccurate, for
he says paper is made only from qinnab (or qunnab, hemp, although Levey curi-
ously translates it as “white flax” or hibiscus cannabinus, a shrub known in English
as kenaf) that is prepared by soaking in quicklime and water. Ibn Badis neglects to
mention the use of rags, which we know papermakers actually used, and he describes
a one-piece floating mold that most papermakers had long abandoned. A thirteenth-
century Yemeni recipe for making local paper (al-kaghād al-baladī) also ignores
rags and states that it was made from the white fibers of the inner bark (liḥāʾ) of the
fig tree (mudakh). The outer layers are peeled off and discarded, the remaining
fibers soaked for several days in fresh water, fermented, dried in the sun, soaked,
cleaned, pounded, dried, soaked again, drained and squeezed into balls. The moist
balls are then beaten for 5 days with a mallet until they are like wheat dough, then
the mass is sprinkled with water and kneaded before being mixed in a vat of water
for the actual papermaking. A one-piece mold is dipped in the vat and the sheets are
released immediately after they are made (Gacek, 2002). In short, it would appear
that papermakers in the Islamic lands were ready to use a wide variety of fibers and
techniques to prepare them.
Microscopic examination of medieval Arab papers occasionally reveals unpro-
cessed threads and bits of cloth indicating that the pulp was made with rags, although
other bits of unprocessed plant stalk may show that bast fibers were used as well.
Archaeologists’ discoveries of piles of rags in the ruins of Fustat (Old Cairo) may
have been left by ragmen who had collected them for papermakers to recycle. The
1980 excavations at Fustat, for example, yielded approximately 3000 textile frag-
ments, most found in refuse heaps from the eleventh century. Roughly 70 % of the
textiles found were relatively coarse undyed linen; about 12 % were linen dyed blue
with indigo and 8 % were heavy fabrics woven with undyed linen, possibly hemp or
reed. Another 5 % were blue-and-white striped, checked, or plaid linens. The
remaining 5 % included textiles of wool, silk, cotton, hemp, and reed (Kubiak &
Scanlon, 1989). While this mix may represent the ratio of fibers used by the popula-
tion at large, virtually all but the wool and silk—and the percentage of them was so
small it would hardly have mattered—would have been appropriate raw material for
Fustat’s paper mills.
Egyptian papermaking depended on a ready supply of linen rags, and Egypt had
produced great quantities of flax from ancient times, but at the beginning of the fif-
teenth century, Egyptian habits of dress changed. The Egyptian textile industry
went into a serious decline, largely as a result of depopulation after the Black Death,
technological stagnation, and the mismanagement of the economy by the ruling
Mamluk elite. Native Egyptian linen became increasingly expensive and for the first
time upper-class Muslims began to wear garments made from European woolen
broadcloth, rather than from domestic linen (Mayerson, 1997). The increased
availability of European woolens and declining Egyptian production of linen meant
that fewer raw materials were available for Egyptian papermakers, and Italian
papermakers were more than happy to flood the market, particularly since increased
quantities of linen (and consequently rags) had become available in Europe due to
several late-medieval technical innovations including the flax-breaker and the
spinning-wheel (Bloom, 2001, p. 83; Strayer, 1982–1989, s.v. “Linen”).
In addition to the evidence of the paper itself, texts tell us that rags were used in
the Iberian Peninsula for papermaking by the twelfth century. Peter the Venerable
(d. 1156), abbot of the French monastery at Cluny, complained about Spanish
monks using a material made from “scraps of old rags, or, perhaps, from even viler
stuff” (Valls i Subirà, 1970, pp. 5–6). The catalogue of the Silos monastery library
in the thirteenth century refers to a Toledan missal on “rag parchment [pergamino
de trapos],” presumably because the author did not think his readers would under-
stand a specific word for paper. By 1274 the manufacture of paper in Valencia,
which was known for its cultivation of flax (and rice), had become so important that
King James (Jaume) I of Aragon (reigned 1213–1276) prohibited the sale of rags to
60 J.M. Bloom
merchants from Perpignan, suggesting that the French were already making paper
as well. In 1306 an embargo was placed on exports to France including paper (Valls
i Subirà, 1970, p. 16). English paper production, which had begun fitfully two cen-
turies later around 1500, ceased temporarily in the early 1640s during the Civil War
because of a decline in linen production. To encourage the use of wool and save
linen and cotton for papermakers, the English Parliament decreed in 1666 that the
dead could be buried only in woolen clothing or shrouds (Hunter, 1943/1957,
p. 482).
Paper was also recycled into other products, including paper. Pages from dis-
carded books, such as the Thousand Nights fragment in Chicago, were used as
scratch paper, and many of the other scraps found in the Fustat dumps were repeat-
edly reinscribed. Even after paper began to be manufactured in Egypt, it was still
saved for reuse and recycling (Goitein, 1967–1994, p. 1:7, 334). Old paper might be
used for stuffing and stiffening garments such as caps, and sheets of old paper (and
parchment and papyrus) were pasted together to make pasteboard for book bind-
ings. Several texts of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries insist that papermakers
be careful to keep their paper pure by not recycling papers on which sacred texts or
names were written (Le Léannec-Bavavéas, 1998, p. 75), a concern that may serve
to explain the initial hesitation for using paper for copying the Koran.
Molds and Papermarks
From whatever it was made, the beaten and hydrated pulp was collected in a shallow
mold consisting of a wooden framework on which a screen rested or was strung. In
the Far East, molds are typically made of wood with a loose screen made of very
thin splints of bamboo that have been laid parallel and bound together with silk
thread (Barrett, 1983/1992, p. 78), but in the Islamic lands where bamboo was not
available the screen appears to have been made from materials such as plant fibers
stiffened with oil and horsehair. No matter what they are made from, these parallel
supports leave faint series of “laid lines” on the finished sheet, often complemented
by faint “chain lines” where the supports have been joined by threads or hairs. No
medieval molds have survived in the Islamic lands, but the wavy laid lines some-
times visible on medieval papers indicate that the screens were made from organic
materials that had sagged rather than from brass wire, which became the norm for
the stronger molds eventually developed in Europe. From the thirteenth century,
artisans in Germany, especially Nuremberg, perfected the art of drawing brass wire
through increasingly narrow dies, allowing the creation of a mold that was less lia-
ble to warp or sag from repeated immersion in the vat (Bloom, 2001, p. 208).
The oldest type of mold, a simple rectangular frame with an integral screen,
often of cloth, is still used for simple papermaking. The mold can be floated in a
shallow pool of water and the liquid pulp is poured into the mold. The mold is then
lifted, drained, and set to dry, after which the sheet is released from the screen. The
same mold can also be dipped into a vat of pulp, lifted, shaken, and drained. The
advantage of this simple mold is that, as the stuff is not suspended in a large tank, it
requires less pulp and water to make the sheet, and the water supply is not polluted
with the excess pulp. The disadvantage is that a separate mold is required until each
sheet dries and the two sides of the resulting paper differ in texture, making it inap-
propriate when one wants to write on both surfaces.
The two-piece mold, with a separate deckle (frame) and screen, however, allowed
faster production of more even sheets because the just-formed sheet could be
released from the screen, stacked with other sheets, and the mold reused immedi-
ately. This more efficient technique was used with variations throughout Eurasia,
although a floating mold might occasionally be used for special production, particu-
larly of enormous sheets for special purposes (Blair & Bloom, 2006).
All papermakers know that the screen leaves impressions on the finished paper,
and even a few drops of water dripped on the sheet after it is formed can leave
unwanted blemishes (“papermaker’s tears”) on the finished paper. Spanish paper-
makers had already used this knowledge to put zig-zags, a series of diagonal marks,
onto on the sheet when it was still damp. They are the most distinctive feature of
Iberian paper before the mid-fourteenth century, but their purpose is unclear: they
may have been a precursor of watermarks or an indication of the paper’s grain; the
traditional explanation is that they were intended to imitate the tanners’ marks that
are sometimes seen on parchment (Le Léannec-Bavavéas, 1998, p. 71; Valls i
Subirà, 1970, pp. 8–9) but more recent research suggests that they were introduced
to slightly thin the sheet where it was to be folded when making a book so that the
swelling of the spine would be reduced (Estève, 2001).
The introduction of molds made from brass wire made possible the introduction
of watermarks, the most significant invention of Italian papermakers at Fabriano, a
town in the Marche of Ancona where paper was made from the middle of the thir-
teenth century. Although Arab papermakers as early as the tenth century had used
trademarks pasted to their bundles (Arab. rizma, the origin of the English word
ream) (Goitein, 1967–1994, p. 1:81), the earliest example of a Fabriano watermark
dates from 1282. Watermarks, more properly called papermarks since they have
little to do with water, are made by bending a design in brass wire and attaching it
to the mold, so that it leaves a faint impression on the finished sheet. These designs
indicated who had made the paper and thereby served as signs of quality. Fabriano
paper was whiter and finer than its competitors, the result of a well-beaten high
quality pulp; its thinner and more closely spaced laid lines were the product of a
better mold (Irigoin, 1968).
The earliest watermarks were simple designs, as the relatively coarse wire would
not allow much twisting into fancy shapes, but as finer wires became available the
designs got more intricate. Although few if any early watermarks were dated, the
careful correlation of specific watermarks and dated documents written on water-
marked paper has allowed scholars since the nineteenth century to date the water-
marks and consequently assign post quem dates to undated documents written on
watermarked papers as well as to determine where particular stocks of paper origi-
nated (Briquet, 1907).
62 J.M. Bloom
Further Processing of Paper
After formation, the wet sheet was placed or couched (pronounced cooched) in a
stack and pressed to expel surplus water. European papermakers interleaved the
sheets with woolen felts to keep them separate and absorb water during pressing,
but there is no way of knowing when and where this practice was introduced.
Japanese and Indian papermakers, for example, do not use felts but add a formation
aid to the pulp to help keep the sheets separate after they are formed and pressed
(Barrett, 1983/1992; Soteriou, 1999). As felt-making (a technique of textile fabrica-
tion not all that different from papermaking) was widely practiced throughout the
Islamic lands from pre-Islamic times, it is possible that papermakers there also used
felts and introduced the practice into Europe, although the subsequent coating of all
Islamic papers with a size that was then heavily burnished has probably removed all
evidence (such as stray hairs) of any felts that once might have been used.
After pressing the damp sheets are spread or hung out to dry. In warm climates
the sheets can be spread on clean rocks or attached to smooth walls or boards; in
cooler and damper northern climates, paper was spread on heated walls or hung on
lines in special drying sheds (Barrett, 1983/1992; Harris & Wilcox, 2006). In East
Asia papers were not sized and could be used at this stage, for the ink used for writ-
ing was applied with a soft brush and soaked into the paper. In the Islamic lands,
however, writing was invariably done with a red pen (qalam), which would have
caught on the rough surface of an unsized sheet of paper and the ink would have
soaked in, so papers were invariably subjected to further treatment that consisted of
coating with size and burnishing the surface.
Papermakers, stationers, or writers and artists in the Muslim world regularly
sized their paper with starch, sometimes boiled with the addition of pure white
chalk (Levey, 1962, p. 39) or of glue (Qāḍī Aḥmad, 1959, p. 114). The starch was
often made from rice in the Mediterranean lands or from sorghum in Yemen (Gacek,
2002, p. 90). Wheat starch was difficult to extract and apparently had a disagreeable
odor. Later Ottoman calligraphers sized their paper with a mixture of alum dis-
solved in egg white. The size was either brushed or daubed on; after it had dried,
the sheet was burnished on both sides by placing it on a hard, smooth surface and
rubbing it with a smooth stone or glass burnisher until the surface was perfectly
smooth and even shiny.
In the presence of sufficient humidity starch supports the growth of molds and
other microorganisms that eventually can destroy the paper itself, but this was not
normally a problem in many of the hot and arid Islamic lands, although it did
become a problem in cooler and more humid regions of Europe (Irigoin, 1960,
p. 31). Gelatin, which Italian papermakers made from the hoofs, hides, and horns of
animals, not only inhibited the growth of microorganisms on paper, but also gave
the sheet a harder finish, more resistant to the quill pens which Europeans used to
write on parchment. The first dated paper sized with gelatin is a document of 1264,
although many paper mills still continued to size with starch after 1300 (Le Léannec-
Bavavéas, 1998, p. 66). Recent research has shown that European papers made
before ca. 1500 were specifically made to imitate parchment, being generally thicker
and with higher concentrations of gelatin and calcium than those made later, prob-
ably because earlier papers were primarily made to meet the needs of writers rather
than printers (Barrett, 2012).
Trade Relations and the Decline of Arab Papermaking
The efficiency with which European papermakers made their product allowed them
to dominate the market, not only in Italy but also throughout the Mediterranean, and
led to the rapid decline of Arab papermaking. For example, as early as 1350, a letter
from the sultan of Tunis to the king of Aragon-Catalonia bears a griffin watermark,
indicating that the paper had been made in Italy (Valls i Subirà, 1970, p. 11). Another
paper document from 10 years later bears both a watermark and a zigzag, suggest-
ing that the Italian sheet had been made specifically for the North African or Catalan
markets (p. 12).
A manuscript of the Koran was copied presumably at Baghdad on European
watermarked paper as early as ca. 1340 (James, 1992, QUR 561), but European
paper was not universally admired in the Arab lands. Some Muslims found water-
marks to be offensive, particularly since the designs often contained a cross or an
image of some living being. In Tlemcen, now in western Algeria, the noted juris-
consult Abu ‘Abdallah ibn Marzuq (d. 1439) delivered a long fatwa, or legal deci-
sion, on 21 August 1409 entitled “A Decision . . . concerning the permissibility of
writing on paper made by Christians.” According to the document, paper had once
been made in Tlemcen as well as in Fez and in al-Andalus, but it was no longer.
Pious Muslims were therefore forced to write on European paper with watermarks
that they found offensive. According to Ibn Marzuq’s decision, which saw the
problem in terms of ritual purity, writing in Arabic rendered the idolatrous designs
invisible. Writing God’s name (and message) on such papers replaced falsehood
with truth, much in the way Muslims used Christian churches as mosques (Halevi,
2008; Lagardère, 1995, p. 42).
Furthermore, Italian merchants mostly exported cheap paper to those Muslim
countries that continued to produce paper; elsewhere, they also exported the better
kinds. The once-vibrant Syrian papermaking industry seems to have collapsed as
European papermakers began to export their own product to the Middle East in
earnest. The Egyptian writer al-Qalqashandi (d. 1418) claimed that the European
paper was “of the worst kind” (Ashtor, 1977, p. 270). Although Egyptians contin-
ued to manufacture some paper until the seventeenth century, from the sixteenth
century French and Italian papers were dominant in Egypt. The few dated docu-
ments in the Cairo Geniza, a trove of medieval documents from the Jewish merchant
community, from the second quarter of the sixteenth century, for example, are on
European not local paper. By the sixteenth century, according to the historian Ibn
Iyas, the paper market building was being used by textile merchants, a trenchant
comment on the decline of the industry in the face of European competition
64 J.M. Bloom
(Raymond, 1973–1974). By the eighteenth century Cairo had become only a redis-
tribution point for the export of European paper to Arabia and Nubia (Bloom, 2008;
Raymond, 1973–1974, p. 130; Walz, 1988).
Conclusion
In conclusion, the historical geography of paper and papermaking concerns far

more than the mere history of a material and the technology to make it, for as it
spread and was adopted by different societies in different regions, paper provided
several affordances that encouraged a shift from oral to written culture and the
development of various systems of notation, whether of language, mathematics,
commercial transactions, music, or drawing and architectural drafting, quite apart
from the invention and dissemination of printed books and images (Bloom, 2001;
Bloom, forthcoming). In short, paper “started a new era of civilisation. The one we
live in now” (Kremer, 1875–1877 as quoted by Karabacek, 1991, p. 72). An inves-
tigation of this subject, however, must be left for another study.
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the material.
Chapter 4
Circulating Seditious Knowledge: The “Daring
Absurdities, Studied Misrepresentations,
and Abominable Falsehoods” of William
Macintosh
Innes M. Keighren
The spatial mobility of knowledge—its circulation variously as text, speech, and

object—has been subject to scrutiny in, among other fields, the history of science,
book history, and historical geography (Secord, 2004). Much of this work has been
informed by Latour’s concept of “immutable and combinable mobiles” (1987,
p. 227)—fixed and abstracted representations of the world (whether printed texts,
maps, or specimens) that permit the distribution and assembly of knowledge.
Nuanced revisions to this model—most particularly the categorization of so-called
“fluid objects” (Law, 2002, p. 100), malleable in both literal and epistemic senses—
have demonstrated that the exchange of knowledge has often depended upon the
plasticity of its mobile representatives, rather than their assumed fixity. Attention to
the movement of knowledge in print has shown, for example, how the vagaries of
authorship, editing, and translation alter form, content, and meaning (Keighren,
Withers, & Bell, 2015; MacLaren, 2003; Withers & Keighren, 2011). Rather than
hinder the movement of knowledge, however, such textual variability is often facili-
tative of its flow. That an object or text can “shift and adapt to local circumstances”
(Powell, 2007, p. 318), and thus be repositioned for a new audience, indicates that
mobility often necessitates mutability.
The material and hermeneutic instability of print—and its effect on the circula-
tion and reception of knowledge—has been examined in relation to questions of
authorship, translation, and editorial intervention (Amrein & Nickelsen, 2008;
The quotation in the chapter title is taken from Price (1782, p. 63). For assistance in the translation
of French and German texts, I thank Joanna Cagney, Dean Bond, Luise Fischer, and Elizabeth
Haines. For insights into the eighteenth-century Paris book trade, I am grateful to Marie-Claude
Felton and Erik Geleijns. For information relating to the first Dublin edition of Macintosh’s book,
my thanks go to Jeffrey Makala.
I.M. Keighren (*)
Department of Geography, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, UK

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-44654-7_4
68 I.M. Keighren
Iliffe, 1995; Kutzinski, 2009; Martin, 2011). In his account of the complicated pub-
lication history of Bernhard Varenius’s Geographia generalis (1750), Mayhew
(2010) has shown, for example, quite how uncertain the notion of authorship was
for a text that—in its linguistic transformation from Latin to English—passed
through the hands of multiple editors and translators. Efforts made by the book’s
intermediaries to improve the text positioned it in ways that altered its meaning
either subtly or profoundly. Rupke’s (2000) examination of the translation of
Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844)—an anonymously issued treatise
on transmutation—has told a similar story: each translator of that book appropriated
the text and, by means of additional prefaces, footnote commentary, illustrations,
and omissions, conveyed “a different message from the one the author had in mind”
(p. 210). Kontler (2001) shows much the same to be true of the German translations
of the work of the Scottish historian William Robertson and thus demonstrates how
the vagaries of linguistic reinterpretation reveal “the potential and the limits of the
transmission of ideas across cultural and geographical boundaries” (p. 67). Hofmeyr
(2003), in a peerless study of the transnational circulation of John Bunyan’s The
Pilgrim’s Progress (1678), shows how global networks, both social and technological,
permitted the international diffusion and repurposing of an important allegorical text.
Translation can, in this regard, be seen both as a liberating and an injurious inter-
vention—a purposive act that permits a text to cross geographical and epistemic
space, even as it alters its meaning as a consequence. Viewed pejoratively, such
linguistic intercession might be dismissed merely as an impediment to the circula-
tion of knowledge in print, mutability being symptomatic of textual, intellectual,
and epistemic corruption. However damaging the intervention of editors, transla-
tors, and publishers is perceived to be to a text’s meaning, these engagements are
precisely what is required for knowledge to circulate, and must be taken seriously
as a consequence. Although it is not necessary to recast such interventions as being
necessarily benevolent or charitable, they are nevertheless inseparable from the
ways in which knowledge as text has circulated within and beyond linguistic com-
munities. To understand the spatial mobility of knowledge in print thus demands an
attention to such interventions—to the decisions made by authors, editors, publishers,
translators, and booksellers as to the appropriate staging of texts and their content.
As Martin and Pickford (2012) have noted, knowledge does not simply travel by
itself; its circulation depends upon “the interaction between agents who are them-
selves in specific networks which allow for knowledge to travel” (p. 3). In this chap-
ter I take the role of these agents seriously in seeking to reveal the ways in which
one anonymously issued and politically seditious account of exploration—Travels
in Europe, Asia, and Africa (1782)—circulated within and beyond particular lin-
guistic and geographical contexts. In specific terms, I examine the means by which
one author’s in-the-field writing became authoritative, printed text; how that text
took shape through particular practices of authorship and editorial mediation; and
how the resultant book moved spatially, and was changed materially, through acts
of reprinting and translation. Through detailed attention to the making and move-
ment of one book, I seek to reflect more broadly on the importance of mediation to
the mobility of knowledge and ideas.
4 Circulating Seditious Knowledge 69
Travels in Europe, Asia, and Africa represented the first independent excursion
into geographical publishing on the extra-European world for a firm that would later
emerge as Britain’s leading nineteenth-century maker of travel texts: John Murray.
By the end of the 1830s, narratives of exploration, geographical gazetteers, topo-
graphical descriptions, and tourist guidebooks flowed from Murray’s London
presses in a heady profusion. Between the house’s founding by John Murray I
(1745–1793) in 1768 and its mid-nineteenth-century apotheosis under the direction
of John Murray II (1778–1843), the firm issued approximately 400 books of travel,
published the journal of the Royal Geographical Society, and served as official pub-
lisher to the Admiralty and the Board of Longitude. It was, simply put, the authority
on geographical publishing in nineteenth-century Britain. The emergence of Murray
as a corporate geographical authority was, however, neither rapid nor straightfor-
ward, but represented hard-won experience in a competitive marketplace, carefully
acquired credibility among readers, and shrewdly wrought influence in Britain’s
scientific and geographical circles. The house’s ability to determine the value of a
work of travel depended upon an understanding of public taste and market demand.
Judgments were daily made as to the ways in which texts of travel might most sen-
sibly be selected for publication and shaped for consumption. Questions of format,
price, and the suitability of illustrations sat alongside assessments made as to the
necessary redaction or editing of texts in order to satisfy particular audience expec-
tations—whether in terms of an author’s trustworthiness, a narrative’s adventure-
some excitement, or its perceived scientific rigor.
The expertise upon which Murray’s nineteenth-century success in geographical
publishing depended emerged, in part, from experience wrought through trial and
error. The publication history of Travels in Europe, Asia, and Africa offers an
important insight into the evolution of the firm’s judgments as to authorship, audi-
ence, and textual credibility—how decisions were made (often wrongly) as to the
appropriate literary form for a work of travel and the ways in which its veracity and
utility might most convincingly be demonstrated. More than simply an account of a
journey undertaken, however, Travels in Europe, Asia, and Africa was a seditious
and seemingly libelous attack on Britain’s colonial administrators, one whose reach
and influence was facilitated by reprinting and translation. Examining how the book
made the journey from manuscript to print, and how its textual and intellectual con-
tent altered at the hands of translators and publishers in the years following its origi-
nal printing, offers an insight into the circulation of its ideas. So, too, is it possible
to understand why, on account of political and pragmatic imperatives, the book’s
contents and arguments were differently staged and negotiated in different places
within the British Isles, and beyond.
William Macintosh: A Colonial Life
The author upon whom Murray staked his first truly independent excursion into
travel literature was a Scottish merchant and political commentator, William
Macintosh (ca. 1738–ca. 1816). Although there is no biography of Macintosh—save
70 I.M. Keighren
for a short account written by his great-nephew (Macintosh, 1847), described by

one critical contemporary variously as “rather rambling,” with little “savour of
authenticity,” and “simply rubbish” (Busteed, 1888, p. 249)—it is possible to out-
line various details of his life with some certainty.
Born in Rosskeen, a parish of Ross and Cromarty in the Scottish highlands,
Macintosh embarked (while still an adolescent) upon a commercial career in the
Caribbean, overseeing plantations in Tobago, Dominica, and Grenada, before even-
tually becoming comptroller of His Majesty’s Customs for the Port of Grenville in
Grenada (Macintosh, 1847; Rothschild, 2011). Following the ceding of Grenada
from France to Britain at the end of the Seven Years’ War in 1763, Macintosh was
witness to prolonged political machinations there concerning the incorporation of
French Catholics into the British Empire (Hamilton, 2005; Lambert, 2013; Willis,
2014). Opinion was divided as to the extent to which political rights that applied to
British Protestants should be extended to French Catholics. These divisions resulted
in political stalemate on the island lasting through much of the late 1760s and
early 1770s.
Macintosh was, as one contemporary periodical noted, “zealous in the cause of
Roman Catholic French subjects at Grenada” (Political Register, 1770, p. 282), sup-
porting the extension of political rights across the sectarian divide. Macintosh’s
opinions as to the correct and just management of Grenada were communicated in
an anonymously issued, coauthored pamphlet—Audi Alteram Partem (1770)—and
in a series of letters sent to Lord Dartmouth, secretary of state for the colonies
(Manuscripts of the Earl of Dartmouth, 1895). It was this desire to inform Britain’s
colonial policy—and to “retrieve the glory of the British name” (Macintosh, 1782,
p. vi)—that emerged subsequently as the central concern of Macintosh’s Travels.
Travels itself is—or purported to be—a series of “intimate and informal” letters
sent from Macintosh to various correspondents in the period between 1777 and
1781 while he traveled to and from India by way of Europe and Africa (Wichmann,
1785, p. v). The purpose of Macintosh’s journey is nowhere explained in the text,
but the impression is given that he was traveling for private and commercial rea-
sons, rather than in an official or administrative capacity. Although the names of the
recipients of Macintosh’s letters are thinly disguised in the text by means of dashes,
it is clear that John Murray I was among Macintosh’s correspondents. The pair
shared a largely critical view of Britain’s management of her colonies—particularly
those in North America, which were then fast slipping from grip—and this fact was
doubtless important in persuading Murray to take forward the book’s publication.
The focus of Macintosh’s “epistolary lucubrations” (Wichmann, 1785, p. vi) was
not primarily upon the geographical features of the countries through which he trav-
eled, but rather their political and economic conditions. As a consequence of his
experiences in the Caribbean—as a merchant and concerned citizen of empire—
Macintosh was both politically engaged and outspoken. These predilections were
cemented to an extent when, upon reaching the Cape of Good Hope in April 1779,
Macintosh came into possession of a copy of Adam Smith’s An Inquiry Into the
Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, published 3 years earlier (Smith, 1776).
Macintosh read the text with interest, if not always agreement; he would later send
Smith a copy of his Travels, respectfully pointing out in a flyleaf dedication points
where their opinions differed (Mizuta, 2000). Smith’s principal ideas were, how-
ever, foremost in Macintosh’s mind when he reached India, and he thus set about
making a systematic assessment of the resources of that county, as well as the pre-
vailing system of government under the East India Company. Although the precise
nature of Macintosh’s business in India is unclear, it is evident that a letter of intro-
duction from the Scottish soldier-politician Hector Munro (1726–1805) facilitated
Macintosh’s contact with the ruling elite, including Warren Hastings (1732–1818),
governor-general of Bengal, who was, as chance would have it, a regular customer
of Murray’s.
Macintosh was scandalized by what he saw as the inefficient, corrupt, and cruel
administration of British India, and his letters roundly “condemned British colonial
practices” (Tzoref-Ashkenazi, 2010, p. 21) and the administration of the East India
Company. He criticized, particularly, the Company’s “obsession with repression”
(Wichmann, 1785, p. vi). Informed by the principles of humanism, Macintosh pro-
posed in his letters an alternative system for the government and administration of
British India—one based upon a formal and clearly defined alliance between the
Mughal Emperor, Shah Alam II (1728–1806), and the British government. At its
core, Macintosh’s plan called for the more just treatment of India’s population.
Macintosh was of the opinion that for Britain’s imperial ambitions in India to suc-
ceed, it would be necessary for the Company to “resolve to treat the Hindoos, not as
slaves or inferior animals, but as fellow-men, entitled to protection, liberty, and
justice” (Macintosh, 1782, p. 73). He saw the greatest threat to the colonial project
as being the “tyranny and injustice” (p. 73) that characterized the activities of the
Company under Hastings’s governorship.
Macintosh’s resulting book, a compilation of his acerbic and politically charged
missives, was part of a wider critical discourse on the activities of the East India
Company—and its corrupt, profit-seeking servants (the so-called “nabobs”)—a dis-
cussion that gained pace following the scandalous 1770 Bengal famine and would
reach a particular apotheosis toward the end of the 1780s with the impeachment and
trial, at the instigation of Edmund Burke (1729–1797), of Warren Hastings (Dirks,
2006; Edwardes, 1976; Nechtman, 2010). Against this background of widespread
concern as to the activities of the East India Company, and Britain’s increasingly
perilous hold over its colonies, Murray judged that Macintosh’s book was topical
and important. At the same time, however, the text ran counter to Murray’s own
largely positive assessment of Hastings’s personal qualities and Murray’s private
financial interest, as a proprietor of stocks, in the Company’s commercial success
(Zachs, 1998).
Murray was the London agent for (and secretary to) the Society of East India
Commanders—a mutual organization founded in 1773 to represent the interests of
the commanders of East India Company ships. The Society met from 1780 in the
Jerusalem Coffee House, off Cornhill, east of St Paul’s Cathedral—the center of the
London book trade. The Jerusalem was the de facto hub of East India Company
affairs—a meeting site for merchants, insurance brokers, and the managing owners
of Company ships. There, and in his capacity as secretary to the Society, Murray
72 I.M. Keighren
was able to promote his catalogue of useful literature—marketing everything from

primers on Arabic and Asiatic languages to treatises on tropical and venereal dis-
ease (Zachs, 1998). Superficially, at least, Murray’s decision to publish a text so
evidently critical of an organization in which he was both financially and socially
embedded appears somewhat peculiar. One reading of the situation is that Murray
was sufficiently convinced that (notwithstanding the troublesome content of
Macintosh’s text) there was a clear business case for the book’s publication, particu-
larly given the interest it might be expected to excite among members of the Society
and patrons at the Jerusalem. A less charitable interpretation is that Murray sought
publication without having fully considered the implications Macintosh’s book
might have and the uses to which it might subsequently be put.
Polishing, Publication, and Reception of Macintosh’s Travels
Notwithstanding his experience as an inveterate letter writer and political pamphle-

teer in Grenada, Macintosh was, as Murray (1790) later recalled, “unpractised in
literary composition” (p. 17). The decision was, therefore, taken (either by
Macintosh alone, or in discussion with Murray) that the former’s “sundry papers”
needed to be worked up into a form suitable for publication (p. 17). As such,
Macintosh’s in-the-field writings were passed to the jobbing Grub-Street writer,
William Thomson (1746–1817), who
did his best to give them circulation by throwing them … into the form of letters to a friend
in England, by mixing them with various entertainment, furnished, for the most part, though
not entirely, by his employer [Macintosh], and clothing them in tolerable language. (p. 17)
Thomson was, in the view of one contemporary, an “ingenious, versatile, and mul-
tifarious writer” (Chambers, 1841, p. 351), and was frequently employed by
London’s publishing booksellers in the capacity of author or editor. Less charitably,
he was also described as a “brain-sucker” (Erdman, 1986, p. 2)—one who assumed
credit for the intellectual labor of others. During his career, Thomson is assumed to
have produced “a greater amount of literary work . . . than perhaps any English
writer who preceded him,” working happily across “history, biography, voyages,
travels and memoirs, novels and romances, pamphlets and periodicals” (Chambers,
1841, p. 353). For Murray and Macintosh both, Thomson represented an experi-
enced and professional authority to whom the preparation of Macintosh’s volume
could be entrusted. That it was felt necessary to employ an editor at all reflected a
particular assessment, on the part of author and publisher, of the necessary literary
characteristics of a work of travel. Many of the travel texts that followed Macintosh’s
under Murray’s imprint were subject to some form of editorial mediation—some-
times subtle, sometimes savage—designed to shape them into the form deemed
most suitable by Murray and the firm’s advisors.
In his prefatory remarks, Macintosh acknowledged to his readers the fact that he
was “no candidate for literary fame” (Macintosh, 1782, p. iii)—an indication of
authorial modesty that would emerge as typical of the Murray firm’s eighteenth- and
nineteenth-century travel writers. He elected, however, not to reveal Thomson’s

editorial influence. Furthermore, Macintosh had been “induced”—he claimed—“by
the importunities of men distinguished for public and private virtue, to deliver to the
public the contents of a genuine correspondence” (p. iii). Again, the claim to have
pursued publication only at the insistence of learned friends is one that would
become almost a default among Murray’s travelers. Justification for publication was
also seen to rest on a claim to public edification—Macintosh had been privy to
“sources of intelligence, not often accessible to Europeans” (p. iii) and his text
would consequently bring his readers insight and enlightenment. Prefatory declara-
tions of modest ability and reluctant authorship, such as Macintosh’s, are suffi-
ciently commonplace in works of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century travel writing
that they risk being dismissed simply as “highly conventionalized” defaults, rather
than being acknowledged as deliberate and crafted elements of rhetorical strategy
(Sherman, 1996, p. 180). Scholarly attention to the role and evolution of the textual
preface has shown, however, that its conventions are part of a venerable rhetorical
tradition whose origins lie in Classical understandings of appropriate and convinc-
ing oratory (Dunn, 1994; Sell, 2006).
The fact that Macintosh’s account was epistolary in nature, rather than narrative,
was designed to make a further claim to authenticity and candor in two related
ways. First, letters carried a connotation of intimacy—bringing the reader into the
shared confidence between writer and recipient. That these were letters sent to “men
distinguished for public and private virtue” (Macintosh, 1782, p. iii) added further
to their authority. Secondly, presenting his account as a series of letters, rather than
a worked-up journal or political treatise, lent additional weight to Macintosh’s claim
to be a reluctant author. While the existence of an on-the-spot, in-the-field journal
might suggest a specific authorial intention, letters were, more convincingly, the
medium of the reluctant author—someone persuaded only to bring forth their pub-
lication as a consequence of the overwhelming public benefit that might spring from
them. Macintosh was thus able to present his letters as having been “related with
fidelity” and left “unadorned” (Macintosh, 1782, p. iv). The reality, of course, was
rather different.
Although the role of Thomson as editor had deliberately been kept covert, at
least one reviewer of Macintosh’s text, writing in the Critical Review (1782a,
p. 343), suspected that “the author may have received the assistance of a person
practiced in composition”—a fact attested to by the quality of the prose, which was
deemed to have been written “with a degree of elegance, … seldom attained by men
who have chiefly devoted their attention to commercial activities” (p. 343). The
Critical Review was not alone in this assessment. The Westminster Magazine (1782)
reached a similar conclusion:
[t]he information it [the book] contains is evidently furnished by a traveller; but the execu-
tion of the work is in a style far superior to what could be expected from a person of this
description. A man of letters, and improved by deep study and reflection, has here, doubt-
less, improved upon materials submitted to him. The value of the performance, accordingly,
is to be imputed not to the author, but to the manufacturer. The former is a middling person-
age; the latter is a great master. (p. 484)
74 I.M. Keighren
Despite the best efforts of Macintosh, Murray, and Thomson, the keen eyes of the
periodical press were evidently not to be fooled.
The net effect of Thomson’s editorial mediation was to undermine the credibility
of the text: “we are afraid that the author has sometimes indulged himself in repre-
sentations which are consistent neither with candour nor truth” (Critical Review,
1782b, p. 425). Furthermore, as the Critical Review (1782b, p. 425) noted, “there
seems sufficient reason, from the testimony of others, to question, if not entirely to
reject, the authority of different parts of the narrative.” For the Westminster Magazine
(1782, p. 485), the problem lay, most especially, with the fact that Thomson—the
book’s “manufacturer,” in their terminology—had wasted his considerable talents
on material that was clearly beneath him. As the reviewer noted, “It is a pain to
think, that a man so cultivated should be induced to submit to give a value to the
collections of other men” (Westminster Magazine, 1782, p. 485). Murray and
Macintosh, evidently, had misjudged what the critical periodical press expected
from a work of this kind, and in seeking to add to its credibility had, in fact,
diminished it.
It was not just in the periodical press that Murray’s author was attacked.
Macintosh was also subject to a full-scale rebuttal by the East India Company captain
Joseph Price (born ca. 1749) in a 167-page, venom-filled tract: Some observations
and remarks on the late publication, intitled, Travels in Europe, Asia, and Africa, in
which the real author of this new and curious Asiatic Atalantis, his character and
his abilities are fully made known to the publick (1782). Price’s purpose was to
destroy Macintosh’s anonymity and to “prove that his work is political, and calculated
to serve the views and purposes of himself and friends” (Price, 1782, p. 9). It was to
one friend in particular—Philip Francis (1740–1818), who, with Edmund Burke,
was a principal antagonist of Warren Hastings—that Price’s ire was specifically
directed. This followed an earlier public squabble regarding supposedly negative
aspersions cast on Price’s character by Francis while he was in the service of the
East India Company (Colley, 2010; Price, 1781). Believing Macintosh to be “an
agent employed by Mr. Francis to traduce the character of Governor Hastings,”
(Monthly Review, 1782, p. 256) and thus to denigrate Price himself, Price’s text
offered an epistle-by-epistle refutation of Macintosh’s “collection of daring absurdi-
ties, studied misrepresentations, and abominable falsehoods” (Price, 1782, p. 63).
The value of Price’s text as a sober corrective to Macintosh’s volume was, how-
ever, debatable. The Monthly Review (1782) noted, for example, that
[t]he indifferent reader, who only aims, if possible, to discover the truth, will not imbibe the
warmth of the Author’s resentments; he may attribute his anger to the weakness of his
cause; if an enemy, he may derive great advantages from the Author’s heat; or, if as a friend,
he gives a more favourable interpretation to his asperity, it is an act of courtesy to which he
can lay no claim. (p. 256)
In this respect, whilst the vociferousness of Price’s “violent attack” limited its effec-
tiveness, Macintosh’s text was evidently controversial—either for those who saw it
as part of the wider contemporary criticism of the East India Company, or for those
who, as a consequence of its overwrought prose, considered its truth claims to be
potentially dubious (W. O. W., 1863, p. 67). Debate continued about the true author-
ship of Macintosh’s anonymous book, with some attributing it to Francis himself—
he having been Hastings’s “greatest enemy” (Ogborn, 2007, p. 213) during their
time together on the Bengal Council. There is evidence to suggest that Macintosh
received a financial subsidy from Francis, and it seems probable, therefore, that
Macintosh’s text was intended at least partly to communicate Francis’s own views
as to the corruption and mismanagement of the East India Company (Weitzman, 1929).
The Reading and Afterlife of Travels
Despite the concerns expressed by the periodical press as to the book’s trustworthi-
ness, its popularity and currency seem not to have been affected—in no small part a
consequence of the subsequent impeachment and trial of Warren Hastings, which
had the effect of extending the book’s topical relevance. When Thomas Jefferson
(1743–1826), who had acquired a copy of Travels in 1786, attempted later the same
year to procure one for a friend, he found that “McIntosh’s [book] is not to be
bought, the whole edition being exhausted” (Washington, 1853, p. 22). In 1785 and
1786, Travels was reprinted in Dublin to coincide with parliamentary efforts to
further regulate the activities of the East India Company. The first Dublin edition
(Macintosh, 1785), issued by Charles Lodge, was accompanied by a short advertise-
ment that highlighted the text’s purpose and significance to potential readers:
The intent of this Publication by its humane and patriotic Author, is to rescue Millions of
Souls from groaning and bleeding under the iron Yoke of Tyranny and Oppression. He hath
given in the Course of his Work, the most striking Proofs of Cruelty and Injustice, in the
Mismanagement of the East-India Company’s Servants. It hath been from this ample
Source of Information, that both Mr. Pitt and Mr. Fox deduced their Knowledge, and
founded all their Measures in their respective East-India Bills. In a Word, these interesting
Volumes have caused greater Agitations in the English Cabinet, and greater Discussions in
the English Senate, than, any Work published within the present Century. Whoever would
form a just Idea of India Affairs, together with the modern State of Europe and Africa, may
obtain it from a Perusal of this very ingenious and entertaining Publication.1
Presented thus, the book’s topicality and authoritativeness (as an important

source of information for Charles Fox [1749–1806] and William Pitt the Younger
[1759–1806] in the drafting, respectively, of the 1783 East India Bill and 1784 East
India Company Act, the second of which sought to bring the Company’s rule in
India under governmental control) was made entirely clear to likely purchasers. For
much the same reason, the title page of the second Dublin printing, issued by
J. Jones (whose premises at 39 College Green sat between the Irish Houses of
1
This advertisement is preserved on the flyleaf of a copy of the book owned by the American poli-
tician Charles Pinckney (1757–1824), housed in the Irvin Department of Rare Books and Special
Collections at the University of South Carolina (G460.M3 1782).
76 I.M. Keighren
Parliament and Trinity College), was altered to highlight the text’s contemporary
political significance (Macintosh, 1786). It informed its readers, many of whom
would have been drawn from Dublin’s scholarly and political communities, that
A Work of this Kind becomes particularly interesting to the Public, at a critical Moment, in
which a late Governor of Bengal is called before the great Tribunal of the British Parliament,
to answer various Charges of Misconduct, founded in great Measure on this authentic and
instructive Narrative. (Macintosh, 1786, title page)
That it was not Murray who elected to reissue Travels to capitalize on the politi-
cal maneuverings of Burke, Fox, and Pitt is explained by the fact that, from the
mid-1780s, Murray had become a vocal advocate for Warren Hastings, publishing
articles in the English Review (Murray’s own periodical) in Hastings’s defense
(Zachs, 1998). Murray, moreover, secured Hastings’s permission to issue an autho-
rized version of his Memoirs Relative to the State of India in 1786, the same year
that J. Jones reissued Travels in Dublin. Hastings, for his part, appears to have car-
ried no ill will toward Murray for his involvement in the publication of Macintosh’s
book. Following the commencement of Hastings’s trial—a 7-year cause célèbre,
which ultimately resulted in Hastings’s acquittal—Murray was active in “co-
publishing Hastings’ answers to the charges and reporting the case regularly in the
English Review” (Carnall & Nicholson, 1989; Zachs, 1998, p. 235). That Murray
had published the very text that served as evidence upon which certain of the charges
against Hastings had been brought, would, one might imagine, have caused Murray
no little chagrin.
Although Murray had longstanding agreements with the Dublin book trade over
the distribution of his texts in Ireland, it is difficult to determine whether Lodge and
Jones were authorized distributors of Travels, or whether they simply took advan-
tage of Murray’s awkward political position to issue pirated versions of the book.
Although the latter interpretation appears superficially more probable, it is notable
that Murray later pursued a complaint against an East India Company captain, Innes
Munro (d. 1827), whom he accused of having plagiarized Travels in his own A nar-
rative of the military operations, on the Coromandel coast (1789). That Murray was
protective of his literary property is evident; quite how he regarded the Dublin edi-
tions of a somewhat embarrassing text is, however, less obvious.
Notwithstanding cosmetic changes to the book’s title page, the textual content of
Travels remained otherwise unaltered in its Dublin editions. This was not the case,
however, when contemporaneous translations of the book appeared in Germany and
France in 1785 and 1786. If we are interested in thinking about the ways in which
Macintosh’s geographical knowledge and seditious opinions circulated, geographi-
cally and linguistically, it is necessary to attend to these translations and specifically
to the ways in which the book’s content was altered and differently framed by its
translators.
Macintosh in Leipzig
Although translation (most often into English from French and German) was an
important element of the Murray firm’s activities in the eighteenth century, and
would become ever more so in the nineteenth, there is no evidence to indicate that
Murray had any formal agreement with Friedrich Gotthold Jacobäer, the Leipzig
publisher who issued a German translation of Macintosh’s text in 1785 (Stark, 1999).
The book’s translator was Christian August Wichmann (1735–1807), a prolific
interpreter whose translations ranged across “history and travelogues, philosophical
essays, plays, short stories and novels” (Horlacher, 2004, p. 110). Having recently
undertaken the German translation of Adam Smith’s An Inquiry Into the Nature and
Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776–1778), Wichmann was well positioned to
negotiate and appropriately stage Macintosh’s political and economic reflections.
Together, Wichmann and his publisher offered a full-scale translation of Macintosh’s
book—a work whose value was assumed by them to lie in the fact that “he instructs
and converses with the reader more through political speculation than the depiction
of natural scenes” (Wichmann, 1785, p. iv). That Macintosh’s text departed, in this
respect, from the assumed conventions of its genre meant that it neatly avoided the
risk of “tiring the public’s interest . . . [by] repetitive descriptions” (p. iv). Given that
Macintosh’s identity had, by this stage, been revealed by Joseph Price, his name was
incorporated into the book’s translated title (albeit with an additional “k”): Des
Herrn Mackintosh’s Reisen durch Europa, Asia und Africa.
Wichmann’s role was not simply that of translator but also of commentator. The
German edition of Macintosh’s text was accompanied by Wichmann’s own obser-
vations and remarks. These, he informed readers in his preface, “for the most part
spring forth spontaneously,” originating from “principles, which we recognize, after
careful and yearlong reflection, as correct, and conducive to the welfare of states
and even humanity in general” (Wichmann, 1785, p. vi). Wichmann’s paratextual
commentary—informed by his humanist beliefs and concern for “moral, political
and economic betterment” (Horlacher, 2004, p. 110)—was offered to readers “as an
impetus to further reflection” (p. 110), albeit with the tacit acknowledgement that
the reader might not always concur with Wichmann’s view.
In the opinion of one contemporary reviewer of Reisen, Wichmann’s commen-
tary, although “often too extensive,” offered “some advantages” to German readers
(Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung, 1785, p. 65). For that critic, however, the decision to
publish a translation of the entire book, rather than a “concise excerpt of the original
version” (p. 65), was peculiar. A condensed version would “have certainly attracted
more readers in Germany than this translation with the current format” (p. 65).
Questions of size and arrangement aside, it is evident that Wichmann saw his role
as being one of reflection and positioning—of offering an assessment to German
readers of a text whose seditious content rendered it titillating, but whose wider
importance could best be highlighted through appropriate commentary. The mobil-
ity of Macintosh’s knowledge in a German context depended, in Wichmann’s view,
78 I.M. Keighren
on specific staging and presentation—a literal translation would be insufficient in

isolation. Much the same reasoning was apparent in the production of the French
edition, published in Paris the following year.
Although much work remains to be done to outline fully the reading and reception
of Reisen in Germany, it is evident that Macintosh’s perspective on the nature of
society in India was important in informing contemporary German debate concern-
ing happiness and virtue, savagery and civilization (Sikka, 2005). In this respect,
Macintosh’s book had a particular influence on the German philosopher Johann
Gottfried Herder (1744–1803), who drew upon it in his description of Hindus—
whom he called “the gentlest of the races of men” (Willson, 1955, p. 1051)—in his
philosophical treatise on race, Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit
(1784–1791). More generally, Macintosh’s book was a source from which German
travelers to (and writers about) India drew—their number including the naturalists
Friedrich Ludwig Langstedt (1750–1804) and Georg Forster (1754–1794) (Tzoref-
Ashkenazi, 2010).
Macintosh in Paris
The Paris edition of Macintosh’s Travels—issued under the authority of permis-

sions tacites by the Left Bank bookseller Louis-Emmanuel Regnault—had been
translated by the pamphleteer and political agitator, Jacques Pierre Brissot (1754–
1793) (Darnton, 1982). Brissot would later assume a central role in the French
Revolution—giving his name to a loose affiliation of likeminded Jacobin revolu-
tionaries: the Brissotines, or Girondins. In prerevolutionary France, Brissot was
viewed with suspicion by the Ancien Régime, not least because of frequent visits to
London. He spent 2 months of 1784 incarcerated in the Bastille “on suspicion of
having produced some pamphlets satirizing French officials” (Darnton, 1968,
p. 302). Financial difficulties, compounded by this incarceration, led Brissot to
undertake a variety of publishing and translation activities upon his release—his
aim being to “popularize knowledge, to attack abuses, and to further reform” (Ellery,
1915, p. 36). The radical and revolutionary content of Macintosh’s volume (which
Brissot is likely to have encountered first in London), as well as its humanist prin-
ciples, appealed to Brissot. He proposed the volume—Voyages en Europe, en Asie
et en Afrique—first to his Swiss publisher, Société typographique de Neuchâtel, in
1784, but for reasons that remain unrecorded they were not inclined to undertake
the book’s publication and it passed ultimately to Regnault.
Salacious allegations and political agitation notwithstanding, Brissot regarded
the primary importance of Macintosh’s text as being to counter ignorance in France
as to the political and economic condition of India. As Brissot noted, Britain had “a
thousand persons perfectly familiar with the Geography and Topography of India”
(Brissot, 1786, p. xi)—each driven by a desire to “observe all, collect all, and print
all,” whereas continental Europe “could gather scarcely fifty” (p. xi). Understanding
the political administration of British India would, Brissot argued, offer an important
insight into Britain itself—something deemed crucial if “we wish to counter the
universal influence of Great Britain” (p. xiii). Brissot was, in this respect, sizing up
a future enemy: “we must study it [Britain], consult it, in Hindustan as with her own
territory” (p. xi). Brissot’s later role in the Legislative Assembly in Paris saw him
declare war on Britain in 1793.
Much like Wichmann, Brissot felt it valuable that Macintosh’s work—like that
of other English-language texts—be presented more-or-less at its full length and not
subject to radical extraction:
Whatever the French may say, I believe the English writers must be translated in full, trans-
lated as slanderously as written; firstly because these judgements help us to know ourselves,
or at least see the manner in which we are perceived by foreigners; secondly our arguments
reach them and correct their faults, because the English originals are frequently reprinted in
England with notes made by French authors, their newspapers point out the corrections, &
thus prejudices gradually dissipate. (Brissot, 1786, pp. xvi–xvii)
In his preface, Brissot outlined to his readers the practical and intellectual approach
to translation he had taken:
I have enriched this translation, tasking myself to reject anything bearing too strongly the
character of vengeance & partiality . . . Repetitions were trimmed back, lengthy passages
were abridged, unclear ideas were clarified, falsehoods have been refuted in the notes; in
total, I endeavoured to retain in this work all that could be informative, interesting, or amus-
ing for the French. (Brissot, 1786, pp. xviii–xix)
In this respect, Brissot was repositioning and reshaping the text for its new, French
readers. Like it was for Wichmann, the role of translator was not, for Brissot, one of
simple linguistic relocation, but cultural appropriation. The mobility of Macintosh’s
text depended, once again, upon its mutability.
By means of elision and addition, Brissot altered aspects of the text’s meaning
(albeit, as he saw it, in the interests of improving its impartiality). The most radical
change to the text came through the addition of extensive excerpts from a pair of
related travel narratives—James Capper’s (1743–1825) Observations on the
Passage to India (1783) and Anders Sparrman’s (1748–1820) A Voyage to the Cape
of Good Hope (1785). By means of such additions, the purpose and relevance of
Macintosh’s account was continually being remade in the decade following its ini-
tial publication. Any illusion the printed text offers of stability and fixity is thus
gainsaid by the fluid and malleable character of Macintosh’s text. The idea of
authorship—already confused by the editorial influence of Murray and Thomson—
is further complicated by questions of translation and the inclusion of new prefaces
and appendices. While the circulation of Macintosh’s ideas may have been motivated
by their seditious qualities, they were not immutable in their mobility. At different
times, and in different places, Macintosh’s letters were put to different purposes, by
different actors, for different audiences.
As with the German edition of Macintosh’s book, the precise contours of the
French reading and reception of Voyages remain to be charted. From the evidence
contained in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century sales catalogues of private librar-
ies, it is clear, however, that the book circulated widely among a diverse audience
80 I.M. Keighren
of savants, politicians, and travelers: readers who included the encyclopedist and
philosopher, Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron d’Holbach (1723–1789); the naval com-
mander and circumnavigator, Louis-Antoine, Comte de Bougainville (1729–1811);
the statesman and botanist Guillaume-Chrétien de Lamoignon de Malesherbes
(1721–1794); and, later, the naturalist Georges Cuvier (1769–1832). Something of
the popularity of Voyages in France in the early years of the Revolution is indicated
to by the fact that its publisher, Regnault, reissued the text in 1788, 1792, and 1793
(the latter date coinciding with Brissot’s execution). In this respect, Macintosh’s
book enjoyed an afterlife in France that neither he, nor Murray, could have
predicted.
Conclusion: Text, Translation, and Truth
Macintosh’s Travels, as a first independent outing into the publication of extra-

European travel literature, was an instructive—if not always unproblematic—
experience for Murray, but one whose lessons would be applied to the publication
of subsequent works of travel. In showing the production of a travel text to be a
form of manufacture, Macintosh’s volume illustrated quite how complicated the
relationship was between author, editor, and publisher (indeed, how ill-defined the
category of author actually was). Editing and redaction remained important, if often
covert, elements of production in the house of Murray, but perceptions of what con-
stituted a correct literary style for travel texts changed. For many of Murray’s sub-
sequent authors, rough and unpolished writing was often the goal—unvarnished text
serving as a proxy for unvarnished truth (Keighren & Withers, 2011). Simply put,
Murray, his editors, and advisors became increasingly canny when it came to under-
standing the ways in which text could make truth and what was required of author
and publisher for a work of travel to be seen as credible (Keighren & Withers,
2012). Taken together, the Murray firm’s books of travel thus offer an important
insight into the collaborative effort that underpinned the process of writing the world
in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
The translation and edition history of Macintosh’s Travels—three editions or
reprints in English, one in German, and four in French—raises a number of ques-
tions to do with the spatial mobility of knowledge, most especially regarding what
gets lost, and what is retained, in the process of linguistic and cultural relocation.
While the differently presented Dublin editions, and the German and French trans-
lations, are precisely what permitted the circulation of Macintosh’s text, they are
also what changed its meaning—placing emphasis on certain parts at the expense of
others, offering new juxtapositions and contextualization. In material and epistemic
terms, Macintosh’s written words were almost always in flux as they passed through
the hands of Murray, Thompson, Lodge, Jones, Wichmann, and Brissot. While it
was the seditious character of Macintosh’s writing that acted as the principal spur to
the circulation of his book, what was emphasized by its reprinters and translators
was the text’s practical utility as a source of political and geographical information.
In that sense, there was a degree of commonality in the text’s restaging that points
to the preservation of essential elements of Macintosh’s writing and the de-
emphasizing of aspects judged to be peripheral or surplus. The spatial mobility of
Macintosh’s book between and beyond London, Dublin, Leipzig, and Paris thus
reveals not simply a geography of reading and reception, but points to the complex
mechanisms by which ideas are made mobile, knowledge is made to circulate, and
value is attributed and constructed.
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the material.
Chapter 5
Exploration as Knowledge Transfer:
Exhibiting Hidden Histories
Felix Driver
This paper is concerned with two things that depend, essentially, on the spatial
mobility of knowledge.1 First there is geographical exploration, a process of
knowledge-making involving the translation of ideas, people, and things across
space in a two-way movement between known and unknown territory. This is, as is
clear from much historical and contemporary research, an uneven process in which
certain things get translated more readily than others. There is, so to speak, a poli-
tics, as well as a physics, of knowledge transfer. The second is public exhibition, a
project designed to disseminate knowledge (in the case I will discuss, knowledge of
exploration) to a wider audience, a process sometimes described in higher education
under the bureaucratic rubric of “knowledge transfer.” The idea linking these two
things is simple enough, but deserving of further elaboration in many different
ways, as the contributions to this volume attest. The thing transferred—the knowl-
edge explorers brought home, the knowledge imparted through an exhibition—is
transformed in the course of its translation. Space, like language, is not a neutral
surface over which knowledge travels, or an empty container into which we can
pour our learning; it enters into and shapes that knowledge in significant ways
(Livingstone, 2003; Meusburger, Livingstone, & Jöns, 2010; Naylor, 2005).
The Hidden Histories of Exploration exhibition took place in London at the
Royal Geographical Society with the Institute of British Geographers (RGS-IBG) in
2009, and its life extended well beyond that in electronic form.2 The exhibition was
part of a wider project designed to question—and to disturb—a dominant narrative
in the history of exploration that privileges the actions of heroic individuals in
1
A previous version of this paper has been published as Driver (2013). The research was supported
by a research grant under the Arts & Humanities Research Council’s (AHRC) Museums, Galleries,
Archives, & Libraries Scheme.
2
The exhibition displays and other resources are available online at www.rgs.org/hiddenhistories
F. Driver (*)
Department of Geography, Royal Holloway, University of London, London, UK

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-44654-7_5
86 F. Driver
extraordinary circumstances and presents exploration as an individual drama, with

the explorer the principal character, usually the hero, occasionally the villain
(Driver, 2005). Such has been the dominant view of explorers and exploration, and
it has proved remarkably enduring. For all the weight of decades of research schol-
arship and postcolonial critique, much is still to be learned about the culture, prac-
tices, and institutions that made geographical exploration possible.3 The Hidden
Histories of Exploration exhibition was designed in particular to portray the busi-
ness of exploration as a collective experience of work involving many different
people in many different kinds of relationship.4 It highlighted the contributions of a
large number of people who were rarely center stage—including the carriers, cooks,
soldiers, porters, guides, and interpreters recruited and paid off en route. The exhibi-
tion provided an opportunity to present some of the outcomes of research on the
collections of the RGS-IBG (Driver & Jones, 2009; Jones, 2010). However, the
relationship between research and display was by no means all one-way, as the lan-
guage of “dissemination” tends to suggest. The process of bringing the exhibition
into being—conceptually, discursively, and practically—also helped to reshape
research questions and perspectives in ways that were productive of new insights
about the subject of the research, and the process of public engagement.
I begin this paper by outlining the institutional setting of the exhibition, explain-
ing its wider significance in the context of the history of the RGS-IBG and the
methodological challenge of using the Society’s historical collections to tell new
stories about exploration. The second section outlines the form and content of the
exhibition, explaining how it highlighted the agency of indigenous peoples and
intermediaries in the conduct of expeditions. By highlighting and, to an extent, cel-
ebrating the role of intermediaries such as guides, interpreters, porters, and pilots,
the exhibition prompted questions about what was made visible and what was
obscured in standard narratives of exploration, especially when seen from a British
perspective; specifically, whose labors come to be recognized as indispensable to
the process of exploration and whose are marginalized? In turn, these questions
prompted further reflection on the biographical mode in which the work of recovery
is often conceived within the heritage sector, suggesting in particular the possibility
of a more explicitly spatial perspective on the networks and infrastructure of explo-
ration. The third section considers the relationship between the ethos of the Hidden
Histories exhibition and three design strategies involved in its realization, referred
to here as “role reversal,” “juxtaposition,” and “rescaling,” respectively. The knowl-
edge presented within this exhibition, as in any other, was significantly shaped by
its spatial form and context (Hooper-Greenhill, 2000; Moser, 2010).
3
For recent overviews, see Kennedy, 2007; Naylor & Ryan, 2010; and Thomas, 2015; more spe-
cialist studies include Cavell, 2008; Dritsas, 2010; and Safier, 2008.
4
Studies of the expedition as an economic institution are surprisingly rare: see Thomas (2015).
5 Exploration as Knowledge Transfer: Exhibiting Hidden Histories 87
Institutional Context
Questions about the role of indigenous people in the history of exploration may be
approached in a variety of ways, via, for example, oral history, archival research, or
anthropological fieldwork. The remit of the Hidden Histories exhibition project was
specifically focused on the potential of archival investigation within major European
or North American collections to yield evidence that might qualify or undermine the
“heroic” view of exploration. In methodological terms, this was not an unfamiliar
challenge, given the recent direction of research in the history of geography and
imperial history concerned with the extent to which such archives, established dur-
ing the colonial era, can be read “against the grain” (Burton, 2011; Pandey, 2000)
or, in Ann Stoler’s formulation, “along the grain” (Stoler, 2009). In these terms, the
RGS-IBG was a good site to conduct such research, not least because of the extraor-
dinary depth and range of its collections. The idea of acquiring, storing, and circu-
lating geographical information was itself one of the main rationales for the
foundation of the Royal Geographical Society in 1830 (Driver, 2001; Jones, 2005).
Today, the Society’s collections are said to contain more than two million individual
items, including books, manuscripts, maps, photographs, artworks, artifacts, and
film, reflecting the wide reach of geographical interest across the world but also
extending well beyond the limits of the British Empire.
The idea of mounting an exhibition in a space traditionally associated with the
heroic view of exploration evidently required the active support of the Society
itself. The Society’s head of research and higher education, Dr. Catherine Souch,
was the key point of contact in the planning for the exhibition, though many other
members of the professional staff, notably those with responsibility for collections,
education, outreach, and public relations, were also involved. In recent years, the
RGS-IBG collections have played an important role in extensive outreach and edu-
cational initiatives, notably the Crossing Continents exhibitions program, led by
Vandana Patel and Steve Brace, designed to reach new “publics” among Britain’s
black and ethnic minority communities (RGS-IBG, 2009).5 This was part of a
larger-scale initiative—the “Unlocking the archives” project supported by the
United Kingdom’s Heritage Lottery Fund—involving the provision of new facilities
for storage, cataloguing, preservation, and visitor access to the collections at the
home of the RGS-IBG, including a new display space (the Pavilion) on Exhibition
Road, opened in 2004. Although the idea of a research-oriented exhibition at the
Society was new, the shift of emphasis in its collections strategy toward greater
engagement with more diverse public audiences—as developed in recent years by
Alasdair Macleod, head of enterprise and resources—provided an essential precon-
dition for the project discussed in this chapter.
5
The four Crossing Continents exhibitions were: Bombay Africans, 1850–1910; From Kabul to
Kandahar, 1833–1933; Seeing China: Community Reflections; and The Punjab: Moving Journeys.
See Royal Geographical Society (2009), and http://hiddenhistories.rgs.org/index.php/research/
geographical-exhibitions#4
88 F. Driver
The origins and ethos of the Hidden Histories exhibition were reflected in its
physical manifestation at the RGS-IBG, across two distinct spaces: the Society’s
Pavilion Gallery at street level (where most of the panels and copy prints were on
public display, along with some video and audio material) and the Foyle Reading
Room at basement level (where original materials including oil paintings, books,
sketches, and artifacts were housed). Although this arrangement was to some extent
dictated by pragmatic considerations, including conservation requirements, it also
helped to embed the links between exhibition and research in the spatial organiza-
tion of the display. In principle, visitors were encouraged to move from the story to
the sources. In crossing the threshold of a formerly inaccessible research facility
they were invited to become active participants in the making of new knowledge
rather than simply its passive spectators. In this respect, the spatial arrangement of
the exhibition was reinforced by a program of associated events, from “hands on”
showcases to community engagement workshops, designed to promote the use of
the collections.
Form and Content
The exhibition set out to encourage a more inclusive history of exploration, in

which the contributions of a wide range of people were recognized and valued.
European explorers in many different parts of the world relied heavily on the physi-
cal labor of porters, pilots, guides and translators, as well as various forms of indig-
enous knowledge, including but not confined to oral testimony (Burnett, 2002;
Camerini, 1996; Chrétien, 2005; Fogel-Chance, 2002; Hansen, 1999; Raffles, 2002;
Raj, 2006; Simpson, 1975; Wisnicki, 2008). Yet in writing for a metropolitan audi-
ence, explorers often failed to acknowledge the extent of their dependence on others
in print, with indigenous agency all too often “lost in translation.” By looking care-
fully at the various different forms of evidence across the collections, the aim was
to recover some aspects of these hidden histories.
The exhibition was arranged into three thematic sections: “The Work of
Exploration” (highlighting the dependence of European explorers on local support,
local knowledge, and key intermediaries, including guides and interpreters);
“Images of Exploration and Encounter” (presenting aspects of a diverse visual
archive of exploration and the presence of indigenous peoples within it); and
“Recognition and Responsibility” (reflecting on the extent to which the role of
locals and intermediaries was recognized during the nineteenth century). Within
each section, individual items were arranged to highlight the role of indigenous
people and intermediaries in the history of exploration, using various different kinds
of materials from the collections, including manuscript, print, artifact, map, photo-
graph, artwork, and film. The idea of “bringing into visibility” was enriched, and
complicated, by the prominent role of visual technologies—including, for example,
the sketchbook, the atlas, the lantern slide, and the documentary film—in the history
of exploration. The photographic collections of scholarly societies, for example,
Fig. 5.1 Captain Noel and kinematograph camera with large telephoto lens established on the
Chang La [North Col] at 23,000 ft. Unknown photographer. 1922. Note the partially visible Sherpa
keeping camera and tripod steady (© Royal Geographical Society [with IBG]. Reprinted with
permission)
have themselves been the subject of significant attention in the histories of geogra-
phy and anthropology (Edwards, 1994; Loiseaux, 2006; Ryan, 1997). The exhibi-
tion’s large central section devoted to images of exploration was thus intended to
encourage reflection on the particular history of the various modes of visualization
evident in the Society’s collections. Images of image-making were especially prom-
inent, accompanied by contextual material emphasizing the specific conditions
under which images were made (Driver & Jones, 2009, pp. 25–41). Mixing the
spectacular with the mundane, the exhibition as a whole was intended to inspire
curiosity, a desire not just to know more about the RGS-IBG collections, but to
know more about the conditions under which some things in the collections were
more visible than others.
This was partly a matter of looking at familiar material with fresh eyes. Perhaps
the single most telling example used in the exhibition was provided by an iconic
portrait of the cameraman John Noel, member of the 1922 and 1924 Everest expedi-
tions, pictured in the act of filming on the Chang La (which the British then called
the North Col) at a height of around 23,000 ft (Fig. 5.1). Noel occupies an important
place in the historiography of mountaineering, partly for his achievements as a
climber but mostly for his enthusiastic advocacy of the uses of film in the course of
adventurous exploration. His photographs and films brought Everest expeditions to
life, and continue to do so. The exhibition thus included footage from his 1922 film
alongside documentary evidence concerning the role of Sherpas in Everest
90 F. Driver
expeditions (discussed further below). The focus of the image reproduced in

Fig. 5.1 is Noel himself, the apparently nonchalant operator of a specially adapted
Newman Sinclair camera, with telephoto lens, at what was then a record altitude.
This photograph was widely reproduced, appearing, for example, in the program for
the 1922 expedition film (Mount Everest Committee, 1922), in contemporary
advertising for the camera, and also in a fundraising exhibition of Everest photo-
graphs and paintings held at the Alpine Club in the spring of 1923. The portrait
continues to be produced as an iconic portrait and is often attributed to Noel himself
(Davis, 2011; Noel, 2003). This aspect of the afterlife of the image is itself highly
significant and a reminder that the visual archive, far from being simply an unmedi-
ated record of experience, is often a site for the accumulation of value.
In the context of the exhibition, however, the viewer was encouraged to look
more closely at the picture itself. Behind the film camera, literally in the shadows,
is a partially visible Sherpa steadying the tripod, one of no less than eight men who
were deputed to carry all the equipment up and down the mountain. The idea of
partial visibility was here used to tell a larger story and in this case could be ampli-
fied by asking the viewer to consider how Noel actually obtained the photograph of
himself apparently in the act of filming. With no sign of any remotely activated
device by which he himself could have taken the picture (a theoretical possibility),
further research in the Everest archive at the RGS-IBG was required. Evidence was
eventually found, in the form of the catalogue to the Alpine Club exhibition (Mount
Everest Committee, 1923), to support the claim that the photograph was almost
certainly taken by one of the Sherpas at Noel’s behest. Of all the photographs
detailed in the catalogue, this was the only one without an attribution to a named
photographer: every one of the others is recorded as having been the work of Noel
or his British colleagues. The absence speaks volumes. It seems highly likely that
the camera was operated by an unnamed Sherpa.
Identifying a presence is an important step; going further than this and naming
individuals depends to a large extent on the survival of evidence, which is often dif-
ficult to locate or is suggestive rather than definitive, as the above example shows.
In the case of the early Everest expeditions, the names of individual Sherpas were
almost invisible in the official records, except for rare receipt books showing pay-
ments to their families and including their wives’ thumbprints as signatures (an
example of which was included in the exhibition). Seven of the porters died on the
1922 expedition, killed by an avalanche while attempting to reach the summit led
by George Mallory (who survived on this occasion). But they were not named or
even mentioned in the film, though Noel reportedly photographed the climbing
party half an hour before the accident and filmed the track of the avalanche. There
are various accounts of the accident in the RGS-IBG collections, including two by
Mallory, who blamed himself for an error of judgment (a conclusion he was not
alone in reaching).6 But among the vast archive of paperwork there is nothing to tell
us about the Sherpa community’s view of the event, apart from a single document
6
G. Mallory to G. Young, 11 June 1922, RGS-IBG Everest Expedition archives, EE/3/5/11. See
also the typescript account in EE/3/5/13.
noting compensation to their families living in Darjeeling, Nepal, and Tibet. As far
as I know, this is the only documentary evidence of their identities that survives.
Here they are named as Thankay Sherpa, Sangay Sherpa, Temba Sherpa, Lhakpa
Sherpa, Pasang Namgya Sherpa, Norbu Bhotia, and Pema Sherpa, with the report
indicating that six were ethnic Sherpa and one “Bhotia” (a loose term that the British
authorities used to cover a variety of ethnically Tibetan hill peoples).7 Although the
achievements of the British climbers were widely celebrated after their return to
England, the deaths of the Sherpas were soon forgotten as far as public memory in
Britain was concerned, in striking contrast to the lasting popular obsession with
Mallory following his death on the mountain in 1924. Mallory’s fate continues to
inspire fascination within Britain and beyond, as witnessed in Geoffrey Archer’s
pseudo-documentary novel, Paths of Glory (2009), and the spectacular film,
The Wildest Dream (2010), both of which drew directly on materials in the Everest
collections at the RGS-IBG. In this context, the possibility of telling other stories
through these collections is yet to be widely recognized.8 An exhibition such as
Hidden Histories swims against a powerful tide.
As the above example indicates, research for the exhibition involved the identi-
fication of individuals whose labors had been hidden or airbrushed from history,
suggesting the possibility (cheerfully exploited in the exhibition publicity) of a kind
of alternative “roll of honor” in the annals in exploration. But the task of naming
and individualizing those I have referred to above as “partially visible” was itself by
no means simple. The vast majority of those employed by such expeditions are
unidentified in most published narratives or the archives that survive. Moreover,
those that are named are often identified on the basis of convenience or misinterpre-
tation by their employers, roles frequently mistaken for names or family names for
first names. There are also many examples of the use of adopted or conferred names,
as for example in the case of Sidi Mubarak Bombay, the celebrated leader of many
nineteenth-century expeditions in East Africa, whose names reflected his experi-
ence as a child slave taken by his Arab captor to India (Simpson, 1975). Further
consideration of these conventions and practices of naming is itself an important
step in the process of unsettling conventional accounts of exploration, in which
“locals” are so often merely means to an end. Attempting to do more by breathing
biographical life into the often fragmentary surviving evidence is a real challenge.
It requires painstaking research, often against the grain of the archive, to trace the
barest pattern of a life.
A further example from the archives displayed in the exhibition for the first time
may help to illustrate this point. This is a delicate watercolor sketch by Catherine
Frere, daughter of British colonial governor Sir Henry Bartle Frere, made in South
Africa in 1877 (Fig. 5.2). It depicts a group of the female members of Henry Morton
7
The total compensation given was 1900 Rupees, about £130. See “Committee assembled to con-
sider compensation to be given to the dependants of the men killed on the Everest Expedition,”
dated 11 August 1922. RGS-IBG Everest Expedition archives, EE/18/1/98.
8
Wade Davis has published a remarkable account of the Everest expeditions of the 1920s situating
them in the aftermath of World War I (Davis, 2011).
92 F. Driver
Fig. 5.2 Catherine Frere. Some of the Zanzibar and other natives of Mr. H. M. Stanley’s party.
1877. Watercolor. The women’s names are recorded underneath (© Royal Geographical Society
[with IBG]. Reprinted with permission)
Stanley’s party, who had stopped at the Cape on their return voyage from Angola to
Zanzibar after crossing Africa from east to west in a marathon 3-year expedition.
The women were from Zanzibar and returning there to be paid off, like the men who
traveled with them, as was customary at the conclusion of a major expedition.
Interestingly, their images also appeared, in photolithograph form, in Stanley’s pub-
lished account (Stanley, 1878, p. 371). But in this unique sketch from the RGS-IBG
archives, Catherine Frere records their Swahili names, individually, carefully num-
bering each of the sitters—and with a youthful flourish signs her own initials, ren-
dered as notes on a musical stave. Her portrait is a remarkable document, which
serves as a reminder that large numbers of women, as well as men, were employed
by major expeditions of the sort led by Stanley or Speke across Africa (which them-
selves followed the pattern of existing long-distance economic networks within East
Africa: Rockel, 2000). The watercolor sketch also brings out the pattern and color
of their kangas, the printed cottons worn by women throughout East Africa, provid-
ing valuable historical evidence for African historians. For this reason, it was repro-
duced alongside contemporary designs in a 2013 British Museum exhibition, Social
Fabric: Africa Textiles Today, curated by Chris Spring. The survival of the very
personal sketch also suggests the possibility, at least, of a more sympathetic view of
the women’s individuality, imagined from the perspective of the daughter of a colo-
nial administrator and philanthropist. With further research on such images—espe-
cially in combination with photographic, oral historical, textual, and other kinds of
evidence—it may be possible to say more about the experience of these women.
Research of this kind clearly faces significant evidential challenges. But it also
raises wider questions about the biographical mode in which much of this kind of
“salvage” work—the uncovering of “hidden histories”—is done within the heritage
sector. For in seeking to excavate and celebrate the lives and achievements of indi-
viduals in the name of an explicitly revisionist history, we risk replacing one kind of
hero-myth with another. In the case of exploration, for example, the figure of the
“heroic indigene” has a longer history than might be imagined. In some circum-
stances, certain kinds of local agency were celebrated during the age of empire, and
indeed mythologized. The story of the “pandit” Nain Singh, the subject of new
research in recent years, provides the most telling example (Jones, 2010, pp. 58–91;
Raj, 2006). Nain Singh was famously awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal
Geographical Society for his contributions to the mapping of Tibet, Ladakh, and
Central Asia in 1877, and his name has loomed large in the Society’s recent efforts
to promote a more inclusive history of geography (Driver & Jones, 2009, pp. 43–46).
Yet a fully historical perspective on his celebrity requires close attention to the
terms on which his exceptional contributions were recognized during the nineteenth
century as well as in our own time. Almost literally a subaltern in the service of the
British, Nain Singh was represented in the halls of metropolitan science—his por-
trait can still be seen on the walls of the RGS-IBG today—but essentially his recog-
nition depended on his ascribed status as a faithful servant of his employers in the
Survey of India.
The case of Nain Singh prompts further reflection on some of the key assump-
tions behind the idea of hidden histories itself. In the course of selecting suitable
case studies for the exhibition, it became clear that certain kinds of non-European
agency, such as those of the “pandits,” were recognized even in the nineteenth cen-
tury and, moreover, that the knowledge of many of the identifiable guides, interpret-
ers, and field assistants encountered in the RGS-IBG collections in many different
contexts, from the Arctic to Amazonia, could hardly be characterized as “local” or
“indigenous” in any straightforward sense. Nain Singh, for example, originated in
the Kumaon Himalaya in Northern India and was clearly not “indigenous” to the
vast territory in Tibet through which he traveled, often incognito, covertly collect-
ing the geographical information so precious to the British authorities, and indeed
relying heavily on local informants and intermediaries. And his experience in work-
ing for successive European travelers in the trans-Himalayan region, beginning
with his employment by the Schlagintweit brothers on an expedition across the
region sponsored by The East India Company and the king of Prussia in the mid-
1850s (Finkelstein, 2000), suggests that his personal knowledge was far from
merely “local.” Indeed, seen in the broader context of late-Victorian ideas about
race and culture, the presentation of locally created knowledge as “indigenous” or
“native” could be considered from a postcolonial perspective as a deeply colonial
move. After all, at the same time as they were airbrushing the role of non-Europeans
out of their narratives, colonial travelers were also constructing visions of indigene-
ity and of local knowledge designed, in a sense, to keep the others in their place.
94 F. Driver
In this context, the figure of the intermediary, or the “go-between,” as discussed

in recent literature on the history of science and empire (Metcalf, 2005; Schaffer,
Roberts, Delbourgo, & Raj, 2009; Jones, 2010; Kennedy, 2013), offers a way of
approaching the role of non-European guides, pilots, interpreters, and proxy-explor-
ers in the history of exploration that is not so obviously reliant on colonial or neo-
colonial stereotypes. Such a perspective also prompts further questions about the
role of these individuals within larger economic, social, and political networks.
Indeed, it draws our attention to exploration as involving a process of exchange of
resources—often an unequal exchange, to be sure, but still a set of relationships in
which the agency was not all on one side. Portraying geographical exploration as a
collective project of work also invites greater recognition of the spatial infrastruc-
ture and logistics of expedition-making—notably, the significance of ports of call
and supply routes, sites of recruitment and pay-off. To highlight the significance of
such networks and practices encourages a shift of perspective away from the most
celebrated scenes in the history of exploration. The single most important site in the
British exploration of East Africa after 1850, for example, was surely not the source
of the Nile, but the town of Zanzibar, a key node in the Indian Ocean trading system
and a recruiting station for men and women working as porters on the major African
expeditions of Speke, Stanley, and others (Prestholdt, 2008; Simpson, 1975). A
similar point could be made about the relationship between the Everest expeditions
of the interwar period and the hill settlement of Darjeeling, where the British
recruited their Sherpas (Ortner, 1999). At these sites were crystallized sets of his-
torical and geographical relationships involving regional and interregional employ-
ment practices, trading networks, political histories, family structures, large-scale
migrations, and religious change. It is by considering what was happening at these
sites—the bases from which expeditions were planned—that a richer and more
inclusive history of exploration can emerge.
Design Strategies
As with any large-scale exhibition project, the process of designing the Hidden
Histories displays required an extended series of discussions involving many peo-
ple, from the initial formulation of the brief, through the tendering stage to the
process of drafting and redrafting based on feedback and commentary, both within
the project team and in consultation with panels of community representatives and
external experts from the heritage sector and the academy. In this context, the intel-
lectual challenges posed by the research had to be translated into the language of
design—format, scale, color, proportion, and arrangement. It is important in this
context to emphasize the iterative nature of the design process, with successive
drafts being subject to scrutiny and discussion over an extended period of time, and
among a wider variety of constituencies than is conventional in the case of aca-
demic publication, for example. These included academic reviewers, heritage con-
sultants, and consultative groups convened by a specialist consultant, Cliff Pereira,
with members from a variety of ethnic communities, notably but not exclusively
from within South Asia, whose perspectives were included by means of audio clips
within the space of the exhibition and on the accompanying website.9 As well as
practical questions such as the accessibility of font sizes, the height of the panels, or
the location of the video screen, these discussions involved engagement, in various
registers, with the core ideas of the project less as static “givens” dictating the form
of the display than as dynamic ideas subject to revision in the course of discussion.
The various parties—including the designers, the exhibition team at the RGS-IBG,
the head of research, the researchers, heritage experts, and community consul-
tants—all brought particular skills and experience to this process, and the eventual
result reflected inputs from them all. In what follows, I shall identify three core
principles discernible in the final format of the exhibition. It is important to empha-
size that these were not articulated in these terms at the outset. Rather, they emerged
as the exhibition planning process developed, and indeed their full significance only
became clear once the exhibition was open to public view.
The first serious discussion of design principles took place at the tendering stage,
when four professional design teams responded to the brief (a summary of the proj-
ect based on the initial proposal) with ideas, images, and models. The team eventu-
ally awarded the brief—Sally Stiff and Joe Madeira of the Old Sweetshop design
consultancy—presented a series of visually appealing designs for exhibition panels,
publicity, and publications based on a single image from the RGS-IBG collec-
tions—Thomas Baines’s oil painting entitled A Malay native from Batavia at
Coepang—exploiting the colors in the painting to create an attractive palette for the
design (Fig. 5.3). In describing his approach, designer Joe Madeira referred to this
portrait as the “hero image,” a term taken from the branding and marketing litera-
ture to refer to the focal point of a design, especially in the web environment, usu-
ally a strong image reinforcing the brand message. In the context of the Hidden
Histories exhibition, the term had added resonance. Its purpose was now to cele-
brate the achievements of individuals whose labors had been hidden from history.
Ironically, at this point, the identity of the “Malay native” was not actually known.
It was only later, in the course of research on the Baines diaries, that researcher
Lowri Jones was able to identify the sitter for Baines’s portrait in Coepang (modern-
day Kupang) as Mohammed Jen Jamain, a former djakse or local magistrate. The
crucial link was made by triangulating between the diary, the portrait, and a water-
color sketch of the same individual, held in the RGS-IBG collections (Driver &
Jones, 2009, p. 33; Jones, 2010, pp. 126–128).
In seeking to present a sympathetic and in some respects “heroic” view of local
informants, guides, interpreters, and other go-betweens, the design teams were
encouraged to deploy a strategy of role reversal. The initial brief thus put the empha-
sis on the vulnerability of European explorers, reliant upon local knowledge and
guidance for their survival in unfamiliar environments. Seen in this perspective, the
exhibition suggested that the true heroes of exploration—those to whom the real
credit should be given—had for too long remained in the shadows. The familiar roll
See http://hiddenhistories.rgs.org/index.php/about/community-consultation
9
96 F. Driver
Fig. 5.3 Thomas Baines.

A Malay native from
Batavia at Coepang.
(1856). Oil on canvas
(© Royal Geographical
Society [with IBG].
Reprinted with permission)
call of heroic British explorers—Cook and Burton, Livingstone and Scott—would

now give way to an alternative pantheon including figures such as Sidi Mubarak
Bombay and Nain Singh, whose contributions to exploration are increasingly recog-
nized even in popular histories (Hanbury-Tenison, 2010, pp. 87–92; Hugon, 1993,
pp. 122–123), and less well-known figures, such as the Amerindian guide Pedro
Caripoco, who traveled in Amazonia with Jean Chaffanjon in 1886 and again with
Alexander Hamilton Rice in 1919–1920 (Martins, 2012), or the Tibetan interpreter
Karma Paul, who worked for every British expedition to Everest between 1922 and
1938 (Driver & Jones, 2009, p. 41). The acts of naming and picturing these remark-
able individuals and to some extent celebrating their achievements were strategic
decisions in this context. In this show, it was the agency of the headman, the indig-
enous surveyor, the guide, and the interpreter that took center stage.
Although there was undeniably an element of celebration at work in this exhibi-
tion, willfully accentuated by the designers’ use of attractive colors and banners, it
was also important to move beyond the heroic mode. In the first section of the exhi-
bition, headed “The Work of Exploration,” a panel on the dependence of European
explorers was thus followed by another entitled “Uneasy Partnerships,” a portman-
teau phrase intended to capture the fraught relationships between European
explorers and those knowledgeable intermediaries on whom the co-production of
Fig. 5.4 Stone foundations

of canoe-shaped house.
Katherine Routledge with
field assistant. Unknown
photographer. 1915. Rapa
Nui (Easter Island)
(© Royal Geographical
Society [with IBG].
Reprinted with permission)
knowledge depended. Some of these individuals—especially collectors, translators,

and guides—acquired far more experience of exploration than even the most
experienced European explorers could attain. A very few, such as Nain Singh, as we
have seen, were celebrities in their own lifetime. Many others were virtually air-
brushed from the accounts subsequently published in journals and books by the
leaders of the expeditions. In order to present such relationships as “partnerships,”
the exhibition therefore relied on a second strategy of juxtaposition, the designer
creating panels in which pairs of images were placed alongside one another. Here,
for example, there were twinned portraits of Alfred Russel Wallace and Ali, his field
assistant, whom Wallace recalled serving as his “eyes, ears and hands” during his
extended field researches in the Malay archipelago (Camerini, 1996, p. 56); or
Katherine Routledge with her field assistant on the Pacific island of Rapa Nui in
1914, each on either end of a measuring tape (Fig. 5.4). And, turning to a very dif-
ferent moment, the exhibition also presented an iconic image of Edmund Hillary
and Tenzing Norgay sharing a cup of tea on the slopes of Mount Everest in 1953. By
this time, colonial attitudes were being increasingly challenged, both by the Sherpas
themselves and by some European climbers. From being coolies or porters, Sherpas
were increasingly claiming the right to be treated as climbing partners on an equal
basis (Hansen, 2000). In the space of the exhibition, superimposed on the portrait of
Tenzing on the summit, was an extract from his famous account of the final moments
98 F. Driver
of the 1953 ascent, in which he gently disputed common assumptions about Hillary’s
precedence: “All the way up and down we helped, and were helped, by each other—
and that was the way it should be. But we were not leader and led. We were part-
ners” (Norgay & Ullman, 1955, pp. 265–266).
The Everest collection at the RGS-IBG, which includes materials from expedi-
tions from the 1920s up to the 1950s, is a substantial and precious archival resource.
In seeking to project a different version of the Everest story, making visible the vital
contributions of interpreters, climbers and porters, a third design strategy—that of
re-scaling—proved particularly effective. The wall of the RGS-IBG pavilion,
immediately above the Everest section of the exhibition, was covered with a greatly
enlarged image of a sheet of passport-style photographs from the archives of the
1936 Everest expedition, so that each individual portrait was approximately life-
size. At first sight, in their archival box, these photographic portraits had appeared
to belong to a genre of administrative and anthropometric photography deployed by
the British in India since the 1860s (Falconer, 1984), the numbering and arrange-
ment of each print suggesting, to my eyes at least, principles of surveillance and
regimentation (Fig. 5.5). But this was certainly not the whole story. Alongside the
Sherpa portraits, taken at the moment of their recruitment at the Planters’ Club in
Darjeeling, were those of some of the British members of the expedition, as well as
images of the recruitment scene itself. Furthermore, the projection of these portraits
onto the wall transformed an archival fragment into something far more personal
and indeed more ambivalent (Fig. 5.6). The young Sherpa recruits wore identity
tags around their necks, issued at the point of recruitment. At an enlarged scale,
however, these badges appeared less as mechanisms of surveillance and more as
marks of worth, almost like the medals these Sherpas were never awarded.10 At this
scale too, the individuality of the portraits became much more evident. Here visitors
to the exhibition could spot the stylish though now middle-aged interpreter Karma
Paul, who had by 1936 become something of a celebrity on Everest expeditions,
resplendent in Tibetan costume, as if to confirm his elevated status. Karma Paul—or
Palden, to use his Tibetan name—appears directly alongside expedition leader
Hugh Ruttledge. Neither has an identity tag. Also among the Sherpas identified in
the exhibition display was the young Tenzing Norgay, an enthusiastic member
of the 1936 climbing team, 17 years before his successful ascent with Hillary.
At this scale, then, the personal and social histories of labor usually hidden from
view in conventional histories of exploration and mountaineering came more clearly
into view.
At a meeting in the autumn of 1936 held to celebrate the achievements of the
Everest expedition earlier that year, the president of the Royal Geographical Society,
Henry Balfour, concluded the evening with a tribute to the porters, whom he
The British climbers on Everest in 1922 were awarded medals in Alpinism at the 1924 Winter
10
Olympics; subsequently, the names of two Indian members of the team were added to the list of
medal-winners, though these did not include the Sherpas who died on the mountain (Correspondence
with the International Olympic Committee concerning the award of medals, RGS-IBG Everest
Expedition Archives, EE 30/3).
5 Exploration as Knowledge Transfer: Exhibiting Hidden Histories
99
Fig. 5.5 J. M. L. Gavin, Everest album. 1936 (© Royal Geographical Society [with IBG]. Reprinted with permission)
100 F. Driver
Fig. 5.6 Everest album on display, Hidden Histories of Exploration exhibition, Royal Geographical
Society (with the Institute of British Geographers), October–December 2009. The young Tensing
Norgay is the portrait in the top left (Photographer: Philip Hatfield. Reprinted with permission of
the RGS-IBG)
described almost in passing as “absent heroes” (Balfour et al., 1936, p. 523). The
re-scaling of their portraits in the 2009 Hidden Histories exhibition effectively
brought these men into presence in a way that many visitors to our exhibition found
particularly powerful, perhaps because it enabled them to recognize these self-
conscious, half-smiling young men as historical agents in all the senses of the term.
Conclusion
In the context of academic funding, exhibitions are an increasingly common means

of presenting geographical research, a more or less accessible form of public output.
In this paper, I have reflected on the experience of producing an exhibition in order
to consider the ways in which the format of display can in some circumstances
extend, illuminate, clarify, or problematize aspects of the research process itself. In
retrospect, it became clear that the exhibition team had been juggling two rather
different approaches to the uses of historical materials in the display space. The first
approach gave priority to principles of archival authenticity, the need to display
materials in or near their original form, either as objects or as faithful reproductions.
The second sought to align the spatial form of display with the intended message, or
ethos, of the exhibition. On the one hand, we wanted as researchers to be as true as
possible to the materiality of the collections. Rather than airbrushing the imperfec-
tions or downplaying the contingency of the archives, we sought to highlight their
material qualities as objects. After all, these pieces of paper, books, pictures, and
artifacts—these raw materials—were not in themselves stories or even fragments of
stories. They were part of an institutionally embedded archive with its own history
and geography. On the other hand, we worked with exhibition specialists who used
their expertise in design and education to transform the material so that it could
serve a strong and accessible narrative, in the interests of effective communication.
However well-meaning its claims to archival authenticity, any exhibition is inev-
itably a work of transformation. The Hidden Histories of Exploration exhibition
was no exception to this rule. In particular, the process of design helped to shape,
and indeed transform, the meanings of the archive as they were presented in the
spaces of the exhibition. In this process, the designers themselves performed the
role of intermediaries, though their work was itself modified in a process of discus-
sion, revision, and reformulation that reflected a number of different interests.
Furthermore, as I have emphasized, the need for understanding the significance of
image-making in the context of exploration and its history was itself a major theme
running throughout the exhibition. Here too, the emphasis was on artists, engravers,
photographers, or filmmakers as intermediaries, engaged in a collective work of
knowledge production. The story conveyed about their role was not one of agency
in any simple sense. These image-makers were not doing their work in a vacuum.
They were, precisely, the bearers of larger traditions. Their sketches, maps, engrav-
ings, photographs, and films were not treated simply as transparent records of indi-
vidual authorship or experience. In a sense, these artifacts too had their own
biographies and larger family histories. Here is another reason to think of “knowl-
edge transfer” as always and inevitably a mediated process.
As with many contemporary exhibitions designed with multiple audiences in
mind, the work presented by the Hidden Histories of Exploration project was re-
presented in several different sites: the physical spaces of the gallery and the read-
ing room, the diverse locations in which a traveling version of the displays have
circulated (including, for example, the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew and the
Royal Engineers Museum in Gillingham, Kent), the various institutional and educa-
tional spaces where talks and lectures have been given (from academic conferences
to prison education programs), the physical pages of the companion book, and the
virtual spaces of an online exhibit, accompanied by online research and teaching
resources. Through these various channels, the exhibition was encountered by a
significantly greater number of people than the few thousands who originally saw it
in South Kensington in 2009. Since its launch the online exhibition, for example,
has had well over 100,000 page views from 133 countries. In each of these venues,
whether physical or virtual, the exhibition narrative was reordered, the images
redisplayed—on more portable display boards, in lesson plans for teachers, or
within PowerPoint presentations for researchers. In each case, the exhibition was
not merely reproduced, it was given a new form, its contents freshly curated within
a new setting. Here perhaps is an echo of the idea of the museum as a “distributive
institution” discussed by Clare Harris in the context of her digital Tibet Album, a
102 F. Driver
website devoted to the photographic collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum (Harris,
2013).11 In the process, however, meanings do not merely “transfer” or diffuse out-
wards, as if they were little parcels of data disseminated from the hub of knowledge-
generating machines like the Pitt Rivers Museum or the Royal Geographical
Society; rather, they multiply and diversify, being reworked in new contexts. This is
another way of saying that making an exhibition is a process, not an event; and
especially in the context of the mobility of knowledge through the web, there is little
that is immutable (Srinivasan et al., 2013).
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the material.
Chapter 6
The Imprecise Wanderings of a Precise Idea:
The Travels of Spatial Analysis
Trevor Barnes and Carl Christian Abrahamsson
The text for our chapter is a schematic map based on one originally published in a
geography undergraduate primer in quantitative methods (Fig. 6.1). By text we
mean an object, here a diagram, which can be critically interpreted, or “read,” to
then be used to shape the structure of an argument. “Quant Geog airlines flight plan”
first appeared in the opening chapter of Peter Taylor’s (1977) introductory statistics
textbook, Quantitative Methods in Geography. It was a brilliant piece of cartogra-
phy because it was a map of a disciplinary idea: geography’s quantitative revolu-
tion. Maps of this kind have rarely existed in geography, in spite of a disciplinary
obsession with cartography. The American geographer Carl Sauer, professor at the
University of California in Berkeley, famously said: “Show me a geographer who
does not need [maps] constantly and want them about him, and I shall have my
doubts as to whether he has made the right choice of life” (Leighly, 1963, p. 391).
The maps that interested Sauer were of tangible objects, often everyday ones, such
as fence posts, grave markers, or barn types. For Sauer those objects, and the pecu-
liar material form they took, bore the impress of a wider, shaping culture. By map-
ping the geography of those objects, one mapped also the geography of the larger
culture that gave rise to them.
The map found in Fig. 6.1 is not of an ordinary tangible object, but of an extraor-
dinary intangible idea: spatial analysis, or spatial science, or the quantitative revo-
lution. These were all names given to the movement in Anglo-American geography
during the second half of the 1950s to refashion geography in the likeness of physi-
cal science. As an intellectual movement, it was defined by the use of a formal
mathematical vocabulary to reduce complex geographical patterns to simpler relations,
T. Barnes (*)
Department of Geography, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada
C.C. Abrahamsson
Department of Sociology and Human Geography, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-44654-7_6
106 T. Barnes and C.C. Abrahamsson
Washington Bristol Lund

..
Michigan
Iowa
Freiburg Tartu
Chicago
Fig. 6.1 Quantgeog airlines flight plan (Adapted from Taylor, 1977, p. 15)
permitting identification of an underlying (theoretically defined) causal structure.

Taylor’s map shows the geography of that intellectual movement, depicting the spe-
cific places where it was formulated and practiced, as well as its travels, represented
by the lines connecting the sites. Taylor’s figure, then, like the cartography of Sauer
and his students, was a cultural map, in this case a map of geography’s intellectual
culture.
Our paper is a series of footnotes to Peter Taylor’s map. We want to understand
how the geography inscribed within Fig. 6.1 arose. Why were those places on his
map and not others? And what did those places provide that was unavailable else-
where? To answer these questions, we draw on science studies, especially on recent
works within that field concerned with “putting science in its place” (Livingstone,
2003). Science studies has increasingly emphasized the geographical constitution of
knowledge, the fact that knowledge is always from somewhere. In this standpoint,
the field contradicts the orthodox, rationalist account of science that renders the
place of inquiry irrelevant (Shapin, 1998). Rationalism is “the view from nowhere”
(Nagel, 1986). It averses that emphasizing place undermines scientific inquiry’s
credibility. For example, “[i]t was the end for cold fusion when people decided it
only happened in Salt Lake City” (Kohler, 2002, quoted in Livingstone, 2003, p. 2),
as one commentator noted.
In contrast, we argue that placing ideas should be the very first act in interpreting
knowledge (Barnes, 2004). That is why Peter Taylor’s map is so important. His
map, however, applies only to the post-World War II period. We suggest that spatial
analysis existed long before World War II, accreting complex geographies and
mobilities. These other geographies, and other maps, also need discussing.
The paper is divided into two main sections. The first draws on science studies to
fashion some of the conceptual tools needed to make sense of the geography of
ideas. In particular, we elaborate on Thomas F. Gieryn’s (2002) text on “truth spots”
and Kevin Hetherington’s (1997) book on “heterotopias” to understand why certain
places are sites for the development of big ideas. We also consider the writings
of Bruno Latour (1987, 2005) on intellectual mobility to fathom the processes
6 The Imprecise Wanderings of a Precise Idea: The Travels of Spatial Analysis 107
necessary to move a big idea from one place to another. The second section provides
a geographical genealogy of spatial analysis. The first part is concerned with spatial
analysis’s origins with the ancient Greeks, and its revival, after a significant lag,
during the European Enlightenment by Bernhardus Varenius (1622–1650), who
also inspired Isaac Newton’s (1642–1727) interest. The second part is concerned
with the institutionalization of spatial science after World War II, when some in the
discipline claimed that spatial analysis was not just a big idea in geography, it was
the big idea.
he View from Somewhere: Place and the Spatial Mobility

T
of Knowledge
Our conceptual framework derives from science studies, the interdisciplinary body
of work from the late 1960s that insisted the social went all the way down in shaping
scientific knowledge. Science studies was a reaction to rationalism, which con-
ceived of knowledge as the purified product of a disembodied mind, or a “brain in a
vat” in Hilary Putnam’s (1981, p. 7) arresting image. By dogged brain power alone
Truth would be revealed, with rationality assumed to be universal and the source of
Truth with a capital “T.” Consequently, where rationality was applied was irrele-
vant. It could be Heidelberg or Hong Kong. It did not matter because the same
conclusion would be generated in both places. Adding geographical information
might provide background color, but it would (and could) not change the rational
outcome.
Also denied by rationalism was spatial process. There was no process, geograph-
ical or otherwise, involved in arriving at Truth under rationalism. Once premises
were stated, and the correct logic was applied, Truth instantaneously followed,
believed by everyone everywhere. Truth occurred just like that.
Opposing this rationalist view, science studies contends that place is utterly criti-
cal to the formation of ideas, as is their geographical mobility (Nye, 2011). Ideas are
not titrated on to the page drop by drop from a distilled rationality, but are a conse-
quence of grounded social practice embedded within place. In this understanding,
geography is not mere background atmospherics, but provides for the very possibil-
ity and shape of new ideas. It is not the view from nowhere, but the view from
somewhere. Likewise, there is a process to truthmaking that necessarily extends
over space and time. Truth is not accepted instantly and everywhere because of an
overarching rational proof. Rather, ideas take time to establish a hold, traveling and
circulating at different speeds. Moreover, as they travel they change form, seren-
dipitously interacting with other ideas, creating hybrids. There is no “just like that”
acceptance of big ideas. It is more complex and muddied; processual, not instanta-
neous; and rooted in the stickiness, fallibleness, and frailty of human interaction at
a distance.
This anti-rationalist position, in which geography figures large as an integral

component of intellectual production, has been worked out theoretically in different
ways, and often by non-geographers.1 We elaborate here on two aspects: (a) place
and knowledge and (b) the spatial mobility of knowledge.
Place and Knowledge
What makes a place suitable for generating new knowledge? And once knowledge
is generated there, how does it gain the credibility necessary to be accepted in other
places?
Hetherington’s (1997) Foucault-inspired notion of heterotopia addresses the first
question. He argues that for a place to generate ideas, it must be sufficiently open,
flexible, and porous to permit new beliefs and concepts to emerge and germinate.
Such qualities correspond to Hetherington’s (1997) definition of a heterotopia as a
place of “alternative ordering. Heterotopias organize a bit of the social world in a
way different to that which surrounds them” (p. viii). A heterotopia must be consti-
tuted to accept difference, to allow elbowroom for alternative ideas, to provide
opportunities for open discussion, and to offer the means for dissemination. Only
when one or more of these conditions hold will alternative orderings have an oppor-
tunity to come to fruition and to remake the surrounding outside world in their like-
ness. Hetherington’s (1997) example is the Palais Royale in eighteenth-century
Paris. It was a heterotopia because of its alternative internal ordering. There were no
rigid rules about what could be said, and no rules about who could speak to whom.
It was a place that made possible novelty and creativity. As a result, it was able to
contest the established order of the (surrounding) Ancien Régime, “becoming the
focus for other interests and hopes for social change” (p. 51) in a revolutionary
France.
The second question of what makes knowledge stick to a place is taken up by
Gieryn (2002), who addressed it in his notion of a “truth spot.” A truth spot is a
place that gains sufficient credibility that those professing knowledge from there are
able to assert that their claims “are authentic all over” (p. 118). Accordingly, such
places “escape place …; place achieves placelessness” (p. 113). One of Gieryn’s
(2002) examples is the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, which “pursues cred-
1
The anti-rationalist position, at least within science studies, is seen in two distinct bodies of
work—social constructionism and actor-network theory. The social constructionist version sug-
gests that scientific knowledge is constructed on the basis of the social interests of the scientist.
The actor-network version, however, casts doubt on whether “the social” exists as an independent
sphere, suggesting that scientific knowledge is the result of many agents, several of which are non-
human. In a debate between David Bloor (1999), the most well-known proponent of social con-
structionism, and Bruno Latour (1999), the leading proponent of actor-network theory, differences
were sharply drawn. Subsequent commentaries, however, in emphasizing the shared history of the
two approaches point to considerable overlap between the two camps (Nye, 2011; Rheinberger,
2010).
ibility for its claims without recourse to place” (p. 125). Gieryn argues against this
assertion, however, showing exactly how the trick of making place disappear is
achieved with the claim that the results at the Plasma Laboratory in Princeton are
replicable anywhere else in the world. Not true says Gieryn. They can be replicated
only if all other laboratories are identical to Princeton’s. As Nancy Cartwright
(1999) puts it, replicability is achieved “primarily inside [various kinds of] walls . . .
within which conditions can be arranged just so” (p. 2). Only when one place is
arranged just so, that is, made to be identical to another, can results be replicated.
But this is not the same as claiming that results are “authentic all over” (Gieryn,
2002, p. 118) and certainly does not prove placelessness. In fact, it suggests the
reverse; that is, it takes considerable effort to undo geographical difference. It is
realisable only artificially, by constructing one place as the mirror image of another
(see Latour, 1987, pp. 248–253).
The larger point is that place is a critical component in the construction of knowl-
edge. While certain rhetorical strategies may be deployed to disguise and diminish
that role (and uphold rationalism’s view from nowhere), it is done by a sleight of
hand. A stubbornly enduring somewhere remains crucially important.
Spatial Mobility of Knowledge
Ideas, however, do not remain fixed in place, but instead are constantly circulating,
dependent on people and material constraints (Latour, 1987, p.137). Furthermore,
that very movement changes ideas, reshaping them and forging new entities. This
has multiple causes: ideas come into contact with other ideas on route, are inter-
preted differently at different points along their circulation, and are put to diverse
uses at the various sites to which they travel. Spatial mobility not only transfers
knowledge, it transforms it.
A useful and well-known scheme for tracking the movement and transformations
of knowledge is Bruno Latour’s idea of “centers of calculation” (Latour, 1987,
chapter 5). He emphasizes in all his works the processual character of knowledge
acquisition involving the ceaseless travel and circulation of people, books, instru-
ments, material bits of the world, and social artifacts such as institutions and strate-
gies of governance. Knowledge is never instantly true, but becomes true through the
enormous amount of work involved in establishing and maintaining networks of
circulation. In Latour’s vocabulary, Gieryn’s truth spots are centers of calculation.
They are key nodes in extensive geographical networks enabling them both to
receive knowledge and to distribute it, producing action at a distance. Figure 6.2,
taken from Latour’s (1987) book Science in Action, portrays the process as cumula-
tive, with more and more information and things brought back to the center as a
result of increasingly expansionary geographical crossings and re-crossings.
Fig. 6.2 Centers of

calculation (Adapted from
Bruno Latour, 1987,
p. 220)
A History and Geography of Spatial Analysis
Like all ideas, spatial analysis did not just drop from the heavens, but was grounded
in a rich, earthly geography. It was always the view from somewhere, traveling
between one place and another.
The Early Years
The beginnings of spatial science were with the ancient Greeks, and in particular the
work of the first- and second-century Hellenized Egyptian (and Roman citizen),
Claudius Ptolemy, based in Alexandria. Classical Greek geography identified three
components of study: topos, choros, and geos. Topos was the study of place; choros
the study of the region; and geos the study of geography, that is, of the entire face of
the earth (Curry, 2005; Lukermann, 1961). Lukermann (1961) and Curry (2005)
persuasively argue that the critical difference among the three terms is their “mode
of geographical knowing” (Curry, 2005, p. 681). Topos and choros emerged from an
oral culture, with place and region told in a narrative of words. Geos, in contrast,
arose later and was associated not with words, but with numbers.
Geos and its connection to numbers were elaborated especially by Ptolemy in his
eight-volume Geographia. He believed that the task of geos was to “secure a like-
ness” of the earth’s configuration, which required that space first be translated into
“a surface divisible by a mathematical grid” (Curry, 2005, p. 685). As Ptolemy wrote:
Geography … is concerned with the quantitative rather than with qualitative matters, since
it has regard in every case for the correct proportion of distances, but only in the case of the
more general features does it concern itself with securing a likeness, and then only with
respect to configuration. … Geography by using mere lines and annotations shows posi-
tions and general outlines. For this reason, while topos and choros does not require the
mathematical method, in geos this method plays the chief part. (as quoted in Lukermann,
1961, p. 208)
Although Ptolemy did not use the term spatial analysis, he clearly was gesturing
toward it in his account of geography (geos). Implied in his work were mathe-
matical transformations; the identification of more basic elements such as “lines”
and “position”; and the recognition of an explainable spatial order—the world’s
“configuration.” More specifically, one of Ptolemy’s aims in Geographia was to
improve cartographic projections so as to depict more accurately the earth’s surface.
The first volume of the Geographia contained the methods that Ptolemy developed
and volumes 2–5 consisted of an atlas of the known world (Berggren & Jones, 2000).
It was from the starting point of Alexandria that spatial analysis began its travels.
Over the next thousand years or so, Ptolemy’s Geographia was lost and found sev-
eral times. Finally translated into Latin in 1406, Geographia was published in
Bologna in 1477 using engraved illustrations and maps. Bernhardus Varenius stud-
ied this Latin edition while living in Amsterdam during the late 1640s, in prepara-
tion for publishing his own geography text, Geographia generalis, in 1650. The
adjective in the title is critical, linking the work to Ptolemy’s geos and his implied
spatial analysis (Lukermann, n.d., p. 10). Varenius defined general geography as
“that part of mixed mathematics where one explains the state of the earth and its
parts, which concerns quantities; its configuration, its position, its magnitude and its
movement with the celestial appearances, etc.” (Varenius quoted in Lukermann,
n.d., p. 10). So, like Ptolemy’s geography, Varenius’s general geography required
mathematizing space, finding universal spatial elements, and recognizing general
principles of spatial order, which were “then appl[ied] within special or regional
Geography to their respective areas” (Varenius quoted in Lukermann, n.d., p. 16).
Isaac Newton (1643–1727), perhaps the all-time greatest analyzer of space, rec-
ognized the virtues of Varenius’s book. In 1669 Newton was appointed Lucasian
Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge with the stipulation that the chairholder
provide instruction in geography. Newton subsequently corrected and amended
Varenius’s text for his students, arranging for its publication in 1672 (and in revised
form in 1681; Warntz, 1989).
The elements that now compose the big idea of spatial analysis—mathematizing
space; identifying universal spatial components, such as points and lines; and artic-
ulating general principles of spatial order—have thus existed not only for centuries
but for millennia. Moreover, the idea did not just have temporal duration but also
spatial location, being found in some places and not others. Details about Ptolemy’s
life remain sketchy, but it is almost certain that his entire adult life was spent in the
Egyptian capital of Alexandria, which was the seat of ancient learning and certainly
one of the most significant truth spots in the ancient world. Associated with its cel-
ebrated library, which at its height contained a million volumes, was a research
institute (likely the world’s first) that supported a who’s who of ancient scholars,
including Euclid, Archimedes, and Ptolemy. To use Latour’s vocabulary, Alexandria
was a “center of calculation” (Latour, 1987, p. 215) attracting people and wealth, as
well as objects, texts, and ideas, which were collected, classified, and sometimes
reconstituted—before being circulated, as was the case with Ptolemy’s papyrus
scrolls, Geographia.
After having been lost for more than a millennium, Geographia was discovered
in fifteenth-century Italy, translated into Latin, and published. Scholarship, although
not completely moribund during the intervening Middle Ages, was at least severely
controlled by church authorities. An intellectual revival came in the Italian
Renaissance, which had its foundations in an earlier period with flourishing Arabic
science and key centers of learning and translation such as the libraries in Toledo
(Lindberg, 1992). Contemporary Italian scholars turned to forgotten ancient texts,
including Ptolemy’s, republishing them, and setting them on new travels. It also
made sense that one of the travels of Geographia would be to Amsterdam, where it
was put to use by Varenius in the first half of the seventeenth century. This period
was the Dutch Golden Age, the zenith of the Dutch Empire, with Amsterdam the
wealthiest city in the world. Just like ancient Alexandria, Amsterdam in the
seventeenth-century became a global center of calculation, as well as the world’s
busiest port. If ever there was a place where a new geographical textbook should be
written and have purchase, it was here. Ultimately, Isaac Newton would take up
Varenius’s text at the University of Cambridge in the second half of the seventeenth
century, in part because of the conditions of his appointment, in part because of his
own analytical disposition. He was less concerned with the book’s “special geogra-
phy,” as Varenius called it, than its general geography, which as an intellectual proj-
ect fitted perfectly with the Enlightenment’s scientific revolution, to which he was a
prime contributor: mathematical, reductionist, and nomothetic.
In sum, producing spatial analysis took an enormous amount of work and effort.
It did not emerge simply because of its own rightness, shining by its own light.
It was constructed in a process involving complex geographical travels centered
around particular heterotopias, truth spots and centers of calculation. Furthermore,
geography was just as crucial during the second half of the twentieth century, when
the ideas of Ptolemy, Varenius, and Newton were joined with new concepts, tech-
niques, and technologies to define the modern version of “spatial analysis.”
The Later Years
Spatial analysis gained its contemporary prominence from the title of a book,
Spatial Analysis: A Reader in Statistical Geography, edited by Brian Berry and
Duane Marble (1968). The term had been first used in 1959 by William Garrison
(1959), but only in passing, and was not systematically applied until the 1968 col-
lection. The 37 essays in Spatial Analysis applied statistical and mathematical mod-
els to geographical problems; located key spatial axioms, elements, assumptions,
and behaviors; and above all pursued explanations of spatial order.
How they got there was another story. Berry and Marble (1968) argued that the
spatial analytical approach had been unaccountably omitted from the discipline
when it was first institutionalized in European and North American universities
during the late nineteenth century. But by the late 1950s, spatial analysis had been
refound, its concomitant, universal rationalism impossible to ignore any longer.
Consequently, as Berry and Marble (1968) wrote, geography “move[d] back to the
mainstream” in a “flush of revolutionary change” (p. 4).
We would like to suggest using Peter Taylor’s map that the return of spatial
analysis to geography was less the result of the ineluctable power of rationality than
a series of contingent historical factors in concert with the peculiarities and singu-
larities of particular places and the mobility of knowledge between them. Because
of the need for brevity, we illustrate our argument by focusing on only three of the
places found in Taylor’s figure (Fig. 6.1): two in North America, Seattle and Iowa
City; and one in Europe, Lund.
Seattle and Iowa City
That spatial analysis came to America after World War II and first found a footing
in the two early truth spots of Seattle and Iowa City was largely a result of a wider
reconfiguration of postwar social science as practiced in the United States. World
War II had produced in the United States a new model of academic inquiry, “big
science,” which involved: team-based research; high levels of investment; interinsti-
tutional and interdisciplinary cooperation; specific instrumental goals; a predilec-
tion for mathematical models rather than high theory; and the use of the computer
(Barnes, 2008). The big science model was originally pioneered during World War
II in the physical sciences in truth spots such as Los Alamos National Laboratory or
the Radiation Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. But the
approach quickly jumped across disciplinary divides. By the second half of the
1940s it was found in some social sciences, such as economics and psychology.
When Berry and Marble (1968) said that geography was joining the mainstream,
they meant the model of mainstream science. And geography was indeed a field for
which spatial analysis seemed uncannily fitted. Up until that point, the mainstream
was topos and especially choros, or as Varenius put it, a “tedious . . . Special
Geography” (Lukermann, n.d., p. 7). In 1939, Richard Hartshorne even wrote a
dense, closely argued, 400-page-plus book with the definitive title, The Nature of
Geography, to make a philosophical case for tediousness. His argument was that
geography could never be on par with physical science, because the stuff of geogra-
phy’s study—places and regions—were unique assemblages found nowhere else.
Any talk of general theories or principles, or even models, was therefore a disciplin-
ary nonstarter. As Hartshorne (1939) wrote, geography “is essentially a descriptive
science concerned with the description and interpretation of unique cases …”
(p. 449). Ptolemy, Varenius, and Newton would have rolled over in their graves. But
Hartshorne was a powerful disciplinary gatekeeper and bypassing him would be
difficult. However, the forces of change represented by the new mainstream model
of science were also imposing and implacable. Slowly, but inexorably, a modern
version of spatial analysis emerged in a process dubbed geography’s “quantitative
revolution.” In the course of that revolution, geography increasingly joined the
mainstream, and in so doing recouped the earlier traditions of geos and Geographia
generalis.
The truth spots for spatial analysis could not, at least initially, be existing centers
of calculation for geography, which were controlled by regionalists such as
Hartshorne. They needed to be heterotopias, open to new ideas and means of
reordering, which meant either newly formed sites (lacking prior traditions) or ones
marginal to the extent that the regional geography establishment in the United States
did not know or care about them.
This was the case at the University of Washington in Seattle, located on the dis-
tant, periphery of the Pacific Northwest. In annus mirablis, 1955, though, a group of
talented, energetic, and ambitious graduate students serendipitously arrived at
“UDub’s” geography department, where they ended up working primarily with
William Garrison, a young assistant professor who had arrived in 1950 from
Northwestern University in Illinois. Garrison, the person who first joined the terms
“spatial” and “analysis” as a single phrase, was a U.S. Air Force navigator in the
Pacific Theater during World War II and trained in statistics, mathematics, and syn-
optic weather modeling. As a graduate student in geography during the late 1940s
Garrison was a teaching assistant for Clarence Jones at Northwestern University, a
dyed-in-the-wool topos and choros man. His teaching work for Jones was not a
happy experience, with Garrison later saying about Jones’s lectures: “they led me to
keep asking: ‘What’s the theory? What’s the theory? What’s the theory’” (Garrison,
1998, p. 1). Specifically, “a systematic approach was in order …” (Garrison, 1979,
p. 119).
It was a systematic approach, the new mainstream science approach, which
Garrison pioneered with his graduate students in the late 1950s. His project involved
a team of researchers funded by both the Office of Naval Research (ONR) and the
federal government working with graduate students as well as faculty from other
departments. The research goals were narrowly defined; evaluating highway devel-
opment and road-system efficiency. Modeling was the order of the day, especially
urban models, such as central place theory (which we will say more about below),
and the gravity model. These models were tested using rigorous data analysis,
deploying statistical techniques taught by Garrison in the first quantitative course
ever offered in the United States in the field of geography: Geography 436,
Quantitative Methods. There were also the machines—initially Friden calcula-
tors—but later an IBM 650 computer housed in the attic of the chemistry building.
Lacking, however, were both a programming language and a hard drive. By using a
technique of “patch wiring,” according to a graduate student at the time, Waldo
Tobler (1998), “it was possible to store two bits of information on the rotating mag-
netic drum if you were lucky” (p. 2).
The resulting volume, Studies of Highway Development and Geographic Change
(Garrison, Berry, Marble, Nystuen, & Morill, 1959) was a remarkable text, unlike
anything else published in English in the name of academic geography up until that
time. Crammed with calculations, data matrices, statistical techniques, cost curves,
and demand schedules, even its maps were subverted, overlaid with numbers,
arrows, starburst lines, and balancing equations. But in another respect the book’s
spatial analysis was unremarkable, simply a recouping of the earlier tradition we
have described.
The other early truth spot was the University of Iowa at Iowa City. Its key advan-
tage was that it was a new geography department with the added benefit of being
headed not by a geographer, but by an economist, Harold McCarty. In the late 1930s
McCarty had even hosted August Lösch, a German economist who had come to
Iowa to collect data for his book on central place theory. McCarty, appointed found-
ing geography department head in 1946, subsequently hired like-minded faculty,
including Kurt Schaefer, a left-wing German émigré economist. Schaefer had fled
Nazi Germany in the 1930s, going first to the United Kingdom, where he was a
researcher at the London School of Economics, before later immigrating to the
United States.
McCarty viewed geographers primarily as hewers and drawers of empirical data,
which once collected would be handed over to economists, who, using their theo-
ries, would explain what had been found. As at the University of Washington,
McCarty gathered around him a group of graduate students to assist in carrying out
this empirical work and to take the message of quantification back out into the geo-
graphical world. While serendipity played some role in determining which graduate
students ended up in Iowa City, McCarty also actively recruited, using a trip to New
Zealand in 1961 to persuade bright Antipodean students to join the cause.
McCarty was the first human geographer to use a regression equation in his study
of industrial linkage. Funded by the ONR, he created a team of assistant professors
and graduate students to carry out similar work. Their version of Studies of Highway
Development was The Measure of Association in Industrial Geography, completed
in 1956 (McCarty, Hook, & Knos, 1956). In addition, Kurt Schaefer provided intel-
lectual legitimation, publishing in 1953 a blistering attack on Hartshorne’s regional-
ist approach argued from the standpoint of logical positivism. Schaefer died just
before his article appeared in print, so he was not able to respond to Hartshorne’s
(1955) own vigorous defense. But it did not really matter, because the fight had been
won before Hartshorne even picked up his pen. As powerful as he was, Hartshorne
could not, Canute-like, turn back the rushing tide of spatial analysis as it swept with
increasing force through the field of geography in the United States to establish
within a decade the network seen on the map in Fig. 6.1.
Lund
Lund is on the Quant Geog airline schedule because of the work done there by
Torsten Hägerstrand, particularly his study of spatial diffusion, Innovationsförloppet
ur korologisk synpunkt, later translated into English as Innovation Diffusion as a
Spatial Process (1953/1967). That work deployed formal modeling and the statisti-
cal analysis of numerical data, which in turn attracted the attention of William
Garrison and his students in Seattle. Donald Hudson, chair of the Department of
Geography at the University of Washington, wrote to Hägerstrand on 9 December
1957: “The work carried forward in your department has come to our attention,
particularly … [what] you are doing in the development of theory in human
geography.”2 Hägerstrand was consequently invited to Seattle for the spring quarter
(March 30–June 13) academic term in 1959. Two early truth spots were thus linked.
But how did Lund become a truth spot in the first place? And where did the kind of
theory that Hägerstrand practiced and Garrison and his students found so interesting
come from? Although Lund and Seattle are located on the same flight plan, our sug-
gestion is that the processes by which each got there were quite different and
reflected precisely their peculiar geographies.
Lund was neither a peripheral geography department in the same way as the
University of Washington at Seattle, nor a new department like Iowa’s. Swedish
social sciences also did not experience the kind of new rigor that swept American
social sciences in the postwar period. Nonetheless, Hägerstrand at Lund came to
spatial analysis early on, indeed, even before the Washington and Iowa groups. In
large part Lund achieved this through its role as a center of calculation attractive to
people and ideas. Especially important, we suggest, were Lund’s direct and indirect
links to Freiburg, in southwestern Germany, and Tartu, in Estonia.
In 1937 the German geographer Walter Christaller, author of Central Places in
Southern Germany (Christaller, 1933/1966), published his Habilitation thesis, Rural
Settlements in Germany in Their Relation to Community Administration. At this
time he also began a short career as lecturer at Freiburg University (Preston, 2009).
There Christaller founded and worked at the Kommunalwissenschaftliches Institut
(Institute for Municipal Studies), chaired by the professor of constitutional, admin-
istrative, and financial law, Theodor Maunz, who rationalized concentration camp
imprisonment in his writing and was in charge of the Referent für Judentum in der
Rechtswissenschaft (Jewry in Legal Studies). It was within this Freiburg setting that
Christaller began developing a new form of applied geography called
Kommunalgeographie (municipal geography). Here Christaller effectively wedded
the abstractions of spatial analysis taken from German location theorists such as von
Thünen and Weber with Nazi applied planning practices (Barnes, 2012;
Rössler, 1989).
Three years later, Christaller was recruited by Konrad Meyer, head of the
Planning and Soil Office of Himmler’s Reich Commission for the Strengthening of
Germandom (for details see Barnes, 2013). The aim of the office was to provide the
Third Reich with areal plans (known as the Generalplan Ost or Master Plan for the
East) for its eastern conquests. That plan, according to Rössler (1989), was devel-
oped for Himmler as a detailed policy for the settlement and administration of the
newly acquired eastern territories. It was to build a “truly German and Aryan com-
munity” (p. 426) through settlement construction. At least at one of the Nuremburg
trials the Generalplan Ost was a central topic of discussion. Rössler (1989) writes,
Meyer was brought to Nuremberg in 1946 accused in case 8, which was called the
Volkstumsprozess [the racist policies trial].
The line of defense was to show that the work of Himmler’s planning office was only to
produce scientific planning studies which never were realized in any form. (p. 427)
2
Donald Hudson to Torsten Hägerstrand, 9 December 1957. Papers of Torsten Hägerstrand, Lund
University.
The key problem in the trial, according to Rössler (1989), was that there was no
discussion of how the “new” land was acquired. It became part of a new German
East primarily by the liquidation of the Jewish population who previously owned
and inhabited it.
There is another point to make that brings us to Lund. Although many geogra-
phers in Germany and elsewhere ignored the work that Christaller pioneered during
the 1930s because it was outside the traditional Landeskunde with its regional
approach, not all geographers did. One of the first references to Christaller’s thesis
on central place theory was in Edgar Kant’s (1935) dissertation, Bevölkerung und
Lebensraum Estlands (Population and Living Space in Estonia), published 2 years
after Christaller’s dissertation. The book presents a mixture of ideas circulating at
the time, blending geological, biological, demographic, racial, and geometrical
discourses to provide a holistic interpretation of the Estonian Lebensraum and
population. It built primarily on the Swedish geographer Sten de Geer’s concept of
Baltoscandia (the Baltic region) (de Geer, 1928).
Unlike Christaller, who struggled throughout his life to be accepted by academia,
Edgar Kant forged a distinguished academic career. Within a year of finishing his
dissertation, he was made professor of economic geography at Tartu University. His
interests were as much applied as they were academic. He produced, among other
things, a social geography of the cities of Tallinn and Tartu, mapping the various
ethnic and demographic segments of the cities. When the Red Army annexed and
occupied Estonia in autumn 1939 (a consequence of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact
signed between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany), Kant remained in the country,
albeit in hiding because of fear of deportation to Siberia. Two years later Germany
invaded the Soviet Union, and within days the Wehrmacht occupied Estonia. Kant
then came out of hiding, with the Nazis appointing him rector of the University of
Tartu, a position he retained until September 1944. At that point, with the Red Army
approaching fast, Kant again fled Tartu. In a letter to his former supervisor, the
Finnish geographer Johannes Gabriel Granö, he described his night time escape by
motorcycle to a secret hideout on the coast. There a motorboat was persuaded to
wait for one more passenger.
The same year that Christaller began work in Freiburg, a young student, Torsten
Hägerstrand, arrived from his native Småland for undergraduate study at the
University of Lund. Although Hägerstrand initially had set his mind on studying
ethnography, he found his interests better met by geography. In 1947, Hägerstrand
enrolled in the doctoral program of Lund’s Department of Geography. By then,
Edgar Kant, who had been taken directly to Sweden in that motorboat, was now
working in the same department, initially as an archivist, later as a research fellow.
But because of his poor Swedish (one of the few European languages he could not
speak), he was assigned a research assistant, Hägerstrand.
Hägerstrand says Kant was the critical impetus for his research on diffusion and
migration that culminated in his 1953 dissertation. One of Kant’s first publications
in exile was “Den inre omflyttningen i Estland i samband med de estniska städernas
omland” (1946) [Internal Migration within Estonia and its Relation to the Urban
Hinterland]. In the paper, Kant shifts markedly away from politically fraught
concepts such as Lebensraum, and instead emphasizes statistics and models of spatial
analysis. The formalistic language of spatial analysis and its joining to applied
geography was transposed or translated for a new truth spot across the Baltic Sea.
Gerd Enequist, Professor of Human Geography at Uppsala, Sweden, who had
read Kant’s work on Estonia and central place theory, invited Kant to speak at the
symposium on Tätorter och omland [Central Places and the Hinterland] held at
Uppsala in 1950. Enequist later said that: “My direction was in many respects deter-
mined by Christaller, who I discovered through Edgar Kant, whose work on town
systems in Estonia I reviewed in 1936” (Enequist quoted in Buttimer, 2005, p. 178).
Anne Buttimer later commented that the 1950 Uppsala symposium “was the first
occasion during which he [Kant] became known among Swedish colleagues. He
was accompanied by an entourage of devoted students—Bergsten, Dahl, Godlund
and Hägerstrand—the budding makers and shapers of mid-twentieth-century human
geography [and society] in Sweden” (p. 178). The circle was completed by the invi-
tation to Christaller to be the opening-day, plenary speaker at the 1960 International
Geographical Union (IGU) conference in urban geography organized by Hägerstrand
at Lund (Norborg, 1962). That event, more than any other, was a celebration of the
arrival of spatial science, and featured alumnae of both Iowa and Washington among
its participants (Barnes, 2012). The various truth spots of spatial analysis had come
together, but the routes they took to get there were quite different.
Conclusion
The purpose of our chapter following the science studies literature of the last 40
years was to show how the disciplinary articulation of geographical ideas became
caught up in events played out geographically on the ground. It is not ideas on the
one hand and the geographical world on the other. Rather, ideas are from the begin-
ning thoroughly suffused by and intertwined with the world. They are worlded. We
sought to show this for the idea of spatial analysis. Further, we brought to that task
a specifically geographical conception of worlding, relying on the three notions of
heterotopia, truth spots, and centers of calculation. As we noted, however, none of
these ideas were devised by geographers, in spite of their geographical purchase.
Surely this needs to change. Geographical ideas need to be developed to understand
the geography of ideas. There is a need for an intellectual geography, or a geography
of ideas to complement the established fields of intellectual history and the his-
tory of ideas.
In concluding we would like to return to the map at the beginning of the chapter,
Peter Taylor’s “Quant Geog airlines flight plan.” It is a remarkable figure, tracing
the movements of an idea between centers of calculation or truth spots. It suffers,
however, from the common problem of all cartographic representation. It cannot
properly describe the often topsy-turvy, unforeseen, and unpredictable routes that
ideas travel. A map represents a moment frozen in time and space. What we have
attempted to do in this chapter is to augment Taylor’s map by overlaying it with
many overlapping descriptions and narratives–historical, biographical, place-based,

and geographical. We aimed to create an intellectual palimpsest, and the basis for a
different kind of map. This map joins often contradictory and simultaneous move-
ments of people, objects, and ideas in time and space. It is an intellectual historical
geography or a geographical history of ideas.
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the material.
Chapter 7
Knowledges in Disciplines and Cities:
An Essay on Relations Between Archaeology
and Social Sciences
Peter J. Taylor
Preamble: Knowledges
In this paper I argue that the path dependency of disciplinary knowledges in the
social sciences and archaeology that emerged in the late nineteenth century have led
to a long-standing focus on states for framing knowledge production, thus overlook-
ing the important role of cities for understanding social change. By outlining the
neglect of cities in the social sciences and archaeology, I develop the radical posi-
tion that cities as hubs of practical knowledge production preceded both the emer-
gence of states and agriculture. It is contended that this argument has to be made
outside of established disciplinary frameworks because researchers working within
conventional disciplinary tenets have been too “disciplined” by seemingly estab-
lished truths set about a century ago. The perspective of a geographer seems to be
ideal in this regard because geography never quite fitted into the nineteenth century
disciplinary canon. A geographical perspective is thus well suited for bringing cities
back into disciplinary discourses as well as into debates about the development of
societies.
In the modern world, knowledge comes in two different forms. First, there is the
academic knowledge created in universities and associated institutions. It is here
that research work is done that cumulatively adds to stocks of knowledge called
disciplines. In addition there is a teaching function in this academic knowledge
production that reproduces the disciplines through socializing young adults to
become future cohorts of knowledge creators. This knowledge has essentially an
oligarchic structure of disciplining by peer review (i.e., certifying the created knowl-
edge). Second, there is practical knowledge that is required to make a living outside
universities. In this case the disciplining is by the market. Practical knowledge has
P.J. Taylor (*)

Department of Geography, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-44654-7_7
124 P.J. Taylor
to be useful so that it can be deployed to make money. I realize these two knowl-
edges overlap in many instances (e.g., in corporate research and development
departments, in the professions, in defense department laboratories), but I will keep
them separate for the purposes of this essay. Here I will tell a story about an inter-
section of these two knowledges, with particular emphasis on their contrasting
spatialities.
The spatial mobility of academic knowledge is facilitated by academic networks.
This is concretely represented by researchers bringing new knowledge to seminars,
workshops, and conferences, but the crucial network is the one that records the
cumulative knowledge production. Disciplinary journal articles, research mono-
graphs, and academic books are the nodes where the spatial mobility of knowledge
is represented by the citations. In contrast, practical knowledge has many more loci,
but one stands out as the exceptional place for knowledge production: cities. It is the
hustle and bustle of cities—their inherent busy-ness—that is the major testing
ground for practical knowledge, which is why commercial knowledge constitutes
business. If the knowledge works—you can make money from it—then the knowl-
edge will be reproduced, modified, and extended as necessary. Vibrant cities are the
best places for doing business. The spatial mobility of this practical knowledge
flows within and between cities. This essay is about a specific case study of how the
academic knowledge of disciplines makes sense of practical knowledge practices.
To explore this intersection I will focus on origins, on how cities came about in
association with the beginnings of both agriculture and states. These social changes
are the practical knowledge productions I consider. The academic knowledges then
follow. Archaeology is the discipline that specializes in the study of such origins;
social science is about social change, and since these three origins constitute epochal
changes they are of direct relevance to social science understanding. The hypothesis
is that by shining the spotlight on these critical origins some basic contradictions of
knowledge production in cities and disciplines will be revealed.
The argument proceeds in a rather distinctive way. There will be two introduc-
tions, one for each type of knowledge. And then there will be two indictments, for
social science and for archaeology. In all of this I will be taking a very city-centric
position and this comes to the fore in the substantive section where I bring cities
back in to understand both the creation of states and the development of
agriculture.
Introductions
The Times and Spaces of Academic Social Knowledges
The academic knowledge of today is ultimately derived from the nineteenth century
reorganization of German-speaking universities to emphasis the research function
and thereby privilege specialization. It is from the university chairs established to
organize the new intensive research work that modern disciplines have evolved. Of
7 Knowledges in Disciplines and Cities 125
the four original faculties—theology, law, medicine, and philosophy—it was in the
latter two that research specialization occurred, and especially in philosophy (the high-
est research degree is still a PhD) (Ben-David & Zloczower, 1962). One key feature
of this process was a bifurcation into sciences and arts that commonly resulted in divi-
sion into two separate faculties housing very different disciplines (lower research
degrees are still called MSc or MA). The differences existed in both research sub-
ject matter (non-human–human) and research practices (nomothetic–idiographic).
It was the immense dominance of Germany in academic science knowledge in the
second half of the nineteenth century (Taylor, Hoyler, & Evans, 2008) that stimulated
emulation in many other countries to create the modern university.
The social sciences began to emerge in the late nineteenth century as a sort of
in-between research category combining the research subject matter of the arts with
the research methods of the sciences. This process was largely consolidated in U.S.
universities in the first half of the twentieth century to create a tripartite division for
studying social change, the new disciplines of economics, political science, and
sociology (Wallerstein et al., 1996). By about 1950, it was commonplace for this
disciplinary trinity to be established as departments in most universities. This three-
way division of knowledge broadly followed the reform movements that dominated
late nineteenth century politics. The goals of these movements were articulated as
demands for economic reforms, political reforms, and social reforms. Thus there
came about a general view of human behavior being divided into economic, politi-
cal, and social activities taking place in the economy, the state, and (civil) society as
separate institutional worlds. The new social science disciplines reflected this view
and set about devising separate research agendas along these lines.
There are three key points that arise from this construction of social science
(Wallerstein et al., 1996).
1. The basic units of analysis were defined by state territories—empirically the
abstract concepts of economy, state, and society were all nationalized, as in
British economy, French state, and American society, to produce a one-scale
mosaic social science of multiple countries.
2. The knowledge produced by the three disciplines covered all modern human
behaviors—this was a knowledge monopoly position. The power of this monop-
oly can be seen in other surviving disciplines eventually having to create trilogy
subdisciplines as they adjusted to demands of being modern: for instance, eco-
nomic anthropology, political geography, and social history.
3. This was nomothetic knowledge of modern, rational behavior and therefore it
initially only applied to modern, rational economies, states, and societies in
advanced regions of the world where the modern universities were located. It
was a social knowledge of modern us, with the un-modern them initially
excluded. The exclusions were in both time and space and, being un-modern,
they could only be studied idiographically (i.e., outside social science). In time a
new discipline of history studied the un-modern past of modern nations. In space
there were two un-moderns, for old civilizations Orientalism emerged to
understand why they stagnated, and for smaller societies, anthropology was con-
structed to understand why they never progressed in the first place.
126 P.J. Taylor
Note that geography does not feature in this academic knowledge framework; strad-
dling the science–arts boundary and initially eschewing specialization (favoring
synthesis over analysis), it is an odd-ball survivor only adapting to social science as
human geography in the second half of the twentieth century with the victory of
systematic geographies (specialist trinity subdisciplines) over regional geography
(the art of synthesis). I make this point to reveal my personal intellectual positional-
ity as a geographer: I am a social scientist outsider.
This neat academic knowledge arrangement began to change in the second half
of the twentieth century (Wallerstein et al., 1996). Most importantly the world
changed with decolonization so that development (a property of states) replaced
progress (a property of modern civilization only). This meant that the whole world
was opened up to social science study with new research agendas on economic
development (toward affluence), political development (toward democracy), and
social development (toward modernization). In addition disciplinary boundaries
became increasingly porous, resulting in new research areas, such as cultural stud-
ies, area studies, and feminist studies, refusing to be contained by the old disci-
plines. Even more important these areas of study have undermined, or really
sidestepped, the simple nomothetic–ideographic distinction so that, especially
through cultural studies, the methodological wall between the trinity and the
humanities (arts) has crumbled. Thus in the early twenty-first century the academic
knowledge organization in the social sciences and humanities is quite complex. Old
disciplines remain institutionally powerful within universities as departments
(awarding PhDs) and with their traditional prestigious research journals; while at
the same time there is a plethora of new interdisciplinary (or multidisciplinary or
transdisciplinary) journals with their own networks of researchers and
conferences.
Practical Knowledges in, Through, and Out of Cities
Practical knowledge is constituted by the everyday constructs and information peo-

ple use to live their lives. I focus on the practical knowledge that is necessary for
making a living. Such knowledge depends on quality and quantity of contacts and
intensity of communications with those contacts. In this situation one particular
class of settlements, cities, has been found to be exceptionally important. One can
go as far as to say that there is a qualitative difference between city life and life
elsewhere in terms of the nature and salience of knowledge for work. This idea of
cities as special knowledge-rich milieus is to be found in a wide range of scientific
studies (Batty, 2013; Brenner, 2014; Glaeser, 2011; LeGates & Stout, 2015; Neal,
2013; Scott, 2012; Storper, 2013; Taylor, 2013).
Recent resurgences in urban economics and economic geography have focused
on the advantages of cities for economic development. Two main processes have
been postulated. First, localization refers to the knowledge-related benefits of firms
from the same industry clustered together. This relates to industry-specific opportu-
nities thus stimulating creativity and innovation. In particular tacit knowledge
within an industry is said to require immersion in localized industrial culture. This
is important in both product development and skilled labor availability. Classic his-
torical examples are the New York advertising cluster on Madison Avenue and the
London newspaper cluster on Fleet Street. In these cases cost-cutting opportunities
elsewhere eventually made the two clusters uneconomic but they had by then pro-
vided untraded advantages to their cluster of firms for several generations. And after
the cluster breakup proximity remained important as clustering re-emerged in new
locations (Faulconbridge, Beaverstock, Nativel, & Taylor, 2010).
Second, there are agglomeration effects of multiple firms from a wide range of
industries co-locating in a city or region. There are collective advantages in terms of
infrastructure and other common services. But a key advantage is to be near to cli-
ents. For instance, in Sassen’s (2001) classic work, the global city is simultaneously
the main producer of advanced business services and the main market for such ser-
vices. And in such work, close and regular contact with clients is found to be neces-
sary, especially face-to-face meetings. Agglomeration also constitutes an ecology of
skills that facilitates project work involving producers from different specialties
combining to create unique products for particular clients. This is specifically
important for user-led innovation where observation and interaction in cities are
indispensable. In an empirical test for the efficacy of clusters and agglomeration
Glaeser, Kalial, Scheinkman, and Schleifer (1992) found the latter to be more asso-
ciated with economic growth.
The above advantages are place or territorial (internal) assets and it is now widely
recognized that they are complemented by network (external) assets. As Sassen
(2001) recognizes, cities are strategic places within myriad flows of materials, peo-
ple, and information. Contemporary cities in globalization have been modeled as a
world city network generated through knowledge-based work: professional, finan-
cial, and creative servicing of global capital (Taylor, 2004). Intensity of integration
into this network (city connectivity) is a measure of a city’s global external assets
through globalization. This has been conceptualized in several ways, such as global
pipelines (Bathelt, Malmberg, & Maskell, 2004) and global communities of practice
(Amin & Thrift, 1992).
Outside this specifically economic consideration of contemporary cities and their
networks, there are other studies that emphasize the generic importance of cities
across history. For example, the world city network model has been interpreted
generically as central flow theory, a general description of cities in networks. The
key substantive examples are Hall (1998) with his description of leading cities as
centers of creativity, Soja’s (2000, 2010) concepts of synekism and regionality of
cityspace in urban revolutions, McNeill and McNeill (2003) with their references to
cities in the human web of world history, Algaze’s (2005a, 2005b) work on internal
and external relations in Sumerian cities, and LaBianca and Scham’s (2006) appli-
cations of Castells’s (1996) space of flows to antiquity. These are all discursive
harnessings of evidence to support the critical importance of practical knowledge
production in and through cities for historical social change.
128 P.J. Taylor
Indictments
All institutions are created at some point in time to satisfy a need. Subsequently
needs change and relevance of an institution is naturally eroded. As noted previ-
ously, today’s disciplines are about a century old and they still retain many vestiges
of their creation. In fact by the twenty-first century they appear not to have worn
particularly well (Wallerstein, 1991). Here I indict social science (in general) and
archaeology.
Of Mainstream Social Science
As previously shown, contemporary social science consists of a mixture of old dis-

ciplines and various new areas of study. The latter can seem to be opportunist, per-
haps transient, compared to the deep knowledge of the disciplines. Thus researchers
in the studies sector are commonly certified by their PhD in one of the disciplines,
and there is always a tendency to revert to trinity thinking as in politico-cultural
studies, economic area studies, and feminist sociology. In other words, social sci-
ence is currently strewn with ambiguities. These are reflected in Wallerstein’s
(2004) prognosis. On the one hand he argues that “the social construction of the
disciplines as intellectual arenas that was made in the nineteenth century has out-
lived its usefulness and is today a major obstacle to serious intellectual work”
(pp. 169–170). But at the same time he suggests that “there is richness in each of the
disciplinary cultures that should be harvested, stripped off its chaff, and combined
(or at least used) in a reconstruction of the social sciences” (pp. 169–170).
Of course, the debate will be about identifying the “chaff” (Wallerstein, 2004)!
In his contribution to this reconstruction, world-systems analysis, he transcends
states and I agree this to be an essential stripping.
Cities have not been well served by the trinity and not just because the national-
ization of social knowledge downgraded them to, literally, a bit part in the overall
scheme of things. With the focus on the scale of the state, the exceptional nature of
cities in relation to enhanced knowledge potentials has been severely neglected. In
Wallerstein’s stripping off the state-centric chaff he moves focus from national
economies to world-economy; I will follow Jacobs (1969, 1984) and move from
national economies to city economies. I highlighted profound economic contribu-
tions being made at this scale above, but it is still the case that urban economics (or
regional economics or spatial economics) remains a Cinderella area of study in the
discipline of economics, where status remains wedded to national econometric
models. Geography has been the other discipline contributing to the rediscovery of
the importance of cities described previously. But the main legacy of research here
has been in studying cities in hierarchies within countries modeled as national urban
systems. In this approach the world consists of circa 200 (the number of countries
varies with world political processes) national urban systems (i.e., one per country).
This is mosaic social science at its very worse. Cities abhor boundaries. Their raison
d’être is being strategically connected within complex spaces of flows, which is
antithetical to being neatly ordered within state territories.
The ridiculousness of this academic knowledge can be easily illustrated using the
examples of London and New York, both interpreted as being top of the hierarchy in
their respective national urban systems. At first glance this seems obvious but in fact
it grossly underestimates the importance of both cities. Both of these great cities
have long been leading ports in the world-economy but this very tangible property
could be kept from social science academic knowledge because the study of trade
through trade theory was nationalized, it was deemed a property of states not cities.
Thus this major city function was largely ignored in national urban systems analy-
ses, seemingly unmindful that New York cannot be understood as just part of the
United States, and London cannot be understood as just part of the United Kingdom.
Perhaps because of such limitations, national urban systems research largely disap-
peared in the 1980s and was replaced by research on studies of cities in globaliza-
tion, originally conceived hierarchically, following the mosaic habit, but latterly
seen as world city network (Taylor, 2004, 2009). It might have been thought that the
coming of globalization would have advanced the importance of cities in social sci-
ence. Certainly an impressive world and global city literature has emerged (Brenner
& Keil, 2006) that locates cities as critical to globalization processes. However, the
study of cities sits uncomfortably in reader compilations from the globalization lit-
erature where cities are largely neglected (Lechner & Boli, 2000). This is because
the trinity has survived the huge social changes wrought by globalization, as
reflected by the labels economic globalization, political globalization, and social (or
cultural) globalization. This is not surprising when the key text, Held, McGrew,
Goldblatt, and Perraton’s (1999) Global Transformation, is actually about transforma-
tion of the state in economic, political, and social realms of activity (Taylor, 2000).
Research on cities in social science has come to be labeled urban studies (which
aspires to combine urban economics, urban political science, urban sociology plus
urban geography and urban history); that is to say, it is one of the many areas of
study that have grown to facilitate subject matter that transcends trinity divisions as
indicated earlier. There is an excellent reader representing this literature (LeGates &
Stout, 2015) but one part of its composition reveals the extant shallowness of this
example of an area of study. When it comes to including chapters on the origins of
cities there is actually just one paper, a classic written in 1950 by Gordon Childe,
who appears in archaeological textbooks as a founding father, one of Renfrew and
Bahn’s (2008) early “searchers” (p. 36). Presumably this means that the compilers
of the urban studies reader cannot find a later, social science, contribution on the
question of city origins. What an indictment of social science for neglecting the
study of city origins. But using such an old archaeology paper is also strange; does
it suggest cities have been similarly neglected in this discipline?
130 P.J. Taylor
Of Mainstream Archaeology
Archaeology is the discipline that we might be expected to go to for research on the

origins of cities. Childe’s (1950; Smith, 2009) classic paper located the first cities in
late fourth millennium BC Mesopotamia and this remains the consensus within the
discipline. There have been other suggestions, as I will relate later in this essay, but
these have been largely dismissed as not providing credible evidence for the exis-
tence of earlier cities. But, more importantly, this question has been of peripheral
concern in archaeological research. This can be shown by reference to the latest
edition of the best-selling introductory textbook on archaeology (Renfrew & Bahn,
2008). Textbooks are the basic means of socializing new generations into a disci-
pline; thus they provide the current understanding of the key questions, methods,
and theories that constitute that discipline (Taylor, 2015). Renfrew and Bahn (2008)
include no discussion at all about city origins. Why might this be?
In my introductory discussion of social science above there was no mention of
archaeology. The discipline’s obvious locale would be as a time discipline alongside
history with ancient history. However its formal location in universities is mostly
with anthropology. This makes some sense to the degree that anthropology treats
hunter-gatherer and early agricultural societies, and such societies dominate the pre-
history that archaeology investigates. This is to locate archaeology in the outer
reaches of comparative anthropology with an inevitable neglect of concern for cit-
ies. Thus in their text of over six hundred pages, Renfrew and Bahn’s (2008) index
includes no reference for city or cities.
Whereas national spatiality has dominated social science scholarship, in archae-
ology it is evolutionary temporality that features strongly in this scholarship.
Evolution theory, related to nineteenth century obsession with progress, survives
more in archaeology than elsewhere in social science. Darwin has his own box fea-
ture in Renfrew and Bahn (2008, p. 27) entitled “Evolution: Darwin’s Great Idea.”
Basically, evolution has been used to understand increasing complexity of society
but without any recognition of the exceptional complexity of cities.
Recently, some archaeologists have provided very strong critiques of traditional
evolutionary models of social change (Gamble, 2007, pp. 10–32; Yoffee, 2005,
pp. 8–15). Yoffee (2005, p. 34), in particular, is a trenchant critic of what he calls the
current “neo-evolutionary” approach in archaeology.
What neo-evolutionalism never was, was a theory of social change. Rather, it was a theory
of classification, of identification of ideal types in the material record. … In a vague sort of
way, mainly by talking about different adaptations as if they were somehow like genetic
differences, neo-evolutionists drew on the prestige of Darwin’s theory and often proclaimed
they had created a new science of social evolution. However, neo-evolutionists could not
explain change other than in holistic terms and were content to identify as evolutionary
mechanisms. . . climatic change or/and population growth. (pp. 31–32)
For Gamble (2007) “change takes the form of future-creep” so that “differences are
expected to happen eventually and can be explained simply by the passage of
enough time, a commodity with which human prehistory is abundantly blessed”
(p. 23).
For both scholars there is not enough emphasis on process: Who are the agents
and why do their activities generate social change? Such questions lead to social
science.
It is very relevant that the archaeologists I have drawn on to critique city-state
and evolution—Gamble, Smith and Yoffee—are familiar with social science litera-
ture (including rediscovery of cities) and bring these disciplines into their own
work. But they are not necessarily very typical. Renfrew and Bahn (2008, pp. 12–13)
introduce archaeology by relating it to other disciplines: they identify only three:
anthropology, history, and science (for techniques). There is no specified relation to
social science and this is reflected in subsequent substantive chapters. Chapter 5
“How Were Societies Organized: Social Archaeology” (pp. 177–230) makes no ref-
erence to sociology literature, and chapter 9 “What Contact Did They Have: Trade
and Exchange” makes no reference to economics literature (pp. 357–390). Despite
this distain for social science, archaeology has shared the latter’s propensity to
neglect cities. Unfortunately the archaeologists I have identified above as knowing
recent cities literature do not contribute to the question of city origins. Strangely,
Renfrew and Bahn (2008, pp. 46–47) do have a two-page box feature on Çatalhöyük,
the key settlement in the city origins debate (Jacobs, 1969; Soja, 2000; Taylor, 2012,
2013), but they use it to illustrate changing approaches to the practices of archaeol-
ogy, with no mention of the controversies over interpreting the urban nature of the
settlement. There can be no clearer example of denial of the city origins question in
contemporary archaeology.
Debates Generated by Bringing Cities Back In
Although both social science and archaeology have early classic studies of cities, my
two indictments show that both have developed traditional structures of knowledge
that have underestimated the importance of cities for understanding social change.
But I have also shown that cities will win out; there is development of a city-centric
social science and this is being introduced into archaeology and interpretation of
ancient history. The most explicit example is the work of Algaze (2005a, 2005b). In
this substantive section I deploy the city-centric social science to challenge existing
ideas on first, the relation between cities and states and second, the relation between
cities and agriculture. In both cases I will argue that cities came first.
Unlike studies of contemporary cities, for historical cities it is not possible, of
course, to directly study the processes that make cities so exceptional. With very
early cities, agency in particular is a problem. Researchers do not know the agents—
merchants, priests, soldiers, textile producers, scribes—researchers only know of
their presence from the artifacts they have left to be discovered. Thus researchers
have to investigate the potency of a city through its knowledge-rich internal and
external assets in an indirect way. Fortunately there is a relevant variable, population
size, for which there are general estimates that will serve as a surrogate for cities as
potential creative centers. I call this the communication model of city-ness because
132 P.J. Taylor
population size is a measure of potential communication capacity (Taylor, 2012,

2013, pp. 98–102). This is a network measure derived for internal links first and
then doubled to account for equally important external links. From such analyses
we find that Çatalhöyük, a possible early city, has a potential communication capac-
ity much more than a thousand times that of a hunter-gatherer band, whereas First
Dynasty Uruk, the first great city, had a capacity of more than half a million times
said band. These quantitative results indicate the huge qualitative social difference
that cities create and constitute the prime reason for city-centric study in archaeol-
ogy. This generates two related debates.
Cities and the Creation of States
The first debate is about two processes being conflated into one. I reported above to
there being no index references for cities in Renfrew and Bahn’s (2008) textbook;
however, there are nine references to city-states. It would seem understanding early
cities is subsumed into the study of early states (Charlton & Nichols, 1997). But
city-making and state-making are two very different processes, each requiring their
own process analysis. This position is held by some social scientists (e.g., Soja,
2010, p. 364) and by a few archaeologists familiar with social science writings on
cities. Monica Smith (2003) is a good example of the latter group. She is explicit on
the importance of recognizing that “cities do not require a state level of authority to
exist and thrive” (p. 12). Therefore:
it is … time for the understanding of cities to be uncoupled from the necessary presence of
states. By breaking this pairing of cities and states, we allow cities to be understood on their
own terms as centers of political, economic, and social organization that may be consider-
ably more complex than the territories and regions in which they are located. (p. 13)
She traces the conflation of cities with states back to Childe (1950, p. 12), who
created a framework in which “theorizing about urbanism has often really been
about states rather than cities.” This key point had been made much earlier by
Price (1978):
The relation between urbanism and the state, however, has been the cause of profound
confusion for a variety of reasons, both scholarly and ideological. Childe’s Mesopotamian
data combined urbanism and the state in a single sequence and permitted the uncritical
evaluation of this particular association. (p. 175)
Monica Smith (2003) indicts Robert Adams, the great chronicler of Mesopotamian
urbanism; she points out that, paradoxically, in his 1966 classic The Evolution of
Urban Society, despite the book’s title, his “central concern is the growth of the
state” (quoted in Smith, 2003, p. 12). But Smith (p. 15) argues that “cities in the
premodern world did not require a state level of organization”. This important point
seems not to have (yet?) percolated into the archaeological mainstream as repre-
sented by Renfrew and Bahn (2008).
(a) STATES OUT OF CHIEFDOMS

Hunter-gatherer bands
Big-man systems Simple chiefdom Complex chiefdom Territorial state Disintegration

(No settlement hierarchy) (Two-tier system) (Three-tier system) (Four-tier system) (City-state)
INCREASING SETTLEMENT HIERARCHY ll
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
(b) CITY- STATE INVENTION
Hunter-gatherer temporary trading post
(Part of temporary trading network)
Hunter-gather trading & production place Complex city City-state Territorial state
(Permanent trading network) (City network) (Walls, competition) (Provinces, empire)
INCREASING GOVERNANCE EXPANSION
Fig. 7.1 Alternative origins of states. Pivotal stages or steps are in bold. ll indicates ending of
increase (Design by author)
Traditionally, states have been interpreted as the outcome of increasingly com-

plex governance processes, consequent upon class formation and widening material
inequalities. This model is stripped bare to its essentials in Fig. 7.1a as a sequence
of governance types representing evolutionary stages as criticized by Yoffee (2005,
p. 34). Enhanced complexity is represented spatially by central place hierarchies
with three settlement tiers indicating the key complex chiefdoms that generate states
in civilizations (in which the number of tiers increases to four). An alternative model
is shown in Fig. 7.1b based upon Jacobs (1969) and Soja (2000). The starting point
is settlements in a trading network that morphs into a city network via the Jacobs
process of import replacement. The more successful this network becomes, the
more cosmopolitan are the cities. It is this unprecedented social complexity with
consequent intergroup conflicts that generates a demand for new stronger gover-
nance structures. This is best illustrated in Childe’s (1950) original case study: his
“urban revolution” in early Mesopotamia (Taylor, 2012, 2013, pp. 115–118). Here
we find two important sequences. First, accountancy—the language of commerce—
is invented before writing—the language of state bureaucracy (Nissen, Damerow, &
Englund, 1993). Second, in the new literature, there are myths—collective stories—
that describe times before the era of epics, heroic tales of individuals who become
kings (i.e., they centralize governance into states). This relates to a change from
transient governance in the form of a league of cities towards a region of city-states
in military competition (Jacobsen, 1970). The change is marked by huge labor
investments in city walls. Thus are city networks converted into competitive city-
states. In Mesopotamia this transition took about 700 years.
The vast majority of archaeologists continue to support narratives related to
Fig. 7.1a, whereas the alternative narrative based upon Fig. 7.1b is much more
134 P.J. Taylor
pleasing to social scientists (including archaeologists who identify as social scientists).

It all comes down to whether you think chiefdoms can become complex enough to
invent states; I think not. Social complexity in and through cities occurs at a whole
new level; surely this is what is needed to generate such an important invention as
states.
Cities and the Development of Agriculture
The second debate is about one process being divided into two. These are Childe’s
(1950) ancient historical framework of two revolutions seemingly several millennia
apart. First there is the agricultural revolution that ushers in the Neolithic followed,
second, by the urban revolution ushering in the Bronze Age civilization. Since this
temporal sequencing was created, new evidence for origins of agriculture has
pushed back the first revolution by several millennia, while the second revolution
has proven to be much more temporally stable in mainstream thinking: hence a
widening gap between them. Despite this divergence there is a social science inter-
vention here that subsumes the development of agriculture into the process of initial
city development.
Here I develop the controversial idea of Jacobs (1969) on agriculture being
invented in cities. I know of no archaeologist who supports her thesis. Her argument
involves pushing back the timing of the first cities. She focuses upon Çatalhöyük in
southern Anatolia where a settlement of between four thousand and ten thousand
people has been excavated to show a complex division of labor. The problem for
archaeologists is that it appears about four thousand years before the rise of cities in
Mesopotamia, traditionally viewed as the very first cities (i.e., Childe’s urban revo-
lution). Their reaction has been to dismiss it as a city; their preferred label is large
village to emphasize its rurality. But Çatalhöyük is not alone as a relatively large
settlement existing before Mesopotamian cities. Soja (2000) has augmented Jacobs’s
interpretation by showing a large network of such settlements at this time within the
Fertile Crescent, birthplace of agriculture.
Figure 7.2a shows the traditional interpretation of the rise of cities: a simple
sequencing of settlements by size culminating in cities. In this argument the latter
first occur in Mesopotamia because improvements in agriculture (irrigation)
increased production, thereby generating a food surplus large enough to feed cities.
But this is a naive supply model; why should farmers work harder to generate large
surpluses and create cities? Surely increased production potential is an opportunity
for more leisure time? The alternative model is shown in Fig. 7.2b in which it is
existing cities that provide a demand for more food. For Jacobs (1969) this is a
classic case of import replacement. Hunter–gatherer–traders were exchanging food
products within new trade networks but found it hard to keep up supply as city
networks emerged. In this situation people in cities invented agriculture to replace
and enhance the hunter–gatherer–trader food supply. Thus hinterlands were cre-
ated around cities in which to produce food. As cities grew larger, more food
(a) BASIC EVOLUTIONARY THINKING

Hunter-gatherer temporary camp
Shifting agriculture camp Agricultural village Market town Large city

(Agricultural revolution) (Urban revolution)
INCREASING AGRICULTURAL SURPLUS
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________
(b) BASIC COMMUNICATION ALTERNATIVE
Hunter-gatherer temporary trading post
(Part of a temporary trading network)
Hunter-gather trading & production places Complex cities Agricultural villages Dependent towns
(Permanent trading network) (City network) (Hinterland) (Hierarchy)
INCREASING ECONOMIC EXPANSION
Fig. 7.2 Two settlement development sequences. Starting points of developmental phases are in
italics; pivotal stages are in bold (Design by author)
technologies were invented, including irrigation in Mesopotamia, which fed new

large cities such as Uruk.
This is more like a stand-off than a debate, with the minority position again based
upon the qualitative social difference that cities make. The stark differences have
been recently exposed in the debate between Smith, Ur, and Feinman (2014) and
Taylor (2012, 2015). The former’s only reference to social science is a very early
paper from about the same time as Childe’s work (Wirth, 1938), the link being made
previously by Gates (2011, pp. 2–3).
Conclusion: The Limiting Case of Uncertainty of Knowledge
My conclusion is that understanding origins is a limiting case of Wallerstein’s

(2004) uncertainty of knowledge thesis. Wallerstein (2004) has argued that there is
an inherent uncertainty of knowledge due to the positionality of researchers/practi-
tioners interacting with ever-changing subject matters. Archaeological knowledge,
especially on origins lost in the mist of time, is a limiting case of this uncertainty
because empirical evidence derives from serendipity, based upon immensely low
probabilities of survival and discovery. Strong opinions are therefore due to either
entrenched paradigmatic thinking (my take on archaeology’s reluctance to shake off
nineteenth century ideas) or plausible process theory that makes sense of what little
evidence we have (my view of what social science can be). It is on this basis that I
think hunter–gatherer–traders created city networks and thereby released knowl-
edge potentials for the invention of such epoch-making institutions as agriculture
and states.
136 P.J. Taylor
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the material.
Part II
Mediators, Networks, and Learning
Chapter 8
Collaboration and Knowledge Exchange
between Scholars in Britain and the Empire,
1830–1914
Heather Ellis
In recent years there has been growing interest among historians in conceptualizing
the British Empire as a space of knowledge production and circulation (Jöns, 2008;
Pietsch, 2010, 2011). It has become clear that over the course of the late nineteenth
and early twentieth century connections between scholars attached to British uni-
versities and those based in the wider Empire, as well as between universities them-
selves, increased significantly in number and complexity. These connections took a
variety of forms, from the migration of students and scholars, including both indi-
viduals working within the bureaucratic structures of Empire and those outside
them, to the exchange of publications and correspondence. Indeed, historians have
felt able to speak of the existence of a British academic world, consisting chiefly of
the British Isles and the settler colonies of Canada, Australia, and South Africa
(Pietsch, 2011).
Instead of attempting to identify the various scholarly networks existing within
the British Empire, I seek rather to analyze the impact the experience of traveling
these networks and collaborating with colleagues from other parts of the Empire
had upon the identities of British scholars in the period between 1830 and 1914.
Historians who have examined the interaction of British scholars with the Empire
have tended to focus on the important task of tracing the specific networks they
constructed and proving their existence. Questions of meaning and identity have as
a result received considerably less attention. Following the work of Carl Bridge and
Kent Fedorowich (2003), among others, historians continue to assume that schol-
arly cooperation between individuals and institutions within the Empire had the
effect (and often also the aim) of strengthening imperial ties and promoting an over-
arching imperial loyalty (Pietsch, 2010). This assumption has been particularly
noticeable when referring to the fields of geography (Hudson, 1977; Kearns, 1997),
H. Ellis (*)
School of Education, The University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-44654-7_8
142 H. Ellis
ethnology (Anderson, 1992; Brown, 1993), and anthropology (Feuchtwang, 1973;

Francis, 1994; Kuklick & Jones, 1978; Morrison, 1984). The tendency to assume a
close link between participation in imperial networks and a sense of loyalty to the
idea of empire seems, in turn, to be related to another tendency within the historiog-
raphy of higher education institutions in Britain (and arguably across the world),
namely to assume a close relationship between the flourishing of universities and
the growth of the nation state and nationalism (Craig, 1984; Jarausch, 1983;
Välimaa, 2004). If one considers how frequently imperialism is treated as being
closely related to nationalist sentiment, it comes as little surprise that many histori-
ans have assumed that Oxford and Cambridge (as well as the Scottish and provincial
English universities to a lesser extent) promoted the idea of empire (Symonds,
1991). They are likewise often perceived to have been enthusiastic supporters of
nationalist identities over the course of the nineteenth century (Anderson, 2004,
p. 149; Anderson, 2006, p. 47).
As a consequence of this tendency, relatively few historians have questioned the
assumption that a majority of university scholars would be in favor of empire and
identify with the imperial project (notable exceptions are Stuchtey, 1999, pp. 149–
171; Symonds, 1991, pp. 80–98). Indeed, Joseph Hodge (2007, p. xxi) refers to the
widespread view that by the late nineteenth century, science and technology came
to be seen as “indispensable ‘tools of empire’.” In recent years, historians have
become increasingly interested in exploring the limitations and constraints of
Western imperial power, and, in particular, the conflicted and often contradictory
role of science and scientific scholars within it. Thus, Hodge’s (2007) study, Triumph
of the Expert, for example, emphasizes science’s role in revealing the “enigmatic
and fractured nature of Western imperialism” and the “tensions and conflicts within
colonial policy and the colonial state.” (Hodge, 2007, p. xx). In a similar way, Helen
Tilley’s work on Britain’s Empire in Africa, in particular, the African Survey of
1929–1938, highlights the important role of scientists in developing critiques of
imperial policy (Tilley, 2011).
What will be introduced here in this chapter is a distinction between imperial
networks and the space of Empire, on the one hand, and the meanings and identities
associated with them, on the other. Conceiving of the Empire purely in spatial terms
(as David Lambert and Alan Lester [2006] have done in their study of imperial
“careering” in the long nineteenth century) decouples it from an automatic associa-
tion with imperial sentiment and allows the possibility that many different motiva-
tions drove those individuals who traveled within its borders and made use of its
networks. Lambert and Lester highlight “the complexity, varied scale, constitutions
and compositions of personal imperial spaces and networks” (Butlin, 2009, p. 5). If
this can be said of those who were directly connected with imperial institutions such
as the colonial civil service, then how much more must it apply to scholars working
for universities connected only indirectly with the imperial project?
Another advantage of conceptualizing the Empire in spatial terms, rather than
simply as idea or ideology, is that it encourages us to treat it in a comparative light,
alongside other spatial frames of reference such as the local, the regional, the
national, and the global, which also helped to shape people’s experiences and identi-
8 Collaboration and Knowledge Exchange between Scholars 143
ties at the time. As Frederick Cooper (2005) has written, “the spatial imagination of
intellectuals . . . from the early nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century was
… varied. It was neither global nor local, but was built out of specific lines of con-
nection and posited regional, continental and transnational affinities” (p. 109). In
other words, the challenge is to ask how important (relative to other spatial frames)
the Empire was to those who traversed its networks, and under what specific condi-
tions it emerged as especially relevant. Here, we should heed the call of Robin
Butlin (2009) to pay more attention to “the dynamics and spatial scales of cultural
circuits” (p. 41) in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
otivations Driving Scholarly Networking Within the British

M
Empire
In the next section I consider the variety of motivations that drove scholars attached
to universities in Britain to travel across the Empire and engage in a range of col-
laborative projects with colleagues working in the colonies. There is no doubt that a
desire to deepen imperial ties and promote imperial unity lay behind the actions of
certain scholars. One well-known example would be Sir Bartle Edward Frere, who
rose through the ranks of the Indian Civil Service to become Governor of Bombay
in 1862. As well as his career in the Indian Civil Service, he was active in linguistic,
geographical, and historical scholarship of the peoples of India and held a number
of academic appointments, most importantly as chancellor of the University of
Bombay, also from 1862. In addition, he was elected president of the Royal Asiatic
Society on three occasions, a fellow of the Royal Society and president of the Royal
Geographical Society (RGS) in 1873–1874. For Frere, geographical study of the
Empire was inseparable from a desire to promote the imperial project and, in his
own words, replenish “the vital springs of national life” (Benyon, 2004).
However, by no means all scholars shared this view. It is possible to find many
academics who traveled widely in the British Empire and collaborated with a range
of colleagues at colonial universities, for whom the Empire itself and the further-
ance of its interests were not of prime importance. Such individuals have not, how-
ever, received the attention they deserve. Historians continue to argue that in many
cases science and scientific interests have been used as an excuse to conceal ram-
pant imperial ambitions. Marxist historians like Brian Hudson (1977) have, for
example, interpreted the relationship between the new scientific geography and the
new imperialism in the 1880s and 1890s in this light. There are certainly instances
in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries where this was undoubtedly the
case. The most famous example is probably the so-called Geographical Conference
organized by King Leopold II of Belgium at Brussels in 1876. Superficially, it was
supposed to consider the humanitarian needs of the populace of central Africa and
ways of advancing scientific research and was attended by scholars from an impres-
sive range of countries including Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Russia,
and Austria-Hungary. Initial discussions considered the possibility of establishing
144 H. Ellis
collaborative scientific stations and founding an “International African Association.”

However, the work of the conference soon came to an end when it became clear that
the main motivation behind the initiative had been Leopold’s imperial ambitions in
the Congo (Wesseling, 1996). As Wesseling (1996) has written, “very few were
fooled by the word ‘international’” (p. 89).
In recent years, however, scholars have become more sensitive to the multiple
motivations driving those actors moving within the sphere of empire. Key to this, as
Helen Tilley has pointed out, is recognizing empire as one of a number of overlap-
ping and interlocking spaces through and in which individuals traveled, which
should not be reduced in importance or overlooked in discussions of the national-
international dichotomy that continues to dominate the historiography (Tilley, 2011,
p. 9). In particular, there have been calls for a more nuanced understanding of the
figure of the explorer, who has often been viewed as a tool of empire. As Felix
Driver (2001) has argued, “the idea of exploration was freighted with multiple and
contested meanings, associated variously with science, literature, religion, com-
merce and empire” (p. 2). In his work on the imperial fashioning of Vancouver
Island, Daniel Clayton (2000, pp. 8–9) has likewise identified a variety of motiva-
tions driving explorers, including humanitarian sentiments and a scientific and phil-
osophical agenda.
When examining the lives and trajectories of individual scholars, the relative
importance of imperial identity and the imperial project vis-à-vis the interests of
their particular discipline must of course be thought of in terms of a sliding scale.
For many such scholars, the relationship must be visualized in terms of a partner-
ship, with the interests both of the individual disciplines and of the Empire being
served. Representative here might be the career of Roderick Impey Murchison; a
military man by training, he nonetheless went on to serve as director-general of the
Geological Survey from 1855 and president of the Royal Geographical Society
from 1843 until 1871. Personally, he was an imperialist who wanted to deepen
imperial ties; however, at the same time, his involvement with the Geological Survey
saw university-trained geologists sent out to nearly every colony of the Empire, an
endeavor that in turn produced an unprecedentedly detailed picture of colonial geol-
ogy. Indeed, T. G. Bonney has written of “the mutually beneficial bargain . . . struck
by Murchison” in which “science helped take an inventory of, develop, and justify
the empire, while the empire offered science access to invaluable overseas data”
(Bonney, 2004, para 8.)
It may be possible to place the figure of Halford Mackinder in this category also.
Traditionally, scholars have tended to interpret the career of the first reader in geog-
raphy at the University of Oxford and father of the new geography as a classic
example of an academic serving the interests of empire (Kearns, 1997; Ryan, 1994).
Mackinder, however, denied this late in life, declaring that the interests of geogra-
phy as a science had always been uppermost in his mind. At the very least, equal
weight ought to be given to his academic interests in assessing his career. “In truth,”
Brian W. Blouet (2004) has written, “his political and geographic aims were insepa-
rable; he wanted to create a new scientific geography which could be pressed into
the service of imperialism” (para. 23).
There were other scholars such as John Holland Rose, appointed reader in mod-
ern history at the University of Cambridge in 1911, who, although interested in and
enthusiastic about the Empire, pursued work in a wide range of research areas.
Thus, on the one hand, Rose joined together with A. P. Newton and E. A. Benians
to edit successive volumes of the Cambridge History of the British Empire (1925–
1936) and founded the Rose Studentship for Imperial History in 1932; however, in
the main, his research focused on the history of continental Europe from 1780 to the
present day, with a particular interest in the life and career of Napoleon. Like many
of his contemporaries, Rose had huge respect for the achievements of German his-
torians and worked hard to promote friendship and collaboration between the schol-
arly communities in Germany and Britain on the eve of World War I. In addition to
winning a high reputation within Britain and the Empire, he received honorary
degrees from extra-imperial universities in America and Poland (Otte, 2004).
There were, however, many scholars who made use of imperial networks in the
late nineteenth century with little or no concern for the imperial project. A good
early example of such a career is that of the astronomer, Sir John Herschel. Educated
at Cambridge and elected to a fellowship at St John’s College in 1813, Herschel
engaged in a wide range of collaborations with scholars in the Empire in order to
further his astronomical research. Thus, in 1833 he traveled to the Cape of Good
Hope so that he could view from the southern heavens stars he had already observed
in England. In this task, he was to work closely with the London-trained doctor,
Thomas Maclear, who had been appointed director of Britain’s Royal Observatory
at the Cape. He was likewise assisted by the Australian-born astronomer James
Dunlop and his catalogue of nebulae he had observed from Parramatta in New South
Wales. During his stay at the Cape, Herschel served as president of the South
African Literary Association and Scientific Institution and corresponded from there
with several leading British scientists, in particular Charles Lyell, professor of
Geology at King’s College, London. Herschel’s research enjoyed worldwide
renown, several of his works being translated into Chinese and Japanese (Crowe,
2004).
Many other similar cases could be mentioned such as the entomologist, William
Sharp Macleay, educated at Trinity College, Cambridge. In terms of his academic
contacts, he was deeply embedded in the world of continental European science,
corresponding at length with German and French natural philosophers on various
topics of physiological entomology. He was likewise in regular contact with
American entomologists and was elected a corresponding member of the Academy
of Natural Sciences at Philadelphia. However, at the same time, he made extensive
use of British imperial networks to pursue his scientific researches. One of his most
successful studies, Annulosa Javanica (which was published in 1825) comprised a
systematic description of insects collected in Java between 1812 and 1817 by
Thomas Horsfield under the auspices of the East India Company and Sir Stamford
Raffles. Once again, in 1838, he published illustrations of various insects collected
in South Africa between 1834 and 1836 during an expedition under the direction of
Andrew Smith that had been funded by the Cape of Good Hope Association for
Exploring Central Africa (Boulger, 2004).
146 H. Ellis
Those working within the emerging disciplines of archaeology and anthropology

were particularly astute at using the networks provided by the British Empire to
further the interests of their own studies. Take, for example, John Garstang, honor-
ary reader in Egyptian archaeology at the University of Liverpool from 1902.
Educated at Jesus College, Oxford, Garstang made the acquaintance of the
Egyptologist, Flinders Petrie, and joined his excavations at Abydos in Egypt.
Although Garstang was to spend several years working in Egypt, he did not confine
himself to the boundaries of the British Empire, going on to dig in areas such as
Jerusalem and Palestine. Likewise, in his scholarly contacts, he did not restrict him-
self to the British academic world, but corresponded regularly with continental
scholars, particularly in France, and was even presented with the Legion d’Honneur
in 1920 (Gurney, 2004).
Such weaving in and out of the space of Empire was far from uncommon. The
anthropologist and anatomist, Elliot Smith, who was born in New South Wales and
educated at the University of Sydney, made extensive use of imperial networks in
the course of his career. After coming to England in 1896 on a James King traveling
scholarship, he continued his research at St John’s College, Cambridge, under the
anatomist, Alexander Macalister, publishing some eight papers on cerebral mor-
phology between 1896 and 1897. In 1901, he acted as consultant to the University
of California’s Hearst Egyptological expedition and in 1907 carried out an archaeo-
logical survey of Nubia together with Sir Gaston Maspero, George Andrew Reisner,
and Frederic Wood Jones. However, later in his career, after being appointed to the
chair of Anatomy at University College, London, he also became involved with
anthropological fieldwork outside the Empire, in particular, Davidson Black’s pale-
ontological Chinese research, which yielded the famous “Peking skull” and other
human fossils. Smith’s own work also gained him fame outside the confines of
British academia; in 1911, he was awarded the Prix Fauvelle by the Anthropological
Society of Paris (Richards, 2004).
The Empire was thus one of many spheres in which British scholars were active
in this period. Moreover, it was not simply British scholars who were drawn to the
various parts of the Empire for purposes of scientific research. Egypt, India,
Australia, and many other locations attracted scholars from all over the world and,
in this sense, the British Empire must be conceptualized as a truly international
space of research. To take just one example, the Orientalist, Henry Ferdinand
Blochmann, having studied Persian and Arabic under H. L. Fleischer at Leipzig and
Haase at Paris, joined the British army in 1858 with the expressed intention of trav-
eling to India to pursue his study of Eastern languages. There he collaborated with
the British-born Arabic scholar, William Nassau Lees, and through him was
appointed assistant professor of Arabic and Persian at the Calcutta Madrasa in 1861.
In 1862, he became pro-rector of Doveton College, Calcutta, and went on to carry
out archaeological tours in India and British Burma (Beveridge, 2004).
Nor were individual disciplines themselves bound by the borders of Empire. We
have seen how individual scholars moved in and out of the imperial space in pursuit
of particular scientific interests. Similarly, the Royal Geographical Society awarded
medals in the late 1880s not only to British and colonial scholars but also to
European explorers of Africa, including the Germans, Georg Schweinfurth and
Gustav Nachtigal. Continental scholars, from France, Germany, and Holland, in
particular, gave papers to the Society and members of the RGS regularly corre-
sponded and exchanged papers with their counterparts abroad (Butlin, 2009,
pp. 268, 280). In 1877, the RGS’s Expeditions Committee announced that it wanted
to advance geographical science “to the exclusion of any dealings with territorial
and commercial undertakings” (Bridges, 1973, pp. 222–223). As D. R. Stoddart
(1980, p. 197) has shown, the final years of the nineteenth century were certainly a
time when growing numbers of purely theoretical papers were appearing in the
Society’s journals. The role played by the RGS was clearly not that of a straightfor-
ward “tool of empire.” Michael Heffernan (1994) was right to challenge the long-
standing view that “European geography was European imperialism, albeit dressed
up in a slightly more academic and scholarly guise” (pp. 93–94).
An International Republic of Letters
Belonging to a different group again are those scholars who not only engaged with
imperial networks primarily in the pursuit of academic interests, but who made a
positive virtue of their willingness to travel all over the world for the sake of their
discipline. Indeed, many academics saw themselves as participating in an interna-
tional republic of letters of which the British Empire was only one part. “International
relationships in university study,” declared the educationalist Michael Sadler in his
introduction to the 1906 translation of Friedrich Paulsen’s work on the German
universities, “are closer today than at any previous time since the beginning of the
sixteenth century” (Paulsen, 1906, p. vii). Traditionally, the nineteenth century has
been seen by historians as the era of nationalism and imperialism; however, in
recent scholarship, it has been increasingly recast as a period of growing globaliza-
tion. This argument gains strength from the fact that many commentators at the time
remarked on the growing interconnectedness of the various parts of the world, par-
ticularly in the field of scholarship. As Benedict Stuchtey and Peter Wende (2000)
have argued in their study of British and German historiography between 1750 and
1950:
[T]he great European res publica litteraria still existed, that international community
which, in the Middle Ages, had been attached to the church of Christ, and which, since the
Renaissance and especially during the Enlightenment, had become a transnational congre-
gation of men of letters. Out of this tradition, still vigorous in [the] nineteenth-century, grew
numerous contacts, mutual perceptions, and transfers which contributed to the formation of
modern university education in the age of nationalism. (p. 3)
Writing in the Contemporary Review in 1886, the German scholar and professor of
Comparative Philology at Oxford, Friedrich Max Müller, remarked upon the
148 H. Ellis
continuing vitality of what he described as a “universal republic of letters” encom-

passing not only Europe but the entire globe:
The whole world seems writing, reading, and talking together … Newton’s “Principia” are
studied in Chinese, and the more modern works of Herschell, Lyell, Darwin, Tyndall,
Huxley [and] Lockyer, have created in the far East the same commotion as in Europe. Even
books like my own, which stir up no passions, and can appeal to the narrow circle of schol-
ars only, have been sent to me, translated not only into the principal languages of Europe,
but into Bengali, Mahratti, Guzerathi, Japanese—nay, even into Sanskrit. (Müller, 1886,
p. 790)
Moreover, he described eloquently how such an ideal could coexist happily with a
hearty love of nation and empire. It does not “follow,” he wrote,
that because our Imperial patriotism is keen, our hearts are incapable of larger sympathies
… We want patriotism, just as we want municipal spirit, nay even clannishness and family
pride. But all these are steps leading higher and higher till we can repeat with some of the
greatest men the words of Terence, “I count nothing strange to me that is human.” (Müller,
1886, pp. 789–790)
There were indeed scholars whose careers became emblematic of this revitalized
republic of letters whose extent was not contiguous with national or imperial bound-
aries.1 Such, for example, was Thomas Henry Huxley. Having studied medicine at
the University of London, he traveled on numerous expeditions both within and
outside the British Empire as a scientific assistant surgeon. Among other places, he
visited Sydney, South New Guinea, New Zealand, Cape Town, and Rio de Janeiro.
In every place, he took an active part in local intellectual life. Later in his career, he
was appointed Fullerian Professor of Physiology at the Royal Institution in London
and was elected president of the Ethnological and Geological Societies. He also
established a regular correspondence with leading continental scholars such as
Ernst Haeckel, for whom he wrote the introduction to the 1879 English translation
of his work, Freedom in Science and Teaching. He was likewise at the forefront of
the Transatlantic Science Movement and served on the committee of E. L. Youmans’s
International Science Series. In 1876, he visited America and collaborated with col-
leagues at Yale, Harvard, and Johns Hopkins University. He was even offered a
professorship at Harvard (Desmond, 2004).
Huxley’s cosmopolitan career was also in step with broader trends among the
British scientific community as a whole. In the late nineteenth century British schol-
ars increasingly sought to establish international organizations and conferences
related to their particular disciplines. Thus, Sir Archibald Geikie, appointed profes-
sor of geology at Edinburgh in 1871, was not just president of the British Geological
Association but was also active in setting up the first international geological con-
gresses (Oldroyd, 2004). Likewise, Sir John Keltie, Secretary to the Royal
1
In contrast to this, however, it should be noted that Taylor, Hoyler, and Evans (2008) highlight the
importance of regional scientific networks over the course of the eighteenth century, often centered
on the use of a shared language. This development points to the decline of Latin as the common
language of academia and the rise of vernacular scholarship.
Geographical Society, was instrumental in organizing the sixth International

Geographical Congress held in London in 1895 (Baigent, 2004).
Even the organization that sounds from its name as though it would be particu-
larly national, perhaps imperial, in focus—the British Association for the
Advancement of Science (BAAS)—was becoming considerably more cosmopoli-
tan in the final years of the nineteenth century. When the Association met for the
first time outside the British Isles—namely in Montreal in 1884—it was not national
or imperial identity that took center stage in the discussions but rather the priorities
of the various scientific disciplines represented there. In welcoming the delegates,
who, significantly, included prominent continental and American scholars, the
Canadian prime minister, John A. Macdonald, addressed his audience in the follow-
ing terms:
I really do not know in what capacity I am called upon to address this audience, whether as
a scientist or as a Canadian or as a member of the government. I cannot well say—I will say,
however—I come here as a scientist. (Rayleigh, 2008, p. 35)
Likewise, Jean-Louis Beaudry, the mayor of Montreal, stressed in his address

that “the student of almost every branch of science must find something worth learn-
ing” (p. 33) at the meeting. A similar impression is gained from the reports of the
proceedings published in periodicals at the time. One report, which appeared in the
Contemporary Review and was written by a Canadian delegate, G. M. Grant,
addressed the delegates as representatives of their respective disciplines and pointed
out the particular characteristics of the countryside around Montreal that might be
of interest to them as scientists. Speaking of the range of cliffs known as The South
Joggins, delegates were told: “The whole ground is classic to geological science;
and it would be as unpardonable in a geologist to omit a visit to the South Joggins
as for an Egyptologist to go to Cairo without seeing the Pyramids” (Grant, 1884,
p. 237). The cosmopolitan attitude of the Association is also clear from the fact that
it had deliberately scheduled its meeting in Montreal so that its members could also
visit the meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science,
which was being held in Philadelphia a week later (p. 246). A similar sense of the
international perspective of the BAAS is gained from looking at the causes it agreed
to fund at the 1884 meeting. Along with the predictable grants to scientific projects
within the British Isles and the Empire, it was agreed to provide funding to investi-
gate the “volcanic phenomena of Vesuvius” and “earthquake phenomena of Japan”
(British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1885, p. lxxvi).
Critiques of Imperialism
Whereas cosmopolitan scholars like Huxley confined themselves to promoting what

may be termed the gospel of scientific internationalism, some of their disciples went
on to develop nuanced critiques of imperialism while still making extensive use of
the networks of empire. This included even those scientists employed directly by
150 H. Ellis
the colonial state (Hodge, 2007; Tilley, 2011). In her 2011 study, Africa as a Living
Laboratory, Helen Tilley has stressed the need for historians to deliberately fore-
ground “a dimension of the interactions among power, political economy, and
knowledge production that has as yet received little scholarly attention: the subver-
sive relationship that could exist between science and empire” and the “processes of
knowledge production subversive of the status quo” that could emerge from that
relationship (p. 24). Indeed, it is noteworthy how many of those scholars who devel-
oped critiques of imperialism were working either directly for the colonial services
or in disciplines directly related to the growth of the Empire and with most experi-
ence of traveling within its boundaries. Geographers were particularly important in
this regard. A useful early example would be Alexander von Humboldt. Traveling
widely in Latin America in the early years of the nineteenth century, he became very
critical of systems of colonial rule. On the other hand, he was quite happy to make
use of the networks of the British Empire for scientific purposes. In April 1836, for
example, he wrote a letter to the Duke of Sussex, then president of the Royal Society,
asking for access to British territories in order to set up a line of magnetic and
meteorological stations (Rupke, 2008). Similarly, Helen Tilley (2011) has singled
out anthropologists as being among “the most outspoken critics of colonialism’s
imperfections and inadequacies” (p. 30). This is a point confirmed by George
Stocking in his study, Victorian Anthropology, where he highlights the number of
anthropologists working within the British Empire who took on “the role of defender
., . and explicator” of indigenous ways of life and modes of thought (Stocking,
1987, p. 273).
Among other prominent critics of empire who were active at the heart of the
British academic establishment were members of a network of geographers who
were also founders of the international anarchist movement, in particular, Peter
Kropotkin and Élisée Reclus. Both Kropotkin and Reclus were welcomed into the
Royal Geographical Society, and invited to publish in leading British journals such
as the Contemporary Review. This was despite their clear condemnation of the
imperial project (Ferretti, 2011). Among others, Kropotkin and Reclus collaborated
closely with the social evolutionist and town planner, Patrick Geddes. Geddes had
been one of Huxley’s pupils at the School of Mines in London and had gone on to
study natural sciences at the Sorbonne under Huxley’s friend, Henri de Lacaze-
Duthiers. A complex character, holding chairs at the Universities of Dundee and
Bombay, Geddes not only imbibed Huxley’s cosmopolitanism; he also pioneered
the concept of regionalism as an alternative to national and imperial identity (Meller,
2004). In 1903, together with his friend and fellow sociologist, Victor Branford,
Geddes founded the Sociological Society in London, which was used, in the words
of John Scott (2007), as a “vehicle” for Geddes’s ideas, in particular the concept of
regionalism. Branford, moreover, actively sought to promote regionalism interna-
tionally, corresponding with such eminent figures as Emile Durkheim, Marcel
Mauss, and Ferdinand Tönnies. In 1913 Geddes founded the International Regional
Survey Association and during World War I preached the importance of regionalism
as an antidote to conflict. War, he argued, had been the outcome of the machinations
of national and imperial governments based in capital cities; regional centers, on the
other hand, were dedicated to the peaceful exchange of goods and ideas. Together
with Branford, he published a series of volumes under the title, The Making of the
Future, which set out his vision for a future society based on regional identity
(Meller, 2004).
Other scholars and scientists who developed detailed critiques of the British
Empire based on their own experiences of working within its boundaries specialized
in the study of tropical disease. Such, for example, was Andrew Davidson, a former
superintending surgeon in Mauritius, who was appointed as the first lecturer in trop-
ical diseases at the University of Edinburgh. In his Geographical Pathology (1892),
Davidson warned against further imperial expansion primarily on health grounds.
Much of India, he concluded, had a pathology inimical to Europeans and continued
emigration of Britons to this and other parts of the Empire would only further the
physical degeneration of the race. H. Martyn Clark, a medical doctor, trained at
Edinburgh and working in Amritsar, launched a similar critique of Britain’s west-
ernizing policy in India on the grounds of its dangerous side effects for health. In a
paper presented to the Royal Scottish Geographical Society in 1893, he condemned,
in particular, what he described as this
mania for widening and improving streets, for introducing costly schemes of drainage and
water-supply and for approximating Indian towns to the Western ideal . . . In the East every-
thing Eastern is not of necessity bad, nor is a thing that is good in the West always suitable
in the East … to supplant old habits by others, acquired under totally different conditions of
life—natural[,] social, climatic—is not for the benefit of the people. By removing protect-
ing walls and deflecting angles, we do but lay the city more open to the enemy. (Clark,
1893, p. 290)
The Society, which was based in Edinburgh and enjoyed close links with the univer-
sity’s medical community, provided a forum for many a critical discussion of empire
in the period following its foundation in 1884 (Bell, 1995). In a lecture given to the
Society in 1897, G. W. Prothero, professor of modern history at Edinburgh, gave a
gloomy forecast for the future of the Empire, whose greatest problem, he argued,
was an inability to function effectively across such a great expanse of territory
(Prothero, 1897). Another speaker, the Edinburgh-trained medic and lecturer in
tropical diseases and climatology, Robert W. Felkin, made the provocative sugges-
tion that the British should take a much greater account of native customs in its
government of India. This was particularly so in the case of health policy, he argued,
where national self-conceit should play no role. “Every medical man owed a duty to
science,” he declared, “to observe with critical, but at the same time with no
unfriendly or sarcastic eye, the acquired skill and empirical remedies used by unciv-
ilized races” (Felkin, 1886, p. 16).
152 H. Ellis
Conclusion
As stated at the beginning, this chapter in not intended to challenge the notion that
British academics and universities became intimately associated and bound up with
the discourse of empire and imperialism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries. This is not in doubt. What I have attempted to re-examine, however, is the
impact of this association upon the motivations and identities of the scholars them-
selves. It should not simply be assumed that a more intimate involvement and par-
ticipation in imperial networks led to an agreement and identification with imperial
goals. There was, indeed, a wide range of responses to empire from among British
academics. There were certainly a number of scholars for whom the imperial pro
ject was an important personal mission whose aims they endeavored to further
through their own work. By the same token, however, many others regularly tra-
versed the highways and byways of empire pursuing goals little if at all related to
imperialism or the imperial project. Instead, their movements, exchanges, and col-
laborative partnerships were directed by what they considered to be the peculiar
concerns and priorities of their academic subject or research area. While these
motives often led scholars to work within the bounds of empire, equally, they made
use of extra-imperial networks when needs dictated. In some cases, this led to a
positive identification with transnational collaboration, the clear articulation of cos-
mopolitan attitudes and the development of ideals of scientific internationalism. For
other scholars, involvement in imperial networks and intellectual collaboration
within the bounds of empire facilitated the emergence of critiques hostile to the
imperial project; as we have seen, with a number of British scholars, familiarity
with and participation in imperial networks seems to have bred contempt for the
aims of empire rather than loyalty to its cause.
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the material.
Chapter 9
Geographies of Selection: Academic
Appointments in the British Academic World,
1850–1939
Tamson Pietsch
The middle decades of the nineteenth century were a period that witnessed the
establishment and expansion of universities throughout the British Empire. While in
1880 the number of universities in England, Scotland, and Ireland was just 11, by
that date there were already 26 degree-granting institutions located in the British
colonies (Pietsch, 2013, pp. 202–209). Most of these were located in the “settler
colonies” of British North America, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa,
where they had been founded by self-confident colonial elites, who—although they
looked to Britain—saw these institutions as symbols of the maturity of colonial
societies and independent and autochthonous members within a wider British com-
munity. These “settler” universities therefore differed to those established in other
parts of the “dependent” empire—in India and South East Asia and later in Africa—
where educational institutions were established by British officials and were more
explicitly associated with the imposition of foreign rule, language, and culture.
In their early years these settler universities offered a classical and liberal (and
often religious) education that was designed to cultivate both the morals and the
minds of the young men who would lead the economically successful colonial soci-
eties of the mid-nineteenth century. But by the 1870s these educational institutions
were coming under increasing pressure to demonstrate their relevance to the socially
diverse and rapidly expanding communities in which they were located, and their
connection to the new forms of scientific and technical knowledge that was chang-
ing life for so many people. They responded to these demands in two ways. First,
they expanded their local educational franchise, opening their curricula to include
science, law, medicine, and engineering, and admitting women; and second, they
This chapter was first published in T. Pietsch, Empire of scholars: Universities, networks and the
British academic world, 1850–1939 (Manchester University Press, 2013), pp. 61–89. Reprinted
with permission.
T. Pietsch (*)
Department of History, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-44654-7_9
158 T. Pietsch
established new links with international scholarship, investing in libraries and in

mechanisms such as traveling scholarships and professorial leave-of-absence pro-
grams that were designed to carry their students and staff abroad.
But if importing books and facilitating scholarly mobility were some of the ways
in which settler universities strove to reposition themselves, then attracting profes-
sors was another. “[I]t all depends on the man,” declared Sir William Ramsay, pro-
fessor of chemistry at University College, London, at the Allied Colonial Universities
Conference in 1903; “[i]f we had … [great] men the students would come” (Official
Report, 1904, p. 112). But in their efforts to recruit “great men,” settler universities
faced a number of difficulties. First, there was the problem of distance: How were
colonial institutions to conduct the business of recruitment from afar? Second, there
was the problem of selection itself. How should the merits of a potential candidate
be assessed? For settler universities these two problems were intimately linked. The
question of who could be trusted became especially important in the context of
changing measures of expertise.
In the context of the British sphere, the academic appointment process has been
neglected by imperial and educational historians alike. Institutional histories, mem-
oirs, and biographies invariably speak of academic appointments in the passive
voice, but behind such phrases lay a power-laden, historically contingent, and
largely unexamined world of access and exclusion that had a significant influence
on the workings of British and imperial academia. Relying heavily on personal
systems of trust, the appointment practices of settler universities worked to extend
the networks of British scholarship beyond the British Isles, creating an expansive
but uneven and exclusive terrain that mapped the borders and shaped the contours
of what we might think of as the “British academic world.”
Selection Practices
Steven Shapin (1994) has argued that the “recognition of trustworthy persons is a
necessary component in building and maintaining systems of knowledge, while
[the] bases of that trustworthiness are historically and contextually variable” (p.
xxv). In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, gentlemanly codes of civility
were fundamental to the constitution of scientific truth in Britain. But according to
Niklas Luhmann (1988, p. 97) and Anthony Giddens (1991, pp. 29–34), in the nine-
teenth century this began to change. The complex conditions of modern life meant
that trust formerly placed in individuals began instead to be placed in institutions
(Collini, 2006, p. 475). As part of this shift, systems that valued merit and expertise
increasingly came in Britain—as they had since the eighteenth century in continen-
tal universities such as Göttingen—to replace personal patronage as the basis of
appointment (Meusburger & Schuch, 2010, p. 82). The introduction of the written
examination as a form of assessment in the middle of the century is often considered
to have been particularly significant (Hoskin, 1982; Rothblatt, 1968, pp. 182–183;
1997, pp. 148–176; Stray, 2005b). As Phillipa Levine (1986) writes, it meant that
9 Geographies of Selection: Academic Appointments in the British Academic World 159
the “criteria by which to judge quality and competence were gradually standardised”
(p. 158). Bound up with the process of academic specialization, by the second half
of the nineteenth century it was the credentials of universities and professional soci-
eties, rather than the word of gentleman amateurs, that served as the guarantors of
reliable knowledge.
At the start of the nineteenth century, professorial chairs in British universities
had been filled by various forms of political and religious patronage, while college
fellowships at Oxford and Cambridge were bestowed at the discretion of governing
bodies and restricted to those who met certain regional, religious, and educational
qualifications. But in the middle of the nineteenth century this system of patronage
came under attack. In the early 1850s the Oxford and Cambridge Royal Commissions
abolished closed college fellowships, which instead began to be awarded on the
basis of examination performance. Meanwhile, charges of nepotism in the 1830s
instituted what might be seen as an analogous process of open competition for pro-
fessorial appointments. University chairs began to be advertised, and candidates
were required to present to the electors (who ranged from the Crown to all the mem-
bers of a lay council or convocation) public testimonials from a wide range of fig-
ures both inside and outside academe. Ambitious to attract the very best candidates,
settler universities also used this practice to select their original professors. The
pages of Nature and The Athenaeum contain notifications of vacant chairs in the
universities of Toronto and Sydney alongside those of University College, London,
and the books of testimonials deposited in the Bodleian Library contain copies of
applications to positions in Australia, Ireland, and South Africa bound with those to
Edinburgh and Oxford (Testimonials, 1851, 1882).
However, the traditional story of a nineteenth-century transition from patronage
to merit only partially explains the changes in academic appointments procedures
that took place in this period. Older forms of privileged selection persisted. Not only
was the process of presenting testimonials largely a codification of earlier patronage
relationships, but it was also one that rested upon elaborate forms of covert canvass-
ing in which candidates would race to solicit the support of the individuals they
considered most influential. Under this system the election of a candidate was as
dependent upon the various collegiate, religious, political, and personal loyalties he
could command as it was upon considerations of expertise or merit (Stray, 2005a,
pp. 1–12). In the 1850s, for example, University College, Toronto, placed advertise-
ments in the London papers, and candidates—many of whom had been approached
by friends of the university in England—sent their written applications and testimo-
nials to Canada. But the new constitution of 1853 stipulated that all appointments
required government approval, and this had a discernible effect upon the selections
made. The rejection of the biologist and future president of the Royal Society,
Thomas Henry Huxley, in favor of the nearly 60-year-old Reverend William Hincks,
professor of natural history in Cork and brother of the provincial premier, stands out
only as the most egregious of these interventions (Friedland, 2002, pp. 48–49).
Forms of patronage thus remained active in both settler and U.K. institutions into
the twentieth century.
160 T. Pietsch
The Australian and New Zealand universities presented a further complication.

With the journey to Sydney or Melbourne taking 3 months, it was impractical for
these universities’ foundation councils to receive candidates’ written applications
and testimonials, as occurred in Canada. The Australian universities solved this
problem by vesting their trust in representatives and appointing selection commit-
tees that met in London. To serve on such committees these universities wanted two
kinds of people. First, they wanted individuals living in Britain who were familiar
with colonial conditions, and second, they wanted the advice of what Canterbury
College in New Zealand called “commissions of eminent scholars” (Hight & Candy,
1927, p. 24). The membership of Sydney’s and Melbourne’s first London commit-
tees attests to this. Both universities chose John Herschel (the prominent English
scientist who in the 1830s had spent time in Cape Town), George Airy (the
Astronomer Royal), and Henry Malden (the professor of Greek in London) to rep-
resent British science and scholarship, while the former secretary to Governor
Fitzroy served as a local voice for Sydney, and Robert Lowe, a member of the New
South Wales Legislative Council and Liberal member of parliament (MP) in Britain,
spoke for Melbourne. Although Australian university councils wanted the selectors
on these London committees to be men distinguished by their scholarship, they
were far less concerned about specific expertise: Herschel, Airy, Malden, Fitzroy,
and Lowe selected men to fill a range of disciplinary positions. London committees
were, however, expected to be able to act as good judges of character; a quality that,
as Stefan Collini (1985) has shown, underpinned so many Victorian educational
ideals. Melbourne’s first chancellor, Sir Redmond Barry, made clear that he wanted
the selection committee to find professors who had “such habits and manners as to
stamp on their future pupils the character of the loyal, well-bred, English gentle-
man,” while Otago University in New Zealand looked for a man “of irreproachable
moral character” (as cited in Selleck, 2003, p. 31). And if Otago expressed a prefer-
ence for candidates from the Scottish universities, both Australian universities
sought first-class candidates from Oxford and Cambridge. Therefore, although they
employed the technology of open competition, early Australian and New Zealand
universities both delegated their recruitment to men who had scholarly connections
in Britain, and emphasized that gentlemanly character should be a criterion for
selection.
Assessing Specialized Knowledge
However, in the context of increasing disciplinary specialization and academic pro-

fessionalization, the principles for what constituted a good professor began to
change. As settler universities expanded their curricula to include the professions
and the applied (and later social) sciences, a gentlemanly character and a first-class
examination performance in the universal liberal curriculum of Oxford or Cambridge
were no longer seen as sufficient. Instead, disciplinary knowledge, together with
competence in the methods by which it was acquired, became important. The old
public modes of selection and the lay and generalist committees central to them did
not lend themselves easily to the assessment of these qualities, and from the 1870s
on they came under intense criticism. Although no exponent of twentieth-century
research, in 1868 Mark Pattison, the Oxford scholar and rector of Lincoln College,
condemned the fellowship examination as “a wholly inadequate test of scientific
merit” and called the presentation of testimonials, the “least defensible” “of all the
modes of appointment” (p. 213). Specialized practical experience was taken to be a
better index of ability in many of the new scientific disciplines.
But how were these skills to be assessed and evaluated? The fragmentation of the
universal curriculum and the advance of disciplinary specialization meant that gen-
eralists were no longer able to assess a candidate’s merits. In the first decade of the
twentieth century, the English civic universities began to employ an appointment
system that relied on expert knowledge, convening disciplinary committees that
advised a university’s governing body. However, this created another difficulty: if
appointments were to be dependent on the recommendation of a few individuals,
which individuals could be trusted? As J. J. Thomson, the director of the Cavendish
Laboratory, commented in 1912, “[t]here are some Professors whose geese are all
swans, and others whose swans are all geese” (Hill, 1912, pp. 59–60). Under these
conditions, personal networks and private recommendations became crucial. As a
group of New Zealand professors, seeking reform, wrote of the civic universities’
new selection processes in 1911:
when the list of available candidates is before them, the members of such a Committee will
pay little attention to formal testimonials, but will form their judgment on special inquiries
widely pursued; and their knowledge of the learned world will enable them to judge the
value and character of the evidence they thus obtain; they will also interview likely candi-
dates in an intimate and informal way. (Hunter, Laby, & von Zedlitz, 1911, p. 49)
From the turn of the century, private knowledge and specialized expertise under-
pinned academic appointment in Britain’s newer universities.
Yet personalized systems of trust were something settler universities had been
using since the 1880s as a way of confronting the problem of distance. For junior
posts, colonial “God-professors” were frequently given unilateral powers of selec-
tion (Gardner, 1979, pp. 56–67). On the one hand this enabled individuals such as
Sydney’s professor of medicine, T. H. Anderson Stuart, and Toronto’s professor of
history, G. Murray Wrong, to bring out from Britain men they knew personally. In
the 1880s Anderson Stuart populated virtually his entire department with medical
graduates from his old university, Edinburgh, while in the early 1900s Wrong did
much the same with Oxford historians. But on the other hand such practices also
facilitated the appointment of local or on-the-spot candidates. Such appointments
were frequently expedient. In the 1880s and 1890s the best men that could be found
by the colleges of the University of the Cape of Good Hope, which still provided
prematriculation education, were usually graduates of British universities (most
often from Scotland) who were already in South Africa. Local appointments could
be opportunistic; for example, the future Nobel Prize-winning physicist Frederick
Soddy was made senior demonstrator (a non-tenured but sometimes senior position
162 T. Pietsch
approximately equivalent to lecturer) at McGill University because he happened to

visit its chemistry department when passing through Montreal (Yaffe, 1978, p. 15).
Yet the process was also open to abuse. In Melbourne in 1884 the local newspaper
leveled charges of nepotism at the university because one of the medical professors
was assisted by his son, while another professor was in the process of trying to get
his appointed (Selleck, 2003, p. 206).
Search Committees
For more senior posts, however, the established settler universities contacted disci-
plinary specialists and asked for their private assessment or recommendation. Using
this method, the Canadian universities had from the 1880s operated what effectively
were search committees. Officially, the power of appointment remained with a uni-
versity’s governing body, to which recommendations would be made. But these
were lay rather than academic bodies, and in practice (and sometimes also in stat-
ute) a great deal of power came to be vested in the principal or vice-chancellor who,
in combination perhaps with the head of department and one or two other faculty
members, conducted recruitment. Each time an appointment came up, the commit-
tee or governing body either would “invite [applications from] candidates or would
proceed by method of calling someone already favorably known to them” (Peterson,
W., Peterson to J. Davidson, October 10, 1900). The private recommendation of an
applicant’s colleague, supervisor, or head of department was taken to be more trust-
worthy than their public testimonials. By writing privately both to their friends in
Britain and their colleagues in the United States, Canadian university principals
looked both east and south, seeking out appropriately qualified men from England
or Scotland, or Canadian graduates who since the 1870s had been undertaking grad-
uate work in the universities of the United States.
University principals were central to this process and their archives overflow
with voluminous private correspondence regarding appointments. Letters to friends
and colleagues—both in Britain and the US—show them soliciting the names of
likely candidates, inviting applications, checking endorsements and organizing
meetings. These archives point to the largely informal filtering process that pre-
ceded a recommendation to an appointment committee or governing body. In fact,
on a number of occasions, McGill’s Principal Peterson expedited this process by
“borrowing” the appointment lists of universities in Britain: “There have been so
many elections to Chairs on the other side of the water of late,” he wrote to Professor
E. B. Titchener of Cornell in 1903, “that it is altogether unnecessary to make inqui-
ries there, as I think we are well informed as to possible candidates” (Peterson, W.,
Peterson to E. B. Titchener, May 1, 1903). Often official advertisements were little
more than fronts, as the letter in 1901 from Principal Peterson to the University of
Manchester’s Alfred Flux regarding the chair of political economy at McGill
reveals. Flux and Peterson had been corresponding about the position for some
time, and Flux had agreed to accept it. But “it was felt,” wrote Peterson, “that it
might be more satisfactory to those who have endowed the Chair, and who do not
know how much has been accomplished already by private correspondence, if we
followed the usual course of throwing the Chair open to all candidates” (Peterson,
W., Peterson to A. Flux, March 18, 1901). Those who responded to the advertise-
ment in good faith must have been disappointed when Flux was eventually officially
selected.
The consequence of this process was that a powerful principal could exercise
significant sway in the making of appointments. But by the same token, an uninter-
ested or poorly connected one could cause serious disruption, failing to act as a
directing force on the powers of the governing body (Drummond, 1983, pp. 18–19;
Friedland, 2002, pp. 234–235). Indeed, it was perhaps the lack of interest in aca-
demic matters of Arthur Currie, McGill’s principal between 1920 and 1933, that led
the university to put in place statutory arrangements stipulating a board of selection
for filling vacant chairs (McGill University, 1936). By contrast, Robert Falconer
(principal from 1907 until 1932) was of great value to the University of Toronto
because of his extensive network of contacts both in Britain and the United States.
George Parkin, the first secretary of the Rhodes Trust, was an old friend of his and
served as something of an “agent” in Oxford, as did William Osler until his death in
1919 (on agents, see Pietsch, 2013, pp. 109–114). But Falconer’s connections also
extended to America. Sitting on the board of the Carnegie Foundation, Falconer had
reason to travel frequently to New York, where he came into contact with many of
the leading American university men. Yet it is clear from the tone of their corre-
spondence that the presidents and principals of the Canadian universities were far
less familiar with the university world in the United States than they were with that
in Britain. In this period at least, their letters to Edinburgh or Oxford—to men with
whom they had studied or worked—were full of a kind of intimacy absent from
those exchanged with their southern neighbors.
London Selection Committees
Australian universities also made specialized personal knowledge much more cen-
tral to their appointment processes after 1880. Although their governing bodies
technically retained the power of final selection, they continued to rely on London
selection committees whose recommendations carried enormous weight. But the
ways in which these committees worked began to change. Instead of the old gener-
alist panels, subject-specific selectors began to be appointed. Having some connec-
tion to these selectors gave candidates an enormous advantage, as the case of W. H.
Bragg shows. When Horace Lamb, the foundation professor of pure mathematics at
Adelaide, resigned to take up the chair at Owens College in 1885, the South
Australian agent-general, Sir Arthur Blyth, asked Lamb to join the director of the
Cavendish Laboratory, J. J. Thomson, and himself on a selection committee (Jenkin,
2008, p. 64). Bragg, who at the time held an assistant lectureship at Thomson’s col-
lege in Cambridge, was on his way to attend one of Thomson’s lectures when he
164 T. Pietsch
was overtaken by the director himself, canvassing for the Adelaide post. Thomson
asked Bragg if William Sheppard, the Senior Wrangler and an Australian, was
applying for the position (Wranglers are the 12 highest-scoring final year under-
graduates in mathematics at the University of Cambridge; the Senior Wrangler is
highest). Bragg did not know, but asked Thomson if he might himself have a chance.
Thomson, much to Bragg’s surprise, replied that he would. This coincidence led
Bragg to submit an application, and he was invited to attend an interview in London
in December. From a field of 23 candidates, 15 from Cambridge and 14 of whom
were Wranglers, Bragg was selected, and he left England to take up the chair of
mathematics and experimental physics at Adelaide in 1886. In much the same way
as the Canadian principals, the disciplinary experts appointed to the Australian
selection committees engaged in an informal process of solicitation and encourage-
ment, making judgments based on their personal knowledge of candidates. Such
was the power of these London committees that a canny candidate working in an
Australian university would not send his application across the hall to the registrar,
but instead forward it all the way to London (e.g., Wilson, 1889).
Bragg’s story highlights two further innovations introduced by the Australian
universities in this period. First, although an Australian representative was retained
on London committees, by the end of the century the return migration of some pro-
fessors and the introduction of leave-of-absence schemes had helped create a grow-
ing pool in Britain of academic men who had themselves worked or studied in the
colony. This meant that the Australian universities now had a group of willing
and—more importantly—trustworthy representatives in Britain on whom they
could depend. Indeed, as the twentieth century progressed, a growing number of
these men themselves became leading figures in British scholarship. The London
committee for the University of Sydney’s chair of physics in 1923 stands as an
example. It included two Nobel Prize winners familiar with Australia (Professor Sir
William Bragg and Professor Sir Ernest Rutherford), a former holder of the vacated
Sydney chair (Sir Richard Threlfall), and a former professor of anatomy at Sydney
and frequent member of its selection committees (Professor J. T. Wilson) (University
of Sydney, 1923, p. 818). Increasingly, Australian universities were able to count on
their own faculty and alumni to help make appointments from London.
Second, Bragg’s selection for the Adelaide chair points to the emergence in the
late nineteenth century of the interview as an authenticating tool that introduced a
new and even more personal method of assessment. Employed since the mid-
nineteenth century in the recruitment of men for the Indian Civil Service and devel-
oping as a feature of celebrity journalism in the 1880s, the history of the interview
remains unwritten. In the academic world of the late nineteenth century it was as
likely to take the form of a fireside chat as anything more formal, and it was seen by
selectors as something that was only necessary in the absence of other forms of
personal knowledge. In 1911, the agent-general for Victoria, who was responsible
for organizing the selection for a new chair of English for the University of
Melbourne, made this clear. He reported that “it was not thought necessary to ask
[the short-listed candidates] to attend” an interview, because the members of the
committee felt they knew all the gentlemen short-listed (Agent General for Victoria,
1911). While the university sector remained small, such a coincidence was likely,
but as the numbers of universities expanded in the early twentieth century, selectors
could less frequently claim acquaintance with all the applicants. In this context the
interview was adopted as a substitute for direct personal knowledge. For example,
acting in 1919 on the advisory committee for the chair of physics at the University
of Cape Town, Ernest Rutherford was led by the “impossibility of forming a per-
sonal judgment on the large majority of the candidates” to suggest that the University
in South Africa should employ the Australian system of an interview in London
(Rutherford, E., Rutherford to High Commissioner, April 13, 1919).
However, Rutherford’s suggestion was something that Cape Town resisted for
two reasons. From the turn of the century the Cape university had set great store by
the advice of professors at Edinburgh and Glasgow, and their judgment continued to
be valued throughout the tenure of John Carruthers Beattie, the university’s Scottish-
born vice-chancellor (1918–1937) (Mackintosh, K., Mackinstosh to Beatie,
November 7, 1923). In 1919 Glasgow’s Professor Andrew Gray had been asked to
act alongside Rutherford and J. J. Thomson as an advisor, and allowing an interview
in London would have sidelined him (Rutherford, E., Rutherford to High
Commissioner, April 13, 1919). But the 1919 correspondence also indicates that the
university in Cape Town did not wish to cede its jurisdiction over this powerful
mode of assessment to its advisors in Britain. As the South African High
Commissioner wrote to Rutherford:
you will not forget that the appointment will be made by the University itself after it has the
valued aid of the Committee’s report and recommendations, and of course as far as candi-
dates already in South Africa are concerned the University authorities may be assumed to
have more personal knowledge than the Committee could possibly have (High
Commissioner, High Commissioner to Rutherford, March 7, 1919).
By limiting the committee—and the British applicants—to a judgment based only

on the provision of written materials, the University of Cape Town reserved for
itself the ability to override the London committee’s recommendations. Yet the
university’s attempt to maintain local control of appointments was only partially
successful, and in the interwar period the English-speaking South African universi-
ties used London selection committees with increasing frequency (Ritchie, 1918,
pp. 416, 428).
It was the New Zealand colleges that were most skeptical of London committees.
Although Otago and Canterbury had used committees in London and Scotland to
select their foundation staff, the institution of the federal system in 1876 and the
provincial rivalries it inflamed caused the college councils to assert their control
over appointments. Although London advisory committees were still sometimes
convened, the colleges maintained “an attitude of hostility” towards them. Indeed,
college councils reserved their “absolute right to reconsider candidates who ha[d]
been rejected” in England (Hunter, Laby, & von Zedlitz, 1911, pp. 46–54).
According to the group of reforming professors in 1911, the refusal to extend trust
to London was at the heart of the colleges’ recruitment problems, for the lay mem-
bers who sat on local college selecting bodies had neither the special expertise nor
the personal knowledge needed to properly evaluate applications:
166 T. Pietsch
The Council will go through the testimonials, many of its members knowing nothing of the
men who testify, and being quite unable to evaluate their testimony or to make allowance
for, or go behind, the notoriously misleading phraseology of these unreal documents . . . In
such circumstances the decision is bound to be determined partly by paper qualifications,
degrees and the like, which are always misleading, and partly by quite irrelevant consider-
ations. (Hunter, Laby, & von Zedlitz, 1911, p. 48)
This, the reformers thought, was “the worst method which could be devised”
(Hunter, Laby, & von Zedlitz, 1911, p. 50) in appointing candidates to university
posts. Instead they pressed for the institution of the method that the newer civic
universities in England were beginning to use. Although they recognized that such
a system was not immediately replicable in New Zealand given its “geographical
circumstances,” the reformers suggested that its virtues could be maintained by
appointing “a committee of selection in Great Britain.” The main drawback of such
committees, they acknowledged, was that their “members [we]re not deeply enough
concerned in the matter to insure [sic] the exhaustive and thorough investigation of
individual cases”; with sufficient care of selection, however, this was something
they believed could be overcome (p. 50).
Personalized Trust Versus Government Recruitment
In their different ways, Canadian and Australian universities had in the last decades
of the nineteenth century developed many of the features advocated by the New
Zealand reformers in 1911. Moving away from a reliance on testimonials and gen-
eralist selectors, they had placed their faith in the private, personal recommenda-
tions of disciplinary specialists. While the Canadian universities did this through
extensive search procedures that drew upon the connections of university principals
and faculty members, the Australian institutions were able to depute their own for-
mer staff to act on their behalf. In doing so they overcame both of the difficulties
identified by the New Zealand reformers. These expansive systems of personalized
trust underpinned academic appointment procedures in most of the settler colonies
up until World War II.
By contrast, in India and South East Asia a wholly other system of selection was
in operation. There it was civil servants rather than universities or academics that
undertook the recruitment of professors. The colleges of the Indian universities had
originally been staffed by British-born teachers. Under pressure from Indian nation-
alists, from the 1880s they were replaced by an increasing number of Indian gradu-
ates. But a British presence was retained in the form of a “superior” graded Indian
Educational Service (IES) comprising 92 members. This had been established by
the Government of India in 1897 and its members were recruited through a commit-
tee of the India Office in London. Positions were advertised and selection was based
upon assessment of a candidate’s written application, formal testimonials and—
finally—an interview. Although the India Office endeavored to stay in close touch
with the English universities and the elite public schools, the civil servants who
staffed its committees continued to place great weight on teaching capacity and
manly character rather than research ability or specialized expertise (Whitehead,
2003, p. 17). As far as the India Office was concerned, the Indian universities—like
the African institutions after them—remained closely tied to the civilizing project,
and a degree from Oxbridge together with good form on the river were ample quali-
fications for those who taught in them. Prizing administration over teaching (most
of which was left to underpaid Indians), largely ignoring research, and rewarding
longevity of tenure rather than quality of performance, the conditions of tenure in
the IES further worked to discourage the best scholars from applying to these posts.
Attracting British recruits to the Indian Educational Service—which was less pres-
tigious than the Indian Civil Service and less well remunerated—became even
harder in the years after 1900, when the new civic universities in England provided
opportunities at home for many who formerly would have applied (Whitehead,
2003, pp. 11–18). As Calcutta’s Professor C. V. Ramen commented in 1921, “in the
matter of the quality of the men sent out to us, we have been sadly disillusioned, and
we have had painfully to learn the lesson of self-reliance” (Hill, 1921, p. 367). In
World War I, Indian teachers began to replace IES men, and from the 1920s the
universities in South Asia were effectively Indianized. Although frequently required
to have a British degree, these professors were selected locally rather than in Britain,
and the private recommendations of British scholars were far less important in their
recruitment.
Therefore, if the period after 1880 was one in which settler universities instituted
appointment procedures that relied heavily on the personal recommendations of
expert British academics, it was one in which the Indian universities moved in the
opposite direction. The bureaucratic management of recruitment, the hierarchical
imperial cultures that shaped selection criteria, and the rise of an Indian nationalist
movement that contested the institutions of imperial rule meant that the systems of
personalized trust, so crucial to appointment in the settler universities, played a
minimal role in India.
Geographies of Selection
By extending British academic networks to the settler colonies, these appoint-

ment practices helped create an expansive academic community in which forms of
proximity and distance were measured by personal relationships as well as by accu-
mulated mileage. At a primary level the selection practices of settler universities
reinscribed the “global colour line” championed by late-Victorian writers such as
J. R. Seeley, Charles Dilke, and Charles Pearson (Lake & Reynolds, 2008). Students
from Africa, India, and the West Indies often found it difficult to even gain admis-
sion to British universities. “If I were a head of an Oxford College,” wrote one
Colonial Office official in 1928, “possessing my present knowledge of West African
students, nothing on earth would persuade me to receive one of them”; “[w]ith
Indian applications,” explained one of the tutors at Corpus Christi College,
168 T. Pietsch
Cambridge, “we do not consider anybody who is not backed by the India Office”
(Fiddian, 1928; Pickthorn, K., Pickthorn to the Educational Officer for West Africa,
May 8, 1928). Although Indians were employed in the colleges of South East Asia
and a small number of Africans found places on the staff at the South African Native
College at Fort Hare in the Eastern Cape, it is difficult to find any trace of Indians or
Africans applying for positions in settler universities and hard to imagine they
would have been considered favorably if they had (Kerr, 1968, pp. 275–277). The
exchange in 1900 between the India Office and Dadabhai Naoroji, the United
Kingdom’s first Indian MP and friend to many Indian scholars in Britain, high-
lighted just how difficult it was for “Her Majesty’s Indians subjects” to secure senior
academic appointments even in India. While Naoroji was “thankful to read” that, so
long as they were “distinguished graduates of Universities of United Kingdom, . . .
there [wa]s nothing to prevent the selection of the natives of India” for the Indian
Educational Service, he nonetheless queried the lack of recognition accorded to
Indian degrees, and perceptively noted that there remained a large question over
“how this eligibility of the Indian [wa]s to be practically given effect” (Naoroji, D.,
Naoroji to the Under Secretary of State, June 29, 1900).
Origin and Nationality
Yet the boundaries of the British academic world were not just racial. European- or
American-born applicants were only infrequently appointed to positions in settler
universities. Although some Europeans did win chairs in the colleges of South and
East Asia and to an extent also in South Africa and Canada, where they were promi-
nent in disciplines such as languages and music, they were frequently confined to
junior positions in the academic hierarchy. Americans were even fewer in number.
Instead the professoriate at English-speaking settler universities was overwhelm-
ingly “British” in an expansive sense. Between 1880 and 1930, 90 % of professorial
appointments at Toronto, 95 % of those at Cape Town and all of those at Sydney
were born either in Britain or in the colonies (Pietsch, 2010, 2013, p. 86, fn. 49).
This is not to say that scholarly collaboration and exchange with European and
American scholars did not take place. In the late nineteenth century significant num-
bers of Europeans made research trips to the settler colonies, while settler academ-
ics frequently traveled to laboratories and libraries in Europe, and in Canada’s case
also the United States. The University of Sydney’s investment in German-language
journals alone attests the rich trade in international publications and the influence
they carried. But for the most part these intellectual exchanges did not translate into
employment.
Given language differences, it is perhaps not surprising that the numbers of
European-born appointments to settler institutions were not high. However, this was
an obstacle that did not apply to candidates from the United States. English-speaking
and from a robust university sector, American candidates might have seemed good
contenders for positions in settler universities. Australian chairs in disciplines that
did not have a strong presence in British universities were frequently advertised in
the United States and received significant numbers of American applicants; of the
34 candidates who put their names forward for the chair of dental science at the
University of Melbourne in 1924, 17 were from the United States (University of
Melbourne, 1909, 1924b). But Americans were virtually never appointed to these
positions, and American experience figured only marginally in the careers of
Australian appointees.
In Canada, American experience was looked upon more favorably. But, as in
Australia, few Americans were appointed to positions in Canadian universities. In
the shadow of the cultural and economic, not to mention military, might of the
United States, Canadian universities asserted their British loyalty when it came to
professorial appointments. In their search for new professors, for example, Toronto
and McGill sought British-born candidates on the one hand, and American-trained
Canadians on the other. It was thought that both would be more “likely [than
Americans] to understand the methods and needs of a Canadian University”
(Harkness, J. Harkness to Peterson, March 14, 1903) But the preference for
Canadian-born candidates also reflected a specifically local colonial politics. Led by
James Loudon—the University of Toronto’s first “home-grown” professor, and
between 1892 and 1906 also its president—the self-styled “nativist” movement that
emerged in the 1870s had by the 1880s translated into a decisive shift in the balance
between British- and Canadian-born professorial appointments at that university.
With Loudon as president, and the government still officially controlling appoint-
ments, 75 % of those selected for permanent positions at University College between
1889 and 1911 were not just Canadians but Toronto graduates (Friedland, 2002,
pp. 113–115). Although the percentage of locally born appointments dropped fol-
lowing Loudon’s departure, British-born professors would never again outstrip
Canadians on the staff at Toronto. At the University of Sydney the same shift
occurred in the 1920s when the surge in national pride attendant with Australia’s
wartime contributions led to calls for “native sons” of the university to come into
their own and displace their British-born “foster fathers” who were to recede appro-
priately into the background (Morison, 1997, p. 325). By contrast, up until World
War II, the professoriate of the University of Cape Town remained dominated by
British-born recruits (over 65 %), with South Africans only constituting 10 to 20 %
of all new appointments (Pietsch, 2013, p. 86, fn. 54).
This predominance of colonial-born professors at Toronto and Sydney might
seem to signal a localization of the trust systems fundamental to appointments pro-
cedures. But focusing only on birthplace hides the extent to which most of these
“native” professors had spent an extended period of time abroad, either as students
or in employment. After studying or working in Britain or the United States, they
were drafted back to their country of origin by the personal processes detailed
above. On the one hand, the Toronto selection processes recruited a good number of
Canadians with American experience (30 %) and a significant number with European
experience as well (until 1918 it also was 30 %, dropping to 15 % in the 1920s)
(Pietsch, 2010). But on the other hand, Toronto’s informal search procedure
recruited a professoriate that was characterized by significant British experience:
170 T. Pietsch
30–45 % of the professors appointed in the period 1900–1930 had spent time in
Britain. Indeed, from the turn of the century there was a positive preference for
British degrees, with the Canadian Universities Conference in 1911 “strongly
express[ing]” its opinion that the universities “would greatly prefer to have profes-
sors who had pursued their post-graduate work in the United Kingdom rather than
in the United States” (Roberts, 1911, June 6). At Sydney, meanwhile, reliance on
London selection committees led to a professoriate that until 1940 was dominated
by men with British experience: throughout the period over 70 % of all those
appointed at Sydney had undertaken some work or study in the United Kingdom.
And at Cape Town all of the professors had experience abroad, with 85 % per cent
having worked or studied in Britain. Indeed, at Cape Town Scottish experience was
particularly important, and it is striking that in the decade before World War II, half
of those appointed had spent time in Scotland (Pietsch, 2013, p. 86, fn. 57).
Therefore, despite the predominance of the “native-born” in places such as Toronto
and Sydney, throughout the period all these settler universities continued to appoint
large numbers of academics with British experience.
Although British race patriotism played a significant part in this, the selection
processes that settler universities operated privileged those candidates who were
connected to British scholarly networks. These were networks to which Americans
did not belong. Since the late eighteenth century, they had been traveling instead to
European institutions such as the universities in Göttingen and Paris, attracted by
their growing reputation and resources, and freedom from the confessional tests that
regulated admission in Oxford and Cambridge. The fight for independence from
Britain together with the defeat of Napoleon further pushed American students
away from British and French and towards German institutions in Heidelberg,
Berlin, Leipzig, Halle, and elsewhere (Honeck & Meusburger, 2012, p. 296).
Speaking in 1921 of the period before World War I, George McLean, the director of
the American University Union in London, drew attention to this:
German Universities catered to us [Americans] at little cost, welcomed us with open hands
and brought us into close contact with their greatest Professors. They acknowledged our
credentials, initiated us into research and, with the exception of a few notorious Universities,
made us work for our degrees, and sent us home with a measure of devotion to the
Fatherland. Some of us caught a glimpse of the charms of the British Universities as we
passed by, but no one beckoned us in. (Hill, 1921, p. 415)
Although after 1901 Rhodes scholarships brought up to 32 American students

annually to Oxford, reports from 1911 suggest that, unlike their settler contempo-
raries, these Americans remained on the edges of Oxford life. “[T]hey live a good
deal apart,” reported one college don, “and have never identified themselves with
the life of the college as the colonists have.” They “have not the same incentive to
work as a colonist scholar,” pointed out another; the “latter knows that honors
gained at an English university will be of some help to him in after life,” whereas
“[the American] feels that his future career does not depend in any appreciable
degree upon our examinations” (The Carnegie Foundation, 1910, p. 58). Despite
Rhodes’s intentions, the universities of the United States operated as part of a sepa-
rate academic world.
The case of Edinburgh-born Thorburn Brailsford Robertson makes this clear. In

1884 Robertson migrated to South Australia as a child with his parents. He attended
the University of Adelaide where he studied physiology under Professor E. C.
Stirling and mathematics under W. H. Bragg. Although Robertson initially consid-
ered becoming a mathematical physicist, he was unable to find a position in Australia
and without a traveling scholarship he could not go to Britain. So in 1905 he
accepted a position as assistant lecturer to the leading German-born American phys-
iologist, Jacques Loeb, in the physiology department at the University of California
at Berkeley (Robertson, T. B., Robertson to Laby, September 23, 1919). Under
Loeb, Robertson developed research skills and an interest in physiochemistry that
would influence him for the rest of his career. He obtained a PhD, married his for-
mer Adelaide professor’s daughter, Jane Stirling, and was appointed assistant pro-
fessor of physiological chemistry and pharmacology on the departure of Loeb in
1910 and full professor in 1917 (Rogers, 2006). At the end of that year Robertson
accepted an invitation to lecture at the University of Toronto and this in turn led to
an offer of appointment there. Pulled by the lure of British connections as well as a
generous salary, he accepted the chair of biochemistry and moved to Toronto in
1918 (University of Toronto, 1918). But Robertson wanted to return to Australia. As
he told T. H. Laby in 1919, despite receiving at Toronto “much larger funds for
research” . . . “after fourteen years of absence, I would rather accept a moderate
opportunity to do good work in Australia than any sort of opportunity whatever in
America or Canada” (Robertson, T. B., Robertson to T. H. Laby, September 23.
1919). Before writing to Laby, Robertson had applied for a position at the newly
founded Walter and Eliza Hall Institute for Pathology in Melbourne. Yet despite his
qualifications, he was “not very sanguine of obtaining the appointment.” This was
because he had learnt that “the choice [was] to be made in London, where experi-
ences of the American School [were] not viewed with favour.” Robertson lamented
the system that excluded scholars like him: “I am,” he wrote, “handicapped by the
comparative lack of development of my special subject in England,” and by the
“system of application & selection by London committees which . . . throws all
Australian appointments into the hands of a few men” who, though they may be
very good men, have an outlook “necessarily . . . limited in directions which chance
to be foreign to them.” “In British circles,” Robertson concluded, his “long associa-
tion with America” hampered his chances of employment (Robertson, T. B.,
Robertson to T. H. Laby, September 23, 1919). Cut off from British disciplinary
networks, he had to rely on old family connections to obtain appointment in
Australia: he finally took over his father-in-law’s chair at Adelaide.
Built upon long-distance personal connections, the selection practices of British
and settler universities drew the boundaries of a British academic world that included
the settler colonies but that, for the most part, did not extend to Europe, India, or the
United States.
172 T. Pietsch
Social Proximity and Distance
This British academic world had an uneven topography. The role played by person-
alized systems of trust in the making of appointments facilitated access for those
with the right connections. It meant that particular schools and the recommendation
of certain individuals could come to acquire especial weight, and well-connected
candidates possessed significant advantages. The monopolization of physics and
mathematics appointments by Cambridge graduates provides only one example. As
early as 1885 the Earl of Carnarvon and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland wrote complain-
ing to the agent-general for South Australia: “Irish Candidates for Educational posts
have been frequently overlooked by the Colonial authorities, in mathematics espe-
cially, as these appointments are practically in the hands of Cambridge men” (as
cited in Jenkin, 1985, p. 85). In physics a word from J. J. Thomson carried weight
well into the twentieth century, and a recommendation from the New Zealand-born
Ernest Rutherford could make or break a career. Indeed, between 1890 and 1930
these two men had a hand in virtually every physics appointment in the British set-
tler world. Similarly, Scottish ties exercised a particular influence at Cape Town,
Otago, and Queen’s University. When the Scottish-born philosopher, John Clark
Murray, left Queen’s for McGill in 1872, the recommendation of Glasgow’s Edward
Caird was enough to secure his student, John Watson, the post. In Canada, Watson
maintained close connections not only with colleagues in Scotland but also with his
Scottish contemporaries who had gone to work in the United States, and he employed
these connections extensively when looking for an assistant professor in 1912
(Watson, 1912). As these examples show, networks of personal connection became
associated with particular institutions, investing each with an authority that condi-
tioned recruitment and selection.
Settler universities were acutely conscious of the value of British scholarly ties
and actively sought to recruit academics from within those circles. For example,
weighing the merits of the British-born, Australian-educated, and Chicago-
employed Thomas Griffith Taylor as a possible head for Toronto’s new department
of geography in 1929, the professor of political economy, Harold Innes, felt that
“[Griffith Taylor’s] international reputation and strong connections in the United
States, England (Cambridge) and Australia, Toronto and Canada [meant that he]
would be placed at one stroke in a position to develop the subject under most favour-
able circumstances” (Innes, 1929). Similarly at Melbourne, the 1924 selection com-
mittee for the chair of dental science recommended the appointment of F. C.
Wilkinson, a graduate of and lecturer at the University of Liverpool, above the only
“suitable” Australian applicant—the Melbourne-trained James Monahan Lewis—
on the grounds that “[Wilkinson’s] medical education and associations [in Britain]
would serve to influence dental education more along the lines of medical educa-
tion” (Barrett, 1924). From this angle, the preference of settler universities for
British candidates does not just signal their lack of faith in the merits of their own
degrees: instead it was another mechanism by which they sought to connect them-
selves to scholarship in Britain (Selleck, 2003, p. 504).
When the civic universities began to institute appointment practices that also
relied on personalized systems of trust (in fact, their committees were often staffed
by the same people who advised settler universities) the expansive nature of British
academic networks also helped facilitate the movement of professors working in
settler universities back to posts in Britain. The careers of the holders of the Sydney
chair of chemistry provide a good example. Beginning with Archibald Liversidge
(professor at Sydney from 1874 to 1907), four successive professors of organic
chemistry proceeded from Sydney to British universities (MacLeod, 2010, p. 388).
The story of their appointment is complicated, but shows just how entwined—and
how important—expansive academic networks could be. Before his departure for
the Davy-Faraday laboratory at the Royal Institution in London in 1907, Liversidge
had been instrumental in organizing the 1914 Australian meeting of the British
Association for the Advancement of Science. It was at this conference that the
British-born and trained Robert Robinson, who had been appointed to the newly
created chair of organic chemistry in Sydney in 1912, met the leading British chem-
ists of the day. The following year they supported him in his application for the
newly created chair at Liverpool. Meanwhile, John Read—who was working under
W. J. Pope at the Municipal School of Technology in Manchester, and then in
Cambridge—was appointed Robinson’s successor in Sydney (Hirst, 1963). In 1921
Robinson moved to St. Andrews, but when his old student friend Arthur Lapworth
took over as head of the Manchester department, Robinson moved to assume the
position Lapworth had vacated—the Manchester chair of organic chemistry. On his
departure from St. Andrews, Robinson recommended as his replacement John
Read—his successor at Sydney. The University of Sydney appointed to the empty
chair John Kenner, from the University of Sheffield. His candidature had been sup-
ported by, among others, Professor J. F. Thorpe (who had been Robinson’s former
colleague at Owens College, Manchester, before his move to Imperial College)
(University of Melbourne, 1924a, p. 826). When in 1927 the Manchester College of
Technology was looking for a replacement for its chair of technological chemistry,
Robinson’s head of department, Lapworth—then occupying the chair of chemis-
try—invited Kenner in Sydney to take up the role (Todd, 1979). To fill Kenner’s
empty chair, the University of Sydney appointed a London committee that consisted
of Robinson and Read and W. J. Pope (now at Cambridge) (University of Sydney,
1927). The man they recommended for the post was J. C. Earl, an Australian who
had studied chemistry in Adelaide before serving in World War I and then transfer-
ring to complete a PhD under Robinson at St. Andrews. Since 1922 he had been
lecturer at Sydney, under first Read and then Kenner. Robinson went on to hold the
Waynflete Chair of Chemistry at Oxford and to receive in 1947 the Nobel Prize. As
this extensive network of connection and appointment shows, although distance and
institutional location always mattered, the settler universities could and often did
operate as an integral part of the British academic sphere.
The possibilities opened up by these selection practices, in combination with the
reduced time and cost of travel, created an academic population that—even outside
the trips facilitated by temporary leave-of-absence schemes—was much more
mobile than it had previously been. No longer was migration merely unidirectional:
174 T. Pietsch
rather, return and circulatory migration increasingly also characterized the lives of
academics working in settler universities. This was particularly the case for academ-
ics who went to Australia, where, contrary to the assessment of Donald Fleming and
others, a ticket to Sydney was not a one-way trip but rather just one move of the
series of moves that constituted an academic life (Auchmuty, 1963, p. 34; Fleming,
1964, pp. 183–184). By the interwar period most professors at Sydney had, on aver-
age, relocated overseas two or more times (not including relocations within Britain
or Australia). This figure is striking. It means that for every British-born and trained
professor who moved permanently to Sydney (one relocation), there was another
who had moved three times, and for every professor born and trained in Australia
who remained there (no relocations), there was another who had moved four times.
Movement along the Britain–Australia axis was much more common than move-
ment between the universities of the new Australian nation (Pietsch, 2010, p. 386).
Sydney professors, therefore, had significantly more experience of British universi-
ties than they had of other Australian institutions.
As the examples above suggest, academics moved along migratory axes that
were particular to both their discipline and their country of origin. The age and posi-
tion of the ancient English universities frequently made them important sites in
multiple disciplinary networks, but in medicine and the sciences the Scottish institu-
tions continued to exert a pull. At such places as Cape Town, Otago, and Queen’s,
Scottish ties were particularly important. And if Australia, New Zealand, and
English-speaking South Africa looked predominantly to the United Kingdom, the
Canadian universities came to function as something of a hinge between the other-
wise largely distinct British and American systems. Brailsford Robertson was not
the only one to move along this route; R. M. MacIver, Griffith Taylor, and Jacob
Gould Shurmann were others who used Canada to move between Britain and
America (Blackburn, 1989, p. 73).
Cultures of Academic Sociability
Although the priority that universities gave to personal knowledge facilitated the
participation of some academics working in the universities of the settler empire, it
also created a highly uneven and unequal terrain that excluded many others. The
informal connections that underpinned academic appointments were forged by cul-
tures of academic sociability that were not only raced, but gendered and classed as
well.
By the end of the nineteenth century the opening up of the academic franchise
had resulted in an increasing number of women graduates in the settler colonies,
and some of these began to find academic employment as demonstrators or assistant
lecturers in settler universities. Some traveling scholarships also took women
abroad: to the women’s colleges of Oxford and Cambridge, to Scotland, to the
University of London, and in some cases to the United States (Goodman, Jacobs,
Kisby, & Loader, 2011; Selleck, 2003, p. 319). Unforeseen vacancies and World
War I opened up still more opportunities, and as the 1920s progressed, women
began to be appointed at the level of lecturer (an entry-level, usually tenured post).
Despite these growing opportunities, for women the barriers to an academic
career remained severe. In 1932, the percentage of professors who were women in
Australian universities was zero. In Canada it was under one per cent. In Britain,
New Zealand, and South Africa the figures were only marginally higher, at 1.5, 3.8,
and 1.4 %, respectively (Ainley, 2005, pp. 251–258; Perrone, 1993). For those who
did find academic work, employment conditions were far from equal. At the
University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, for example, women were paid
15 % less than men at all levels of the university hierarchy, and faced compulsory
retirement upon marriage or reaching the age of 55 (Murray, 1982, p. 328). In 1924
Margaret Hodgson—a lecturer in history—had contested these pay scales, but in the
council debate that followed, Alexander Aiken’s opinion that “the work of women
is not equal to that of men” won out and the provisions remained in force (Murray,
1982, p. 329). Hodgson was again defeated in her attempts to secure change in 1934
when she wished to marry. Despite waging a campaign that involved an appeal to
the minister of education and resulted in the abolition of the unequal pay provisions,
she was nonetheless forced to resign. Across the British academic world percep-
tions about the gendered character of different branches of knowledge, in combina-
tion with theories of innate sexual difference and expectations about gender roles,
restricted women’s participation in academic life (Dyhouse, 1976; Pickles, 2001;
Watts, 2007, pp. 142–143, 154–148).
Settler universities, like their cousins in Britain, were environments that fostered
and rewarded masculine cultures of sociability (Gillet, 1981, p. 371; Pickles, 2001,
pp. 273, 275; Watts, 2005; Whitehead, 1999). Geoffrey Sherrington and Julia Horne
have argued that in the 1880s Australian universities witnessed a “re-affirmation of
the almost ‘aristocratic’ ideal of character formation focused on the emergence of
the male ideology of athleticism and celebration of the body and physical endeavour
rather than the mind” (Sherington, 1983; Sherington & Horne, 2009, p. 134). The
students imported this ethic from their schools and the early professors encouraged
it by playing alongside them on the sports field. By the turn of the century it was
being championed more broadly as a means of strengthening the bonds of empire.
In the settler university these forms of sociability were reinforced by the high inci-
dence of British experience among the male academic staff. Looking back on his
time as a young history lecturer at the University of Melbourne between the wars,
Norman Harper attested to this when he talked about departmental parties at which
he “was often depressed by all those people who had been to Oxford or Cambridge,
Athens or Thebes, London or Rome, who conducted in-conversations which left
outsiders feeling like barbarians” (Goodman, 2004, p. 7).
Women operated on the edges of these spaces. They were officially barred from
membership of many professional and disciplinary societies: the British
Physiological Society excluded them until 1915, and the Royal Society until 1945
(Pickles, 2001, p. 275). Thought to be financially supported by their husbands and
therefore less deserving of the positions, laboratory time and research money
accorded to their brothers, they worked on the margins of both the formal and the
176 T. Pietsch
informal structures that facilitated academic connection. Those who did manage to
secure traveling scholarships found themselves either in the parallel realm of the
women’s colleges or in the homosocial cultures that dominated seminar, library, and
laboratory (Squier, 1997; Watts, 2007, pp. 142, 144; Zuckerman, Cole, & Bruer,
1991, p. 17). Women working in settler universities thus found it especially difficult
to make the kinds of relationships that were so important for an academic career.
To navigate the highly gendered terrain of early twentieth-century academia,
female scholars frequently required the backing of male colleagues. Baldwin
Spencer at Melbourne and Edgeworth David at Sydney were particularly open to
offering women opportunities, employing several in their departments. But as schol-
ars such as Helena Pycior, Nancy Slack, and Pnina Abir-Am have pointed out, it
was a supportive marriage that most often enhanced a women’s chance of doing
academic work (MacLeod, 1979; Morantz-Sanchez, 1987; Pycior, Slack, &
Abir-Am, 1996). It was not uncommon for women students or assistants to marry
their professors, and some formed “collaborative” relationships that gave them
space to work. Marriage to the Canadian astronomer Frank Scott Hogg, for exam-
ple, enabled Helen Hogg to pursue her own research, while Edith Osborn not only
helped her husband establish a department at Adelaide, but served as lecturer and
demonstrator in the department of botany at Sydney following his appointment
there as professor (Ainley, 1996).
Yet the example of Hogg—who worked in a junior capacity until her husband’s
death—also shows that even in such relationships women were rarely accorded full
credit for the work they undertook (Dyhouse, 1995, p. 471). More usually women
were vital components of what Hannah Gay has called the “underground economy”
of academia (Dyhouse, 1995, p. 471; Gay, 1996). “[T]he function of a wife, my
lad,” wrote Donald Hunter, director of the (British) Medical Research Council’s
Department for Research into Industrial Medicine, to the South African medic, J. F.
Brock, “is to help you to get that [manuscript] into print” (Hunter, D., Hunter to J. F.
Brock, February 27, 1933). Women transcribed articles, ordered research, and con-
ducted experiments for their husbands, brothers, and fathers in ways that went
largely unacknowledged. They maintained and facilitated male sociability, conduct-
ing personal and professional correspondences and organizing the afternoon teas,
dinner parties, and excursions to the country that fostered connections between aca-
demic men. As with Noel Annan’s (2001) “intellectual aristocracy,” marriage played
a central role in knitting together the affective relations of the British academic
world. Two of J. T. Wilson’s daughters married Australians studying under him in
Cambridge, while Rutherford’s only daughter also married one of his students,
Ralph Fowler, who would himself later hold the chair of theoretical physics at the
Cavendish Laboratory. In these ways women joined Europeans in what we might
think of as “the shadow networks” of the British academic world. Although they
were frequently enmeshed in long-distance ties, these were not of a kind that earned
them a significant place inside settler institutions. Even as they participated in the
scholarly project, women provided the poorly paid, under-recognized, and often
locally based labor that both supported and enabled the mobility of the white, male,
and largely middle-class Britons appointed to senior posts (Collins, 2009; Goodman
& Martin, 2002; Hall, 1992; Theobald, 1996).
The expansive networks of the British academic world played an important role
in shaping, policing, and extending these racial, gendered, and gentlemanly geogra-
phies. Unofficial information traveling along these networks determined who was
and who was not admitted to them. One of the candidates who applied for the chair
of physics in Adelaide in 1885 was passed over because it had been heard that he
was considered “not safe with the bottle” (cited in Jenkin, 1985, p. 84). In 1905 Mr.
Price (of Harvard) appeared to Toronto’s James Mavor to be “too jeuvenile looking
[sic] to take affective control of Toronto’s large classes,” (Mavor, J., Mavor to
Loudon, October 31, 1905) and in Melbourne Esmonde Higgin’s affiliation with the
Communist Party meant he was, according to one of his supporters, “regarded with
deep suspicion” (cited in Anderson, 2005, p. 75). Similarly, “while not knowing
him personally,” the members of the 1919 advisory committee for the Cape Town
chair of physics “felt [they] ought to mention” that they had “heard somewhat con-
flicting reports of [Lewis Simons’s] personality and his ability to get on with stu-
dents” (Chair of Physics Advisory Committee, 1919).
This continuing emphasis upon character and the informal means by which it
was assessed also created space for more insidious forms of discrimination, as the
case of the Polish-born Lewis Berstein Naymier (later Namier) at the University of
Toronto shows. While some anglicized Jews were able to find academic appoint-
ments in Australia, Canada, and South Africa, those who did not obviously conform
to British cultural expectations met a very different experience (Friedland, 2002,
pp. 342–348; Gibson, 1983, pp. 199–202; Horn, 1999, pp. 34–35, 136–138, 165–
136; Zimmerman, 2007). Naymier—whom the Master of Balliol College, A. L.
Smith, described as “the ablest man we have had in economics and history for some
years” (as quoted in Friedland, 2002, p. 235)—had been recommended by Smith in
1911 for a junior appointment in Toronto’s department of political economy. But
Godfrey Lloyd, a member of the department who was in England meeting candi-
dates and who interviewed Naymier, seemed to take against him, preferring Gilbert
Jackson who had a second-class degree from Cambridge as the “safer choice”. “Of
course,” wrote Lloyd of Naymier, “he is not in the least British,” and the “one defi-
nite drawback, about which opinions vary, is the extent to which his foreign accent
affects his intelligibility” (Lloyd, G., Lloyd to J. Mavor, 1911). The head of depart-
ment, James Mavor, was similarly minded (Mavor, J., Mavor to Falconer, July 20,
1911). In the end Jackson was awarded the position. But the same year the Toronto
history department wanted to appoint a lecturer and Naymier’s name was again put
forward. Although he was strongly favored by the outgoing post-holder Kenneth
Bell, and in the face of Falconer’s assertions that “the fact of his being a Jew has not
influence one way or another with us,” once again Naymier’s Jewishness—often
discussed in terms of his “difficult” accent—proved an obstacle (as quoted in
Friedland, 2002, p. 235). In particular, Joseph Flavelle, a member of the board of
governors, “did not like the choice of a Polish Jew as an interpreter of history . . .
who by his broken accent constantly proclaims it,” (p. 235) and Naymier was again
passed over. Despite his evident ability and good Oxford connections, the combina-
tion of anti-Semitism, British race patriotism, and the weight given to personal
assessments led Toronto to reject Naymier’s application (Cannon, 2004).
178 T. Pietsch
The racial, gendered and—although not discussed in detail here—classed cul-

tures of British academia were thus intimately bound up in the same processes that
extended British networks to settler universities. In concert with, but also often in
the face of, stated university policies, expansive personal networks shaped the com-
position and character of academic bodies.
Speaking in 1912, the one-time inspector-general of schools in Western Australia,
Cyril Jackson, described the process of selecting new academic personnel:
[S]upposing a Professor of Geology, or some other branch of science, is wanted, it is very
difficult to know where such a man is likely to be found. One cannot possibly know all the
staffs of the various Universities in England, and one has to do the best one can by writing
to friends. (Hill, 1912, p. 318)
This practice of “writing to friends” was a crucial aspect of the making of appoint-
ments in settler universities. Personal relationships developed in such sites as com-
mon rooms and laboratories were carried with academics when they migrated.
These trusted long-distance ties then become the channels that settler universities
relied on when weighing the merits of potential candidates. As I have shown in this
chapter, the official institutional practice of universities was premised upon the pri-
vate knowledge and the personal relationships of their staff and students.
Yet the place universities accorded to private knowledge meant that their mea-
sures of expertise were contingent upon the cultures of academic sociability in
which the friendships of their staff were formed. Not only were these cultures that
were racially exclusive, they were also heavily gendered. Even as women were mar-
ginalized from the formal structures of academia, as correspondents, assistants, and
marriage partners they provided much of the “affective labour” (Hardt & Negri,
2004, p. 108) on which the maintenance of academic relationships depended. The
technologies of selection used by settler universities therefore helped to shape a
British academic world that was both expansive and exclusionary. They point to the
role that social systems play—as Peter Meusburger has shown elsewhere in this
series—in conditioning the recognition, acceptance, and movement of knowledge
and in contributing to its “spatial disparities” (Meusburger, 2013, pp. 22, 16).
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the material.
Chapter 10
The University of Cambridge, Academic
Expertise, and the British Empire, 1885–1962
Heike Jöns
When Sir Frank Leonard Engledow (1890–1985), Drapers’ Professor of Agriculture

in the University of Cambridge, traveled to Southern Rhodesia and South Africa
from 13 May to 17 September 1948 to advise the British colonial government on
agricultural development in Southern Rhodesia, he kept one of his neatly organized
travel journals. The first pages contained the most recent pictures of his botanist
wife Mildred (née Roper, 1896–1956) and their four daughters Margaret (aged 26),
Catherine (24), Ruth (20), and Audrey (15). These images were followed by notes
on his travel kit, itinerary, personal encounters, correspondences, expenditures, field
observations, to-do-lists, and readings. At the end, he had noted a few biblical
verses, including “Fear God & keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty
of man” (Ecclesiastes 12: 13; see Engledow, 1948).
Engledow was a devoted Christian, who had a profound knowledge of the Bible,
attended church regularly, and served as a churchwarden (Bell, 1986). From a post-
colonial perspective, his Christian beliefs stood in stark contrast to the prevailing
racial discourses of scientific development work in the 1940s (Butlin, 2009; Tilley,
2011). At a meeting with Mr. K. M. Goodenough, High Commissioner in the United
Kingdom for Southern Rhodesia, at Rhodesia House on 6 November 1947,
Engledow was told that the relationship between white settlers and local Africans
would be rapidly changing due to: “(a) Native betterment demanded by S. Rhodesian
natives and by world opinion. (b) Ignorant natives useless to industry and may ruin
land by erosion, etc. (c) Every member of the country’s small population must pro-
duce as much wealth as possible” (Engledow, 1947).
This chapter is an extended version of an article original published in the SAGE journal Environment
and Planning A. It is republished within the journal’s terms and conditions. For the original article,
see Jöns, H. (2016). The University of Cambridge, academic expertise and the British empire,
1885–1962. Environment and Planning A, 48, 94–114. doi:10.1177/0308518X15594802
H. Jöns (*)
Department of Geography, Loughborough University, Loughborough LE11 3TU, UK

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-44654-7_10
186 H. Jöns
This briefing by Goodenough provides a glimpse of colonial discourses about

Africa in the mid-twentieth century that often still reinforced the stereotyping of an
“inferior” indigenous population. Powerfully exposed by Said’s (1978) seminal
work Orientalism in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British and French dis-
courses, this process was inextricably linked to a feeling of European superiority
and the desire of advancing commerce by “civilizing” indigenous peoples, even if
the legitimizing racist ideologies contradicted Christian principles. On the eve of
decolonization, this situation and growing economic challenges led to increasing
competition and clashes between European settlers and indigenous populations over
land, labor resources, and cash crop market shares, which created a large demand
for scientific expertise (e.g., Engledow, 1949, 1950) and eventually resulted in the
replacement of colonial reform by a policy of decolonization (Flint, 1983).
My aim in this chapter is to examine the complex role that university science and
scholarship played for interactions between Britain and its colonies. The inquiry is
guided by three research questions: To what extent and why did British university
scientists and scholars travel to destinations within the British empire? How did the
nature and geographies of imperial travel by British academics change over time?
And in which ways did their expertise contribute to academic knowledge produc-
tion and imperial interests? To answer these questions, I situate the travels of indi-
vidual Cambridge academics within all documented imperial and international
travel in the University of Cambridge from 1885–1886, the academic year in which
leave of absence was first recorded, to 1954–1955, when looming decolonization
and new forms of travel, specifically by air, began to alter the nature of academic
mobility.
This chapter builds on previous research that has used the unique longitudinal
data set on leave of absence from the University of Cambridge to analyze the geog-
raphies of academic knowledge production by type of academic work (Jöns, 2008)
and disciplinary identities (Heffernan & Jöns, 2013). The following analysis con-
tributes a highly original perspective to this progressive research agenda by respond-
ing to four research desiderata in wider geographical and interdisciplinary debates
about knowledge production, travel, and imperialism, thereby providing a pioneer-
ing academic study of the extent to which British academics working across the
sciences and the humanities contributed to British imperial governance.
Firstly, my research strengthens the dimension of empire in an emerging body of
work that studies transnational linkages, circulations, and networks of universities
at the level of institutions rather than nation states (e.g., Charle, 2004; Heffernan &
Jöns, 2007, 2013; Meusburger & Schuch, 2012; Pietsch, 2013; Taylor, Hoyler, &
Evans, 2008). Secondly, this chapter aims to complement prevailing biographical
studies of imperial scientific travelers (e.g., Driver, 2001; McEwan, 2000) by situat-
ing individual practices within collective academic travel and analyzing how the
former reproduced and changed patterns of academic engagement with different
parts of the colonial world over seven decades. Thirdly, this study speaks to a grow-
ing body of work on the contribution of academic expertise to colonial and postco-
lonial networks (e.g., Hodge, 2007; Stuchtey, 2005; Tilley, 2011) by comparing the
origins, natures, and geographies of personal, institutional, academic, and govern-
10 The University of Cambridge, Academic Expertise, and the British Empire 187
mental imperial knowledge networks. Fourthly, this essay charts novel territory by
examining the involvement of Cambridge academics in imperial agendas because
previous research has characterized the University of Oxford as an important arena
within which British imperial ideology was formulated, whereas Cambridge has
mostly been regarded as preoccupied with education and learning rather than theol-
ogy and politics (Symonds, 1986/1992). Overall, I argue that a profound under-
standing of the interplay between academic expertise and imperial governance
requires an integrated analysis of macropatterns and microperspectives.
Knowing the Empire
This study is situated at the intersection of geographers’ engagement with the devel-
opment, nature, and critique of British imperialism (e.g., Bell, Butlin, & Heffernan,
1995; Butlin, 2009; Godlewska & Smith, 1994) and studies of exploration and
travel for the production and circulation of scientific knowledge in imperial and
international contexts (e.g., Driver, 2001; Heffernan, 1994; Jöns, 2008; Livingstone,
2003; McEwan, 2000). Both lines of inquiry are evoked in Said’s (1978) compelling
argument that science, scholarship, and empire have been mutually constituted pro
jects since the eighteenth century. They have become popular international and
interdisciplinary endeavors with converging interests in the spatiality of knowledge
production and the conceptualization of empire and science as networks linked by
various circulations (e.g., Hodge, 2011; Lambert & Lester, 2006; Ogborn, 2000).
This chapter’s first original approach to imperial travels of scientists and scholars
relates to its comparative disciplinary research perspective, which studies academ-
ics working across all disciplines. Venturing beyond the disciplinary tradition par-
ticular to geography situates this chapter within studies on the geographies of
scientific knowledge that have examined the difference location has made for the
supposedly universalist claims advanced in other disciplines (e.g., Livingstone &
Withers, 2011; Meusburger, Livingstone, & Jöns, 2010). Drawing on Livingstone’s
(2003) argument that the locations where scientific knowledge was generated, com-
municated, and displayed profoundly shaped the development of science, those
studies have emphasized how European colonial empires were constituted by the
circulation not only of traded commodities but also of ideas, theories, practices,
objects, and people; by acts of translation between different languages and cultures;
and by a complex, scalar politics of exchange and authority (e.g., Ogborn, 2008;
Raj, 2010).
Recent geographical studies of empire have also developed highly differentiated
perspectives of a networked empire by emphasizing multiple experiences in differ-
ent national and imperial contexts (e.g., Lambert & Lester, 2006). This includes
examinations of the role of previously underplayed factors such as race, class, and
gender for the creation, articulation, and circulation of geographical knowledge
(e.g., Blunt & McEwan, 2002), as well as circulations between imperial and colo-
nial nodes with central and peripheral standing and the complex interactions of
188 H. Jöns
European and non-European knowledge producing practices within the colonial

“periphery” (e.g., Bravo, 1999; Driver, 2001; Ogborn, 2000; Raj, 2010).
This chapter’s comparative geographical research perspective thus constitutes a
second original approach to imperial academic travel because it accesses those mul-
tidimensional circulations by exploring how Cambridge academics contributed to
the spaces of British imperial regulation, authority, and control in different parts of
the empire. By focusing on knowledge production through circular academic travel,
this study complements Pietsch’s (2010) work on appointment practices of universi-
ties in different regions of Britain’s settler empire that stresses the great extent to
which academic careers focused on British imperial networks in the early twentieth
century. The question of how the frequency, nature, and geographies of imperial
travel from the University of Cambridge changed in the context of early decoloniza-
tion also adds to a growing body of research about the wider impact of decoloniza-
tion on postcolonial relationships (e.g., Blunt & McEwan, 2002; Craggs, 2011;
Craggs & Wintle, 2016).
Conceptually, the present study frames circular academic travel from the
University of Cambridge as an integral part of systematic mobilization processes in
a scientific “center of calculation” (Latour, 1987, p. 215). Such mobilization pro-
cesses have facilitated knowledge production at the home base through the accumu-
lation and subsequent transformation of heterogeneous resources into new scientific
and scholarly arguments (De Certeau, 1986). The notion of a center of calculation
has been especially useful for geographical studies of knowledge production in
modern institutions, such as the University of Cambridge, where circular academic
travel generated important cumulative effects for the emergence of a modern
research university and an Anglo-American academic hegemony (Jöns, 2008; for a
government institution, see Barnes, 2006). The concept has also been of great value
in different imperial contexts as mobilization processes in centers of calculation
have become inextricably linked to the global spread of European science, capital-
ism, and imperialism (Jöns, 2011).
Based on this conceptualization, this chapter links individual and collective
travel behavior in the university by situating the “geographical biography”
(Livingstone, 2003, p. 182) of the plant scientist and agriculturalist Sir Frank
Engledow within the changing nature and geographies of all recorded imperial and
international travel by Cambridge academics in order to trace some of the origins,
dynamics, diversities, and impacts of related knowledge networks. This integrated
comparative approach of macro- and microperspectives seeks to contribute new
insights about the historical geographies of knowledge production to an emerging
global history of science and scholarship that has hitherto prioritized biographical
over structural accounts and rarely attempted a combination of both (for related
debates, see Ogborn, 2000, 2008; Heffernan & Jöns, 2013; Taylor et al., 2008).
An integrated analysis of individual and collective academic travel also helps to
assess the value of the archival data on all applications for leave of absence by
Cambridge University Teaching Officers as they are recorded in the minute books
of the university’s General Board (GB) from 1885–1886 to 1954–1955. These min-
utes contain information on each applicant and in most cases also on the reason,
length, and destination of the planned leave of absence. As Cambridge academics
were free to travel during vacations, the data captures not all travels from Cambridge
but those during full term time, research leaves of one to three terms, and all travels
of more than 3 months because this was the length of the longest vacation during the
summer.
The plant scientist and agriculturalist Sir Frank Engledow was chosen as a bio-
graphical case study because his career in Cambridge was more than anyone else’s
characterized by a close relationship between scientific research, imperial policy
making, and colonial development. Engledow’s academic career spanned more than
seven decades, from his first enrollment at St. John’s College in 1910 until his death
in 1985, and resulted in most granted leaves of absence of over 1 month from 1885–
1886 to 1954–1955. He mainly used these for inquiries on agriculture in the tropical
empire, which included reporting to more than a dozen royal commissions (Bell,
1986). While his vital role for the renaissance of British agriculture has been dis-
cussed (Perkins, 1997), this study argues that Engledow is also an important but
understudied figure in the British empire of knowledge production (Hodge, 2007).
Comparing the records on Sir Frank Engledow’s leaves of absence with all of his
academic journeys documented in St. John’s College Library1 shows that 10 out of
11 overseas journeys during his employment at the university up until 1955, the end
of data recording for this study, are listed in the minute books (plus two planned
journeys—one was not approved, the other did not take place). The additional jour-
ney was a trip to Assam in the Christmas vacation 1953–1954, which lasted 1 month
and was thus shorter than the other journeys of 1.5–4.5 months. The leave of absence
data is thus reliable in regard to journeys of over 1 month, while shorter trips, espe-
cially those to closer overseas destinations that Engledow did not undertake because
of his focus on the tropics, have most likely not been captured adequately. The his-
torical geographies of academic travel discussed in this chapter therefore focus on
research leaves and overseas journeys of several months.
Capitalizing on the Empire
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the University of Cambridge
underwent substantial changes through growing numbers of students and university
academics, new scientific laboratories and research institutes, and the introduction
of research-based PhD degrees (1920). These innovations were accompanied by
three university reforms, launched by the Royal Commissions of 1852, 1874, and
1922, which gradually professionalized research, teaching, and academic service
1
The Engledow papers include 17 travel journals, a number of notebooks, and reports. His daugh-
ter Ruth Steketee (Eindhoven) kindly provided in-depth knowledge about her father’s life and
access to further papers, including the “blue diary,” an annual notebook on the weather; political,
professional, and family events; and his U.K. and overseas travels for the period 1909–1980. These
private papers entered St. John’s College Library in September 2014.
190 H. Jöns
and thus transformed the ancient center of learning into a modern research univer-
sity (Brooke, 1993).
From 1885 onward, professors and readers were required to apply for leave of
absence from the university during those periods that exceeded the strictly defined
rules of residence throughout full term time. The resulting records show that the
volume of academic travel from Cambridge remained relatively low until the peri-
odic research leave, or sabbatical, was introduced in 1926, which raised the annual
number of applications for leave of absence from consistently less than 10 to 31 in
1927–1928 (Jöns, 2008, p. 346). A similar reform had been pioneered by some
American universities, where regular sabbatical leave had first been introduced at
Harvard in 1880 (Eells, 1962). Almost 50 years later, Cambridge academics were
now also entitled to devote one term for every six of normal service to their research,
which encouraged university academics across all disciplines to travel for their
research and thus elevated travel to the key research technique (Heffernan & Jöns,
2013).
The considerable increase in academic travel from Cambridge after 1926 ended
abruptly with the outbreak of World War II, when many academics enrolled in war
service, but after 1945, the rapidly expanding community of Cambridge academics
became markedly more mobile as a consequence of commercial air travel and the
growing significance of overseas travel in the research process. Within 10 years, the
number of annual applications for academic leave rose steadily from 30 (1945–
1946) to 96 (1954–1955) and thus at a faster rate than the number of university
academics (Jöns, 2008). Three-fourths of those awarded academic leave from
1885–1886 to 1954–1955 traveled overseas and thus globalized academic knowl-
edge production in Cambridge.
About one fifth of all recorded overseas travels by Cambridge academics in the
period 1885–1886 to 1954–1955 involved destinations in the British empire (22 %,
or 167 out of 751 journeys), defined here as British dominions, colonies and other
possessions at the height of colonial expansion in 1914. Since most of these territo-
ries remained part of the Commonwealth of Nations after gaining independence, the
following analysis sheds light on the changing meaning of the British overseas
empire for academic travel in the early stages of decolonization.2
2
Relevant territorial changes include the Dominion status of Canada (1867), Australia (1901),
New Zealand (1907), Newfoundland (1907), and South Africa (1910) and the independence of
Afghanistan (1919), Egypt (1922), and the Indian subcontinent (India, 1947; Pakistan, 1947;
Burma, 1948; Ceylon, 1948). The macroanalysis ends before decolonization started in Africa
(Sudan, 1956; Ghana, 1957), continued in Southeast Asia (Malaya, 1957), and peaked in the 1960s
(Butlin, 2009).
Imperial Travels Until 1945
Up until 1945, imperial travel followed the overall pattern of academically moti-
vated overseas journeys from Cambridge. A slow but gradual increase of travels was
followed by a steep rise after the introduction of the research leave scheme in 1926
and a slight reduction in the decade dominated by World War II. From 1906–1915
to 1936–1945, the British empire received fairly equal shares of 27–29 %, which
reveals a steady commitment to the imperial project. By that time, however, most
academic travel from Cambridge was already directed to the United States, where
emerging research universities had fostered transatlantic exchange through invited
lectures since the turn of the century and through visiting appointments since the
late 1920s, when regular research leaves allowed more Cambridge academics to
accept these lucrative posts (Table 10.1). Mainland Europe received a similar pro-
portion of academic travelers as the British empire, even if this varied considerably
between the decade affected by World War I (1916–1925: 11 % versus 29 %) and the
subsequent one, in which European interactions reached its peak due to a growing
Table 10.1 Destinations of overseas academic leaves at the University of Cambridge by decade
(in percentage of overseas academic leaves with one or more destinations)
Decade
1886– 1896– 1906– 1916– 1926– 1936– 1946– 1886–
Destination 1895 1905 1915 1925 1935 1945 1955 1955 N
(1) United 40 58 41 50 29 36 40 38 289
States of
America
(2) Continental 20 25 27 11 34 28 34 32 240
Europe
(3) British 40 25 27 29 27 28 19 22 167
Empire overseas
(as of 1914)
(a) 0 67 67 75 26 37 40 39 65
Dominions
(b) British 100 0 17 25 26 37 23 26 44
India
(c) British 0 33 17 0 20 7 31 23 38
Africa
(d) British 0 0 0 0 20 19 5 10 16
West Indies
(e) British 0 0 0 0 14 4 2 5 8
southeast
Asia
(4) Other places 20 0 5 14 15 10 11 11 85
Number of overseas academic leaves
5 12 22 28 129 98 457 751 751
Adapted from the minutes of the University of Cambridge General Board (GB), Min III.1 to Min
III.7 and GB 160, Boxes 301–308
192 H. Jöns
attractiveness of short-distance travel for conferences and lectures (1926–1935:

34 % versus 27 %).
Different parts of the empire played very different roles in academic travel from
Cambridge as these were visited to a different extent and for very different reasons,
both of which changed over time (Fig. 10.1). In the two decades before the end of
World War II, the relatively affluent Dominions and British India attracted not only
most but also equal and growing shares of imperial travelers from Cambridge. Visits
to British colonies in Africa, the West Indies, and Southeast Asia were rare and
mainly focused on the decade 1926–1935 (Table 10.1). Imperial destinations were
most often visited for research in the applied natural and technical sciences, for
visiting posts and conferences, and for the provision of scientific expertise to impe-
rial organizations, but the integration of different parts of the empire into academic
circles differed in similar ways as their role in imperial trade networks (Pietsch,
2010).
Research travelers mostly visited imperial destinations for scientific fieldwork,
often in connection with larger expeditions. For example, James Alfred Steers,
Lecturer in Geography, joined an expedition of the Royal Geographical Society to
the Australian Great Barrier Reef in 1928, whereas Edward Nevill Willmer, Lecturer
in Physiology, took part in the Cambridge expedition to British Guiana in 1933 to
investigate the fauna of local rivers and swamps (University of Cambridge General
Board, 1928, 1933). In contrast to these dispersed fieldwork destinations, the few
laboratory and theoretical scientists, who visited research institutions in the empire
during the 1930s and 1940s, mainly went to established centers in Canada, Australia,
and New Zealand that were able to afford the immense input of money, training, and
machines required for highly specialized laboratory equipment and expertise.
Many fieldwork locations in the empire were easily accessible because of exist-
ing infrastructure or were required due to the thematic focus. Research travel thus
rarely served specific imperial interests, an exception being the educational journey
of Edward Granville Browne, the newly elected Sir Thomas Adams Professor of
Arabic (1902), who went to Cairo in the Lent Term of 1903. Browne was keen to
improve his Arabic language skills and “to obtain openings for some of our students
who may be able to acquire a competent knowledge of Arabic” (Browne, 1902,
p. 20) because this would be taken into account in the appointment to the London
Civil Service. Imperial structures and networks were thus used for research travel if
relevant to the research agenda in a particular field but, in similar ways as Ellis
(chapter in this book) argues in regard to British academic networks from 1850 to
1914, rather than being determined by imperial ties and interests, research travel
from Cambridge reached out beyond the confines of empire (Fig. 10.1a). It also
shifted its geographical focus from imperial destinations in the decade 1926–1935
(36 %) to the United States in the decade 1936–1945 (57 %).
Conference travel from Cambridge mainly focused on existing European centers
of knowledge production that provided the infrastructure, funds, and like-minded
colleagues required for organizing such socially and academically important gather-
ings, but it also targeted some of the more affluent regions of empire such as India,
Fig. 10.1 Overseas academic leaves of Cambridge academics by type of work. Adapted from the
minutes of the University of Cambridge General Board (GB) Min III.1 to Min III.7 and GB 160,
Boxes 301–308 (Design by author)
194 H. Jöns
Australia, and Canada, where large international conventions were either held by
the British Association for the Advancement of Science or modeled after these
meetings (Withers, 2010). Likewise, invited lectures by Cambridge academics con-
centrated on the Dominions and British India, while visiting posts were held at
established institutions in different parts of the empire (e.g., Gleb Anrep, Cairo
University, 1930; Max Born, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, 1935; W. A.
Fell, Singapore Medical College, 1935; see University of Cambridge General
Board, 1930, 1935).
In contrast to Symonds’s (1986/1992) assumption about a prevailing disengage-
ment with British politics, several Cambridge academics contributed to British
imperial governance and economic revenue by providing their expertise in the con-
text of mostly externally funded in situ inquiries that required academic travel. This
analysis shows that from the 1920s onward, Cambridge expertise was sought by
colonial organizations to support the creation and maintenance of a network of
imperial institutions and to advice on government and corporate policies. Almost
three-fourths of all overseas advisory work by Cambridge academics from 1886 to
1945 was located in the British empire (Table 10.2). Largest demand was for aca-
demics working in agriculture and forestry and thus in disciplines that had been
employed systematically for exploiting the resources of the colonies since the eigh-
teenth century (Vessuri, 1994, as cited in Butlin, 2009).
The 1930s did not only bring the Great Depression along but also strikes and
riots throughout the empire and significant reforms of British colonial policy that
Flint (1983) regarded as “the origins of decolonization” (p. 394). From this perspec-
tive, three events were directly responsible for the colonial reform movement that
created a consensus for “state-managed colonial development” (Hodge, 2007, p. 18)
and thus increased the need for scientific expertise in the 1940s and 1950s. Firstly,
widespread riots in the West Indies since the mid-1930s “destroyed the long held
axiom that colonial territories must live off their own resources on laissez faire prin-
ciples” (Flint, 1983, p. 394). Secondly, the publication of Lord Hailey’s African
Survey in 1938 suggested that supporting the emergence of an English-speaking
literate professional class of Africans through education would create a legitimate
comprador strata that could eventually “inherit colonial sovereignty” (Flint, 1983,
p. 400). Thirdly, Malcolm Macdonald was appointed as Secretary of State for the
Colonies from 1938 to 1940. He was determined to replace indirect rule with a con-
sistent British colonial policy and to promote, for the first time, self-government as
its central long-term goal:
Even amongst the most backward races of Africa our main effort is to teach those peoples
to stand always a little more securely on their own feet . . . the trend is towards the ultimate
establishment of the various colonial communities as self-supporting and self-reliant mem-
bers of a great commonwealth of free peoples and nations. (Malcolm Macdonald address-
ing the summer school on colonial administration at Oxford University on 27th June 1938,
as quoted in Flint, 1983, p. 398)
Table 10.2 Destinations of overseas academic leaves at the University of Cambridge by type of academic work and decade (in percentage of overseas
academic leaves with one or more destinations)
Type of work
Research Visiting posts Lecturing Conferences Advisory work Total
1886– 1946– 1886– 1946– 1886– 1946– 1886– 1946– 1886– 1946– 1886– 1946–
Destination 1945 1955 1945 1955 1945 1955 1945 1955 1945 1955 1945 1955
(1) United States 30 46 50 83 68 24 11 29 12 16 35 40
of America
(2) Continental 22 26 13 1 17 59 58 52 12 30 29 34
Europe
(3) British 29 22 28 16 13 12 25 9 73 44 28 19
Empire overseas
(as of 1914)
(a) Dominions 39 53 22 55 70 50 45 44 21 5 38 40
(b) British 26 15 22 36 30 30 40 56 26 14 30 23
India
(c) British 17 35 22 9 0 20 10 0 21 55 14 31
Africa
(d) British 17 0 22 0 0 0 10 0 21 18 15 5
West Indies
(e) British 9 0 11 0 0 0 0 0 16 9 7 2
southeast Asia
(4) Other places 27 15 9 3 4 8 7 11 7 14 12 11
10 The University of Cambridge, Academic Expertise, and the British Empire
Number of overseas academic leaves

79 156 32 69 76 85 81 97 26 50 294 457
Adapted from the minutes of the University of Cambridge General Board (GB) Min III.1 to Min III.7 and GB 160, Boxes 301–308
195
196 H. Jöns
Imperial Travels After 1945
The British colonial reform movement that flourished after the end of World War II
exemplifies how scientific expertise was increasingly used at the eve of decoloniza-
tion to reform colonial policies in times of crises (Secretary of State for the Colonies,
1945). Accordingly, the first of three main trends in academic travel from Cambridge
during the post-1945 decade was a geographical shift of imperial travels from
British India to British Africa (Table 10.1). Supporting Tilley’s (2011) observation
that “the African Survey played a decisive role in shaping research priorities in both
Britain and colonial Africa” (p. 5), this postwar shift affected advisory work and
research inquiries, the latter mainly aiming to study “exotic” flora and fauna in the
African rain forest (Fig. 10.1b).
Reflecting the new emphasis on African empowerment through education, scien-
tific experts from Cambridge supported the founding of new institutions for research
and higher education, served as trustees, chairmen, and board members of existing
institutions, gave invited lectures, and acted as external examiners for London
degrees. The contribution of Frank G. Young, Sir William Dunn Professor of
Biochemistry, to the commission on a higher college for Africans in the British
Central African Territories in 1952, which subsequently became the University
College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, illustrates how Cambridge academics con
tributed to the new imperial agenda of local empowerment through the provision of
tertiary education, even if this process, as Flint (1983) pointed out, paradoxically
provided the University of London with “an educational colonial empire as part of
the road to decolonization” (p. 403; see University of Cambridge General Board,
1952).
In the context of colonial reform planning, Cambridge expertise was employed
for managing increasing conflicts and tensions in the African dependencies. This
included Engledow’s official inquiry into the agricultural development of Southern
Rhodesia in 1948, which was discussed at the beginning of this essay, and a range
of other crisis interventions that Cambridge academics undertook for the Colonial
Office. For example, Frank Debenham, Professor of Geography, reported on the
water resources of Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland in 1946, whereas Mr. C. W.
Guillebaud, Lecturer in Economics and Politics, served as an arbitrator in a dispute
between the copper mining companies of Northern Rhodesia and the Union of
African Mine Workers in 1953 (University of Cambridge General Board, 1945;
1953).
All these imperial interventions after 1945 were an integral part of the “bi-
partisan policy of colonial planning and reform [that] had emerged, and would
remain in effect until it foundered in Central African problems in the 1950s” (Flint,
1983, p. 409). According to Flint (1983), colonial reform eventually failed and had
to be replaced by a policy of political decolonization for four main reasons. Firstly,
the notion of planning was itself fundamentally imperialistic; secondly, the colonial
service showed strong resistance toward the Africanization of administration, which
the government in London had not foreseen; thirdly, related racism compromised
any sensible cooperation with the educated elite; and fourthly, postwar Britain
lacked the financial resources that would have been necessary for implementing
colonial empowerment in orderly evolutionary stages.
The second trend in the development of imperial travels from Cambridge in the
post-1945 decade was a profound deepening of the uneven integration of different
areas of empire into British academic networks. This resulted in a growing divide
between the relatively affluent and well-connected Dominions and the resource-
intensive but academically fairly disconnected colonies in Southeast Asia and the
Caribbean (Table 10.2). After 1945, the Dominions attracted about half of the impe-
rial travels from Cambridge for research, visiting posts and invited lectures respec-
tively. This was encouraged by new research facilities and the availability of
Commonwealth schemes and institutions that funded visiting academics from
metropolitan centers of knowledge production in these prospering sites of empire.
Some of those Cambridge scientists, who were invited to Australia, New Zealand,
and Canada, conveniently visited family and friends along their routes, thus reflect-
ing longstanding networks in the “British academic world” (Pietsch, 2013), but
more and more academic visitors in Canada combined their stays with touring
attractive research facilities in the United States to keep up-to-date with latest devel-
opments in their fields. In sharp contrast to this, the new focus on Africa led to a very
different kind of “empowerment” in British Southeast Asia and the West Indies
because these became, apart from only six inquiries for advisory purposes over 10
years, entirely disconnected from Cambridge academics’ postwar interactions
(Table 10.2). Academic research and advisory work also shifted away from postco-
lonial British India, but the Indian subcontinent remained a preferred destination for
conference travel, visiting posts, and invited lectures because of its well-established
universities that “had existed for 90 years before Independence” (Symonds,
1986/1992, p. 292).
The third trend saw an overall decline in the significance of imperial destinations
for academic travel from Cambridge after World War II because of two develop-
ments. The first was a growing Americanization of research and visiting posts
spearheaded by the expensive laboratory sciences that increasingly channeled aca-
demic flows toward powerful U.S. research universities and national research labo-
ratories. From 1946 to 1955, 40 % of all overseas academic travel from Cambridge
was directed to the United States. The second development was an Europeanization
of advisory work and invited lectures as a result of the high demand for expertise
created by the reconstruction of a shattered post-war Europe. This new phase of
European cooperation reduced the focus of advisory work on the British empire
from 73 % in the pre-1945 period to 44 % in the post-1945 decade (Table 10.2).
Within the same time frame, the United States and mainland Europe raised their
shares of Cambridge academic travelers from 35 to 40 % and from 29 to 34 %
respectively, while the share of the British empire dropped from 28 to 19 %. Visits
to decolonized destinations differed from travels to colonized destinations through
much less advisory work and visits by professors; fewer visits in the applied sci-
ences with a complete retreat of the agricultural sciences; and slightly more visits
for conferences, lecturing, and visiting posts, thus indicating a transition from the
198 H. Jöns
use of Cambridge expertise for the support of imperial structures to the fostering of
transnational academic exchange, as especially evident in the Dominions and
British India. Despite the wider trend of withdrawal, most of the Dominions and
those states that were independent by 1955 continued to mobilize expertise from
Cambridge, but to a lesser extent.
Empowering the Empire
The nature of imperial advisory work and the underlying personal connections and
networking practices can be exemplified by the extensive overseas travels of the
agriculturalist Sir Frank Engledow, whose academic career in Cambridge peaked
during the very period in which overseas travels proliferated. Between the start of
his lectureship in 1926 and his retirement in 1957, Engledow made 13 applications
for academic leave of absence to the General Board, 12 of which were approved. He
took thus more academic leaves of over 1 month and traveled more frequently to
imperial destinations than any of his Cambridge peers. The following biographical
analysis situates Engledow’s 19 overseas journeys from 1914 to 1962, each of
which involved parts of the British empire, within the previously outlined collective
travel patterns from the University of Cambridge to examine how he reinforced and
changed these wider trends and contributed to imperial knowledge production.
Sir Frank Engledow was born on 20 August 1890 in Deptford, Kent, as the
youngest of five children. Unlike most of his professorial colleagues at Cambridge,
who were able to draw on private wealth, he came from a modest middle-class back-
ground. His father was a police sergeant, who had grown up in Norfolk, and his
mother, who came from a farm in Essex, was in service before raising their five
children (Bell, 1986). Engledow had attended Upland Council School, Bexleyheath,
and Dartford School before his parents, who provided their children with educa-
tional opportunities they had lacked, supported his enrollment at University College
London (UCL) in 1909 (Bell, 1986), when only 1.3 % of an age cohort went to
university (Jarausch, 1983).
After obtaining a BSc in mathematics with physics at UCL in 1910, Engledow
entered St. John’s College, Cambridge, where he received a BA in the natural sci-
ences (1913). Subsequently, he started working at the Plant Breeding Institute (PBI)
in the School of Agriculture with Professor Rowland Harry Biffen, Cambridge’s first
Professor of Agricultural Botany (1908–1936) and the PBI’s founding director
(1912–1936), who created a significant center for plant genetics and agricultural
research in Cambridge (Bell, 1986; Hodge, 2007). Engledow’s postgraduate studies
led to three journal articles in 1914, one of which was coauthored by the British
statistician Udny Yule, an important mentor and long-term friend, but this trajectory
was interrupted by a 4.5-year-long overseas career in the military during World War I
that subsequently shaped his academic career in profound ways.
Engledow sailed to India with The Queen’s Own 5th Royal West Kent Regiment
(5th RWK) in October 1914. He spent the subsequent 3 years in the north of British
India, where he suffered from typhoid (1915) and malaria (1917) but also began to
document inquiries about agricultural production at the site of the British military
headquarters in Rawalpindi (1916), especially in regard to wheat, sheep, dairy
farms, and daily rations of Indian troops (Engledow, 1916). The 5th RKW Battalion
sailed for Mesopotamia in December 1917, where Engledow became assistant
director of agriculture to the Mesopotamian Expeditionary Force under the director-
ship of Geoffrey Evans (1918–1919) (Engledow, 1917). Geoffrey Evans’s postwar
career included positions in the Empire Cotton Growing Corporation and the
Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture in Trinidad (ICTA), both of which sought
Engledow’s expertise in the subsequent decade.
In May 1919, Engledow returned to Cambridge, where he completed his MA in
the natural sciences and became a Fellow of St. John’s (1919–1985). On the invita-
tion of Biffen, he returned to the PBI for research in crop breeding that sought to
improve varieties of wheat and barley (Bell, 1986). Soon afterward he met Mildred
Roper, a postgraduate student in botany from South Africa, who had arrived at
Newnham College in 1919 and ended her academic pursuits in Cambridge’s Botany
School when marrying Engledow in March 1921 (Bell, 1986). Engledow’s univer-
sity lectureship in 1926 was granted to him after a series of important publications
and a formative journey through the United States and Canada. This journey for “the
stimulus and education of foreign travel” (Engledow 1925, p. 1) was funded by a
“Travelling Research Fellowship in Plant Genetics” and resulted in a highly
acclaimed report on North American agriculture for the British Ministry of
Agriculture and Fisheries (Engledow, 1925).
Seven weeks of railway travel in the summer of 1924 through the United States
and Canada, from New York via Washington DC–Chicago, IL–Minneapolis/St.
Paul, MN–Toronto–Guelph–Ithaca, NY–Raleigh, NC– and Upper Wilmington, MD
back to Washington DC and New York, acquainted Engledow with the latest agri-
cultural practices and technological developments in the world’s rising hegemonic
power. He became conscious of “that close relation of American agricultural sci-
ence to business which was everywhere noticeable” (Engledow, 1925, p. 5) and
attended the fortnight of meetings and excursions of the British Association for the
Advancement of Science in Toronto, appreciating that many “Dominion and
American agriculturalists were present” (p. 8). Touring North America provided
Engledow, like several other aspiring researchers from European universities in the
twentieth century, with the necessary expert knowledge, personal networks, and
intellectual credentials for a distinguished academic career.
After Engledow had been appointed University Lecturer in Agriculture in 1926,
he gradually turned into a scientific advisor on agricultural policies in the tropical
empire, where he aimed to implement economically viable and sustainable agricul-
tural practices in regard to the three main cash export crops cotton, rubber, and tea
(Fig. 10.2). This career change was most likely encouraged by his wartime compan-
ion Geoffrey Evans at a time when the Colonial Office, as Hodge (2007) discusses,
built up a network of advisors, standing committees, central research stations, and
postgraduate training facilities. Engledow first traveled to Nigeria and Ghana for
2 months in 1927–1928 because he had been asked “to make proposals for the
200 H. Jöns
Empire Cotton Growing Corporation on cotton breeding and seeds supply for
Nigeria” (Bell, 1986, p. 215), which coincided with Geoffrey Evans’s employment
at the Empire Cotton Growing Corporation. In 1929, he inspected the Cotton
Research Institute and the ICTA in Trinidad for the Empire Marketing Board, when
Geoffrey Evans served as the ICTA’s principal (1927–1938). This clearly underlines
the existence of closely knit, intersectoral imperial networks that in Engledow’s
case can be traced back to his overseas military service in World War I.
Appointed Drapers’ Professor of Agriculture in 1930, Engledow undertook three
important overseas journeys in the 1930s that cemented his role as one of the
Colonial Office’s key advisors on tropical agriculture. He presided over two com-
missions of inquiry—one on the affairs of the Rubber Research Institute in Malaya
(1933) and the other on the scientific development of the Indian Tea Association
(1935–1936)—and was also a member of the Royal Commission on the West Indies
(1938–1939). Engledow’s work for the Indian Tea Association entailed an extended
tour of tea-growing areas in Assam, Ceylon, Sumatra, and Java that was marked by
two innovations. The first was a visit to Batavia, a knowledge hub in Dutch-ruled
Java, which was most likely encouraged by his Dutch host, Professor J. Boerema,
and represented the only overseas location Engledow visited outside of British
imperial territories after 1926 (Fig. 10.2). The second innovation was Engledow’s
first airplane flight, on 1 January 1936, that took him from Batavia to Palembang as
part of a 3-day journey to Calcutta with multiple stops. While in the air, he scribbled
notes on the colorful KLM Royal Dutch Air Lines route map, commenting about the
changing landscape and the pilot’s generous extra circles, one on starting in Medan
“in honor of a former lady passenger who had turned up to see the plane” (Fig. 10.3a)
and the other for an unsuccessful “elephant hunt” (Fig. 10.3b).
Two years after Engledow experienced these revolutionary changes in long-
distance travel, he directly contributed to the imminent landmark shift in British
colonial policy as a member of the Royal Commission on the West Indies chaired
by Lord Moyne. The Moyne Commission was appointed on 5 August 1938 as the
British government’s response to severe labor unrests and bloody disputes between
workers and colonial forces in the West Indies (Whitham, 2002). Consisting of ten
expert members—seven men and three women—and two male secretaries, the com-
mission toured the British West Indies with the twofold aim of reporting on the
colonies’ economic and social conditions and formulating policy recommendations.
Living and traveling between the islands on Lord Moyne’s motor yacht Rosaura for
5 months, the royal commissioners became a public sensation and were frequently
greeted by large crowds (Fig. 10.4). They heard formal evidence “in 26 centres from
370 witnesses or groups of witnesses” (Secretary of State for the Colonies, 1940,
p. 8), including sugar workers, trade unionists, and representatives of various asso-
ciations, and received 789 additional memoranda for consideration.
In their report, the commissioners revealed extremely poor living conditions for
most Caribbeans that contrasted with the high living standards of European colo-
nials (Fig. 10.5). They exposed striking deficiencies in regard to voting rights, social
services, and private and public sector economies and criticized British colonial
policy in the strongest terms (Moyne Commission, 1945). As an immediate response
10 The University of Cambridge, Academic Expertise, and the British Empire
Fig. 10.2 Overseas journeys of Professor Sir Frank Leonard Engledow (1890–1985). Adapted from Bell, 1986; the minutes of the University of Cambridge
General Board (see Fig. 10.1); and the Papers of F. L. Engledow, St. John’s College Library, University of Cambridge (Design by author)
201
202 H. Jöns
Fig. 10.3 KLM route map with annotations made by Professor Engledow during his first airplane
flight. Source: Engledow, 1936. Reprinted with permission
Fig. 10.4 The Moyne Commission, 1938–1939. Source: Engledow, 1938–1939. Reprinted with

permission
Fig. 10.5 Fieldwork of the Moyne Commission, 1938–1939. Source: Engledow, 1938–1939.

Reprinted with permission
to this colonial critique, the British government increased the funds available for
colonial development and launched the Colonial Development and Welfare Act of
1940, but the commissioners’ report of December 1939 was not released to the pub-
lic until after the end of World War II, in July 1945, because the British government
feared that the Axis powers would use it for anti-British propaganda (Lapping,
1985). The publication of the Moyne Commission’s full report thus belatedly intro-
duced a major change in British colonial expertise to other experts, policy makers,
and the wider public, which might explain why the impact of Lord Hailey’s African
Survey on British colonial reform has hitherto received more scholarly attention.
The Moyne Commission’s work also confirms Tilley’s (2011) argument that late
colonial scientific advisors both undermined and supported the cause of empire “by
introducing new concepts, new ways of knowing, and new methods of understand-
ing” (p. 25), because the royal commissioners strongly criticized the lack of public
provision across all sectors of society in the West Indies, while at the same time
supporting imperial rule and planning through efficiency-driven policy recommen-
dations. Engledow’s expertise, for example, reoriented the emphasis of colonial
agricultural policy from export-oriented production toward more diverse and self-
sufficient local food supply, but it still encouraged increased productivity and thus
demanded the replacement of indigenous shifting cultivation by more intensive
mixed rotational farming practices, which often turned out to be impractical because
of the only gradually recognized, rapidly declining soil fertility in the tropics
(Hodge, 2007).
This chapter therefore suggests that late colonial advisors such as Engledow rep-
resented a new generation of professional academic experts, who operated within
the imperial agenda but were distinctively “post-Victorian imperialists” because
they were caught up in striking ambivalences. Engledow’s advisory work in the
tropical empire, for example, was simultaneously based on a deep faith in a Christian
god and a strong belief in the superiority of the Anglo-Saxon race; on humanitarian
ethics that cared for “the peasant farmer living at subsistence level” (Bell, 1986,
pp. 205–206) and scientific planning that sought to increase the economic revenue
of plantation-owning white settlers; and on closely knit interpersonal networks and
a genuine desire to improve agricultural production throughout the empire by means
of organization, research, education, and training.
During World War II, Sir Frank Engledow’s academic reputation continued to
grow in Britain, where he took on a series of responsibilities in regard to domestic
agricultural policy and strategy, such as the role of Ministry Liaison Officer of the
War Agricultural Committee for the Midland counties in June 1940, the first time he
advised on domestic agricultural policy (Engledow, 1940). In 1943, he attended the
United Nations Conference on Food and Agriculture in Hot Springs, Virginia,
United States, as a U.K. delegate and became a Founder Trustee of the Nuffield
Foundation. In return for his distinguished services, Engledow was knighted in
1944 and elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1946 (Bell, 1986).
Immediately after World War II, Engledow returned overseas and contributed,
like other Cambridge academics, to African empowerment through both education
and colonial reform. In 1946, he was involved in selecting the site for the new East
204 H. Jöns
African Agricultural and Forestry Research Organization at Muguga near Nairobi

during the delegation’s 2-month journey through Kenya, Uganda, Tanganyika, and
Zanzibar (Hodge, 2007). Almost a decade after his commissioned evaluation of
Southern Rhodesian agriculture (Engledow, 1949, 1950), Engledow attended the
seventh degree day of the Gwebi College of Agriculture in Rhodesia on 17 October
1957, where he was honored for his contribution to the institution’s foundation in
1950 (Certificate, 1957).
Engledow’s overseas journeys after 1945 mainly reinforced the wider geographi-
cal shift of academic expertise to Africa. At these advanced stages of his professo-
rial career, he did not participate in the trend of increasing academic travels to the
United States and continental Europe but kept moving within the highly selective
and exclusionary imperial networks that linked the British worlds of governance
and academia (Hodge, 2007; Pietsch, 2013). These postwar journeys contributed in
some ways to the growing disparities between different parts of empire because
Engledow returned seven times to Africa, three times to Malaya, twice to India, and
only once to the British West Indies. Following a recommendation of the Moyne
Commission, Frank Stockdale had been appointed “first comptroller for the devel-
opment and welfare in the West Indies” in 1940 (Hodge, 2007, p. 193), which had
reduced the need for British academic expertise. When traveling to the West Indies
in 1954–1955, Engledow thus mainly visited the ICTA in Trinidad that he had first
inspected in 1929, under the directorship of his wartime companion Geoffrey Evans,
and on whose governing bodies he had served in London for many years (Bell,
1986).
Engledow’s postwar journeys also show that certain British colonial networks
outlasted decolonization at least for some time because he traveled to India, Ghana,
and Malaya after independence (Fig. 10.2). In 1953–1954, he chaired a commission
of the India Tea Association to redo a small-scale version of the inquiry on the chal-
lenges of tea growing that he had undertaken under the auspices of the Colonial
Office in 1935–1936 (Bell, 1986, p. 216). The important role of India’s long estab-
lished institutions of higher education and research for the formation of lasting post-
colonial academic networks can also be exemplified by Engledow’s PhD student,
Benjamin Peary Pal, who had graduated from Rangoon University before undertak-
ing doctoral research in Cambridge from 1929 to 1933. Pal later became a distin-
guished imperial economic botanist in India, who was appointed first director of the
Indian Council of Agricultural Research in 1965 and elected a Fellow of the Royal
Society in 1972 (Perkins, 1997).
Sir Frank Engledow became Emeritus Professor of Agriculture in 1957, 1 year
after his wife died from cancer and decolonization began in British colonial Africa
(Bell, 1986). His role as a visiting lecturer at Kumasi College of Technology in
Ghana in spring 1959 shows how colonial expertise was also remobilized for the
support of higher education in postcolonial Africa. At the end of the same year, he
undertook what appears to be a farewell tour through colonial agricultural institu-
tions in Uganda, Tanganyika, and Kenya. Engledow’s final two overseas journeys,
in 1961 and 1962, brought him once more to India, for research on tea, and to inde-
pendent Malaya, where he still served on the Coordinating Advisory Committee at
the Rubber Research Institute in Kuala Lumpur (Bell, 1986). Diagnosed with hip
arthritis in 1962, at the age of 72, Engledow stopped traveling overseas just as
decolonization hit its prime time. After a final publication on tropical agriculture in
the journal Nature (Engledow, 1961), he refocused his work back on the British
homeland for the two decades to come.
Conclusions
This chapter has examined the role of imperial destinations for knowledge produc-
tion in the University of Cambridge and the contributions of Cambridge academics
to the governance and economic revenue of the British overseas empire from the
1920s to the 1960s. Whereas Symonds (1986/1992) remarked that “Cambridge
appeared less interested in the Empire and its governance than Oxford” (p. 302),
this study has illustrated how Cambridge academics across all disciplines, particu-
larly in the applied natural and social sciences, used the British empire for mobiliz-
ing resources for academic knowledge production and provided expertise to imperial
governments and institutions through often externally funded advisory work. This
was especially possible after the introduction of regular research leaves in 1926
because these allowed Cambridge academics to undertake extended overseas jour-
neys, a process that was only formalized in Oxford after 1954 (Heffernan & Jöns,
2013).
This study contributes seven main findings to the literatures on knowledge pro-
duction, travel, and imperialism. Firstly, the analysis shows that circular imperial
travels of Cambridge academics accounted for a similar share (1900–1930: 32 %) as
the imperial engagement of British academics who had undertaken study or work in
the British empire prior to their professorial appointment at the University of
Manchester (1900–1930: 30 %; see Pietsch, 2010). As this also applies to imperial
career mobility by Oxford matriculates from Balliol, Keble, and St. John’s Colleges,
it appears that different forms of academic mobility were part of the same imperial
networking practices (1918–1919 to 1937–1938: 19 versus 18 %; the latter figure
applies to jobs of at least 2 years, excluding military and diplomatic posts; see
Symonds, 1986/1992).
Secondly, this research has underlined that Cambridge expertise was of particu-
lar importance to imperial organizations at the eve of decolonization because of a
lack of scientific infrastructure and serious social conflicts in the colonies. Academic
travels to both British India and British Africa peaked in the respective decade
before decolonization, which resulted in a geographical shift of post-1945 advisory
work toward British Africa that was reinforced by the impact of Lord Hailey’s
African Survey on a growing interest in African affairs (Tilley, 2011).
Thirdly, existing disparities in the integration of different areas of empire into
British academic networks intensified after 1945 due to shifting types of academic
work. Increased travel to the Dominions for laboratory research and visiting posts
and to British Africa for field research and advisory work coincided with the attrac-
206 H. Jöns
tion of British India changing from research and expertise to visiting posts and
conferences, whereas imperial destinations in Southeast Asia and the West Indies
were nearly abandoned by Cambridge academics. This reinforced asymmetric
power-relations between different parts of empire and thus confirms the existence of
multiple, geographically distinct imperial knowledge networks that changed over
time (Lambert & Lester, 2006).
Fourthly, this study has revealed that despite an increase of imperial travels in the
decade after World War II, the relative significance of imperial destinations for aca-
demic travel from Cambridge decreased because of a reduced need for British
expertise in decolonized states, a growing Americanization of research and visiting
posts encouraged by powerful U.S. laboratory sciences, and a Europeanisation of
advisory work and invited lectures in the context of postwar reconstruction. This
suggests that decolonization was not merely the withdrawal of British political and
military presence but also led to an adjustment of academic work away from the
former colonies, even if the Dominions and the first independent states continued to
draw on Cambridge expertise to some extent.
Fifthly, the juxtaposition of collective and individual travel behavior in the uni-
versity confirmed that the growth of university-based science, research, and travel
in the first half of the twentieth century gave rise to the figure of the modern aca-
demic expert (Hodge, 2007). This study has characterized senior colonial advisors
in British universities such as the agriculturalist Professor Sir Frank Engledow as
distinctively post-Victorian imperialists, whose contributions were shaped by an
ambivalent positionality in the intersection of personal faith, colonial friendship
networks, prevailing racial discourses, humanitarian ethics, as well as scientific
planning and training. These emerging modern academic experts took empire for
granted, while at the same time criticizing some of its basic features, which explains
why their contributions to the new colonial reform policy of local empowerment
through education in post-World War II colonies, somewhat paradoxically, paved
the way for decolonization and national independence.
Sixthly, while previous studies stressed the pivotal role of the African Survey for
a profound change of direction in British imperial policy after 1938 (Tilley, 2011),
the interplay of macro- and microperspectives employed in this chapter suggests
that the Moyne Commission on the West Indies (1938–1939), of which Engledow
was a member, played an equally important role for the new colonial reform move-
ment but has most likely received less scholarly attention because the publication of
its controversial findings was delayed until after World War II (see also Flint, 1983).
The historical geographies and impacts of the Moyne Commission therefore emerge
as a fascinating subject for future research.
Finally, Professor Engledow’s extensive overseas travels have verified the large
emphasis placed on the acquisition of local knowledge in imperial advisory work
from the 1920s to the 1960s (Hodge, 2007; Tilley, 2011). However, the particularly
high frequency of his travels made him an exception in the University of Cambridge.
This can partly be explained by his modest background that prevented him, the son
of a police sergeant, from feeling a sense of belonging to the elitist Cambridge aca-
demic community. His regular escapes from Cambridge also required a strong
involvement with government work because in contrast to most of his academic

peers, Engledow did not have the private means to finance such prolonged overseas
travels himself (personal communication by Ruth Steketee, Eindhoven, 12 January
2013).
In conclusion, this chapter therefore argues that Engledow’s largely government-
funded, distinguished career as one of the Colonial Office’s key advisors on tropical
agriculture seems to be the logical, if contingent, outcome of several biographical
coincidences, including his humble origins, his growing concern with agricultural
production in Cambridge at a time when this became an important means for colo-
nial development, and the personal companionship of Geoffrey Evans since military
service that most likely encouraged the new emphasis on imperial advisory work in
Engledow’s early academic career. The important role that late colonial academic
advisers such as Engledow played for imperial governance and the rise of a wider
culture of expertise was very much indicative for the new professionalism of
modern academic experts and is particularly evident in Hodge’s (2007) observation
that their intellectual legacy resonates in international development discourses up
until today.
Acknowledgements I extend my sincere gratitude to Ruth Steketee-Engledow, the late Frank

Steketee, Ady Steketee, Rients Rozendal, Mike Heffernan, Sarah Holloway, Kathryn McKee,
Tamson Pietsch, the EPA editor Trevor Barnes, the anonymous EPA reviewers, and the technical
editor of this volume, James Bell, for supporting this research. Material from the Engledow papers
is reproduced by permission of the Master and Fellows of St. John’s College, Cambridge.
Documents from the Cambridge University Archives are quoted with kind permission of the
Syndics of Cambridge University Library.
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the material.
Chapter 11
Geneva, 1919–1945: The Spatialities of Public
Internationalism and Global Networks
Madeleine Herren
rom the “Spirit of Geneva” to the Spatial Representation

F
of Public Internationalism
In 1942, a mysterious man knocked on the doors of several international organiza-

tions located in Switzerland to interview their secretaries and directors. As the
German spy hidden behind the initial Oe, he was better known within the commu-
nity of international organizations as Herbert Oelschlägel, secretary of the
International Bureau of Associations of Manufacturers, Wholesalers, and Retailers
of Jewellery, Gold, and Silver Ware. This organization was founded in 1926 and had
a seat in the Netherlands (Herren, 2009; Herren & Zala, 2002; League of Nations,
1938, p. 356) and an entry in the Handbook of International Organizations, a
League of Nations publication (LONSEA, International Bureau n.d.-c).
Interestingly, the international jewelry organization was important enough to
find the interest of national socialist officials, who not only placed a spy in the sec-
retary’s position but also even allowed him the spending of scarce foreign currency
and the application for a rare exit visa during World War II. Although the presence
of spies in neutral countries is nothing new, finding one masked as secretary of an
international organization is remarkable. Oelschlägel’s excursion to Geneva was
based on an understanding of international organizations less as single institutions
but as a network, coherent even under wartime conditions, and attributed to specific
places.
A German spy working systematically through the addresses of all international
organizations challenges the understanding of Geneva as an international meeting
point whose importance increased as the seat of the League of Nations after World
War I and dwindled away with the political tensions leading to World War II. This
M. Herren (*)
Institute for European Global Studies, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-44654-7_11
212 M. Herren
history of decline corresponded to a contemporary discourse that translated an

already existing debate about the esprit de Genève into the spatial, urban version of
a programmatic, League-of-Nations-driven understanding of international relations
based on idealistic concepts. This “spirit of Geneva” was attributed to the city after
World War I by a variety of agencies with far-distant aims, for instance, the Geneva
tourist office, philosophers from venerable Geneva families (e.g., de Traz, 1929),
foreign journalists and politicians (e.g., Eduard Benes), and the League of Nations,
which, as the forerunner of the United Nations (UN), had its main seat at the shore
of lake Geneva.
To historians using discourse analysis, the spirit of Geneva appears as a specific
narrative, based on at least two different, and sometimes intertwined spatialities
after World War I. First, there is a strong focus on local traditions. A proud and
impenetrable circle of venerable Geneva families had adapted Calvinist internation-
alism to secular international relations by supporting the foundation of the
International Committee of the Red Cross in 1863 and its legal basis with the signa-
ture of the Geneva convention in 1864. These international activities left their mark
in the old city, and in the salle de la réformation, where the General Assembly of
the League of Nations met for a limited time. Second, the spirit of Geneva material-
ized in the Palais des Nations, the seat of the League of Nations. Opened in the late
1930s, the building evoked ambivalent and emotional reactions, and celebrating its
modern functional style, the “gleaming wood, and glass, and metal” (Slocombe,
1938, p. 328), became a sign of decline in the light of the obvious political tensions
that substantially weakened the League of Nations. At this time, the spirit of Geneva
was perceived critically. The well-known British journalist to the Daily Herald,
George Slocombe, grappled with the fact that Geneva had not at all the character of
a cosmopolitan capital. He called Geneva in 1938 “a third rate European city of little
international importance. It was a small town in a small state, and not even its capi-
tal. Nothing happened there” (Slocombe, 1938, p. 52). Although things changed
gradually as time went by, with more than two hundred journalists ultimately listed
in the Geneva directory of 1937, Slocombe had good reasons to stay with his diag-
nosis of parallel lives:
For seventeen years the several thousand foreigners of culture and distinction associated
with the various international movements with headquarters in Geneva have lived on the
fringe of a small, dull, and conservative society which at first affected to ignore their very
existence and later made clumsy and transparent attempts to create social relations with
them. (Slocombe, 1938, p. 43)
Indeed, the usual infrastructure of a capital with diplomatic quarters was miss-
ing, and the situation became even more difficult because an international adminis-
tration of this size challenged established ideas about well-known (diplomatic)
representation. As Slocombe explained, the League’s secretariat was the center of a
microcosm based on expert knowledge covering all topics imaginable, from cur-
rency problems to narcotic drug trafficking, with a research department and a library
available. But the idea of a “super-state . . . governed by scientists” (Slocombe,
1938, p. 324) remained a utopian project without traces in the real city from this
11 Geneva, 1919–1945: The Spatialities of Public Internationalism and Global Networks 213
point of view. While the spirit of Geneva remains fragile and its explanatory capaci-
ties ambivalent, the obvious function of the city as a global meeting point provides
a model or laboratory of how a global society tested the invention of an international
space, including, but also overstepping and challenging diplomatic representation.
The two approaches—the contemporary discourse about the spirit of Geneva and
its spatial manifestations—are only rarely connected to each other. Usually,
Geneva’s international character remains embedded in a discursive concept, flesh-
ing out the contemporary debate on internationalism, a concept developed in the late
nineteenth century and reformulated after World War I. The scholarly interest in
internationalism has coincided with analyzing transnational entanglements and
non-state actors in the international system. In the newest publications, internation-
alism and nationalism are represented not as mutually exclusive, but as intertwined
phenomena (Sluga, 2013). This approach contributes to another strand in recent
historiographical debates, namely the interest of global history in the close interfer-
ences of local and global aspects. Combining these two discourses, I elucidate the
traces internationalism left behind in Geneva’s urban landscape.
Looking behind programmatic internationalist concepts, I am interested in the
shaping of global meeting places that found spatial expression in a diversity of
places—in hotels, bars, and restaurants; in the many buildings of international orga-
nizations that interested Oelschlägel; in international research facilities; in an urban
landscape characterized by fast connections across national borders—but, astonish-
ingly enough, without quarters with a specific national character. There was no little
Italy or little China in Geneva.
In this chapter, I connect the previously underestimated scholarly interest in
internationalism with the development of Geneva’s local urban landscape in the
1930s. Internationalism is considered the local manifestation of a global public
sphere and investigated in its spatial conditions. In my understanding, the spatial
expression of internationalism is not limited to the institutions of international orga-
nizations and international congresses, to their production of events and texts. In
lieu thereof, what I call public internationalism encompasses the analytical poten-
tial of discourse analysis.
In this chapter, I investigate the traces the 1930s internationalism imprinted on
the urban landscape with the aim of elaborating on the question of whether the local
spatial conditions existed for the development of a global public sphere, a discus-
sion of relevance for democracy debates beyond the nation state (Nash, 2014). The
methodological approach chosen in this chapter relies on networks. Although used
in historiography in a more pragmatic understanding than actor-network theory
suggests, the focus on networks allows combining social relations in connection
with related materialities. It accentuates primarily the importance of a dynamic
exchange across borders.
The findings in this chapter are based on data generated by the database League
of Nations Search Engine (LONSEA, League of Nations, n.d.-a). This analytical
tool combines data compiled by the League of Nations on two different occasions,
namely information collected from international organizations for the publication of
214 M. Herren
the above-mentioned Handbook of International Organizations, which provides the

names of those acting as representatives, directors, and secretaries of international
organizations, and personal data collected by the League’s secretariat between 1920
and 1946 for all persons on the payroll of the League, independent of their status or
length of employment. In addition, LONSEA shows in the case of Geneva the loca-
tion of international organizations and the persons involved. Instead of merely link-
ing institutions with people, this twofold approach investigates the spatial dimensions
of networks on a social level, presuming, therefore, space as a semantic concept
(Meusburger, 2008, p. 42). Thus, in this chapter I investigate whether the presump-
tion of public internationalism goes beyond the verification of places where interna-
tional organizations had their seats. Moreover, I examine whether the spirit of
Geneva turned into a sort of social coherence, in which the permeability of public
spheres and the missing borders between institutionalized international contacts
fostered social contacts. Knowing the working places and personal addresses of
people employed by international organizations, what can be learned about the per-
sons involved by investigating their spatial location? In addition, what are the con-
sequences of adding a spatial dimension to networks in comparison with the findings
provided by the institutional histories of international organizations and the ongoing
debates on cosmopolitans and expatriates? Is it evident whether the people and
institutions involved defined themselves as a community by producing, sharing, and
spreading common knowledge?
Although Geneva remains the main example and although the city probably
presented a unique laboratory of public internationalism after World War I, this
approach concentrates on the spatial manifestation of internationalism. For this
investigation, internationalism is limited to international organizations connected to
the League of Nations and restricted to persons working for these organizations.
Although of unquestioned importance, urban planning and specific local politics
stand outside these considerations. Geneva and the League of Nations are therefore
both examples and testing fields for a theoretical problem with far-reaching
methodological consequences. If an attempt is made to overcome the limits of dis-
course analysis by investigating border-crossing networks, how resilient are the
findings? In the case of international organizations founded between the late nine-
teenth century and the 1930s, coherence beyond the handling of different topics can
be found in the often formally established obligation of the executive organs to
transfer information between the adhering members (Herren, 2009; Murphy, 1994).
It seems, therefore, obvious to understand international organizations as institu-
tional forms that fit into the new technical possibilities provided by the telegraph
and the development of other communication technologies. Combining the two his-
tories of international organizations and communication technologies, the approach
underlying the study described in this chapter has to deal with development and
modernization. Can it be said, that by using new, efficient, and transgressing com-
munication and management technologies, international organizations achieved a
significance in the era of globalization similar to that resulting from the construction
of railroads in the era of industrialization? Or, less ambitiously, that investigating
the spread of information by international organizations may help to understand
how globally available knowledge gained the character of raw material, which then
could be processed in pieces of fast-delivered information.
Recent research, however, is rather reluctant in applying well-established narra-
tives of modernization pointing out that communication technology does more than
just shrinking distances and that information transfer always implies the develop-
ment of an infrastructure going beyond the simple installation of telegraph poles
(Wenzlhuemer, 2010). And because debates on modernity have taken a critical dis-
tance to evolutionary ways of development, I do agree with the rather cautious
voices who doubt that networks connecting knowledge and information transfer
automatically follow the narrative of modernization (Meusburger, 2008).
Leaving development strategies and referring to a more antithetical argumenta-
tion, there are good reasons to discuss the flow of transboundary information in the
light of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries’ most important master narrative, the
concept and idea of the nation. Following this perspective, nationalized knowledge
needed shaping and translation into a form that ensured transfer across borders to
fulfill the requirements of increasing societal mobility and the needs of a world
market. This procedure of adaptation referred to different conceptual frames. One is
intellectual cooperation based on shared cultural and educational values; another
refers to the global spread of similar governmental structures (e.g., the republic) or
societal ordering principles (working classes); a third comprises technical coopera-
tion including an agreement on shared standards. All categories are concepts influ-
enced by their specific historical context and therefore underwent substantial
change. Just recently, scholarly attention started to discuss standardization as the
new paradigm of how to reach global compatibility (Murphy & Yates, 2011). This
example shows clearly that finding a form that allows locally shaped knowledge to
travel globally also implies social change. Or to say it more clearly: The concept of
a global world needs a cosmopolitan society with meeting points and bargaining
routines on the one hand, and appropriate methodological tools for their analysis on
the other. With the example of Geneva, although it is limited in spatial and temporal
reach, I therefore allocate a territorial quality to networks, asking what kind of inter-
national contact zones existed, and whether evidence can be found that people
involved met in a way overstepping the simple statement that they were members of
certain international organizations or international civil servants.
In the following section I discuss the League of Nations’ spatial presence in
Geneva in the 1930s and the public accessibility of the buildings associated with the
League. Furthermore, premises serving as seats of international organizations or as
their administrators’ and civil servants’ residences will provide the reference points
for tracing global connectivities and meeting points. Therefore, the institutional his-
tory of international organizations is overstepped and a contemporary global mind
map is drawn. Understanding space as social construct and individuals as global
actors, the question is whether the line of argument remains stuck in investigating
the small elite of diplomats and rich cosmopolitans. On these grounds, the less well-
paid employees—the typists and translators, the people responsible for the infra-
structure globalization is based on—are methodologically also considered. I will
describe this lower-ranking group as “subaltern diplomats,” using a concept that is
216 M. Herren
at the core of an ongoing research project at Heidelberg University, “Subaltern

Diplomacy 1930–1960,” which is investigating the existence of a specific form of
subaltern diplomacy. Do the “little people” contribute to the development of a global
civil society, and do they shape the global space intermingling private domiciles,
activities, and business environments?
“ Inhabité”—Controversies About the International Space or

How Public Internationalism Translated into Space
In 1937, everybody on this planet in reach of a newspaper faced global entangle-

ment at its worst and its best. When the world’s fair opened its doors in Paris, the
clash of global panoramas was enormous, from the encounter of fascist, national
socialist, and Stalinist architectural nationalism to Picasso’s famous painting
Guernica. The Sino-Japanese War and the Japanese invasion of Nanjing shed a grim
light onto a conflict with a global impact that already had begun to surpass the
dimension of a local conflict.
The session of the League of Nations’ General Assembly in September of the
same year can be read as another aspect of global entanglements mentioned above.
Newspapers from Singapore to Paris celebrated the moment when the General
Assembly of the League of Nations met for the first time in the newly opened
assembly hall in the Palais des Nations. For the first time, this global community
had found an adequate meeting point, big enough for all members, equipped with
the newest microphones and interpreters’ boxes, but even more importantly with
space offered to a global public.
Translating the concept of open diplomacy, the League was and remained a gov-
ernmental organization with states as members. However, the architecture of the
newly opened Palais des Nations presented a specific and elaborate spatial layout,
where the public was given access and had the opportunity to contact members in
an informal way. Unthinkable for traditional diplomatic deliberations, this approach
translated into spatial evidence, for instance into an assembly hall with tribunes and
comfortable lobbies with sofas. Moreover, supported by the secretariat’s informa-
tion section, established flows of information also underwent a spatial turn. The
Journal des Nations (Geneva 1931–1940), the League’s own newspaper, spread
gossip by a column apparently written by a “barman.” Even in the year 1939, the
headline guided the reader to the Palais, promising the newest gossip under the title
“on potine au Bar de la S.d.N,” or “Get your Gossip at the League of Nations Bar”
(Journal des Nations, 1939).
Interestingly, the innovative spatial layout of the Palais des Nations did indeed
have a bar placed in such a way that almost all members of delegation, staff, journal-
ists, and visitors had to pass through it. Besides the bar as a meeting point accessible
to an international public, additional spatial evidence confirms the very existence of
such a global civil society in Geneva. At least in September, when the League’s
Assembly met, Geneva became crowded, and tourist guides warned about fully
booked hotels (Baedeker, 1938). Moreover, and with more temporal consistency,
the League had attracted a variety of international organizations, whose numbers of
offices and representatives had increased—even during the years of crisis (League
of Nations, 1938). Indeed, international organizations had changed the city’s face in
a way not limited to the League’s buildings and had contributed to the rise of
Geneva’s population to 124,293 inhabitants within just 282 km2 (Annuaire Genevois,
1937, p. 1897).
For a first overview, LONSEA shows the presence of a variety of organizations
in Geneva. A concentration of humanitarian organizations and institutions of paci-
fism and international relations seems obvious (LONSEA, organisations, n.d.-b).
The database reveals the long-lasting influence of pacifist and humanitarian tradi-
tions established before World War I and centered around the International
Committee of the Red Cross. Moreover, the increase in the number of organizations
in the 1920s confirms the impact of the League of Nations, which also induced
non-governmental organizations (NGO) to transfer their seats to Geneva.
At first glance, the spatial placement of these organizations follows the patterns
expected. With the opening of the Palais des Nations, non-governmental organiza-
tions devoted to the aims of the League transferred their offices to the former seat of
the League’s secretariat, Palais Wilson. In the late 1930s therefore, besides the
League, a civil society had at least a coherence that was not necessarily thematic but
spatial and included a considerable variety of different fields of knowledge. Palais
Wilson, a former hotel and now the seat of the United Nations’ refugee agency, the
Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, housed, for example, represen-
tatives of the World Alliance for International Friendship and the International
Social Insurance Conference. Here, the Young Men’s Christian Association met
representatives of the International Broadcasting Union, the World Calendar
Association, and the Esperantists. Although only the federation of the international
semi-official and private institutions established at Geneva aimed to bring together
these worlds of internationalism, a concentration of global expertise shared the
same address in proximity to the glamorous quarters at the shore of Lake Geneva.
With regard to the circulation of knowledge, these locations suggest disturbingly
multifaceted patterns of interpretation. Even for a dynamic and global twenty-first
century with considerable interest in non-governmental organizations, Palais Wilson
rarely finds a counterpart, namely an NGO building of comparable size, in the con-
temporary world. The transfer of the offices from the secretaries’ homes to an office
building appears as a process of professionalization on the one hand, and as a disen-
tanglement of civil society and experts on the other. Indeed, the Annuaire Genevois,
the city’s official directory, discloses the address of Palais Wilson—51 Quai
Wilson—as “inhabité”—unoccupied (Annuaire Genevois, 1937, p. 469). Besides
their concentration in a huge office building with a spectacular view, the organiza-
tions transferred to Palais Wilson shared a European profile. The opening of the
European Cultural Centre in 1950 at this place (The European Cultural Centre,
218 M. Herren
1953) thus continued a development that had already started in the late 1930s, when
the organizations that selected to transfer their seats to Palais Wilson had global
membership but a Western-oriented universal profile. Where, then, were the
extra-European and explicitly global organizations? Can it be inferred from a Palais
Wilson with a rather Eurocentric profile that extra-European organizations disap-
peared—or does the lack of their presence in an uninhabited office building indicate
an even closer entanglement with a supportive civil society? In the following section
I take a closer look at the separation of work and living spaces and ask where the
many international civil servants lived and who—in the case of truly global organi-
zations, rather than European international ones—the neighbors were. Of course,
spatial closeness does not necessarily imply a transfer of knowledge and it cannot
be assumed that people and organizations living in the same house shared their
thoughts or even met in the staircase; however, biographical studies of such indi-
viduals suggest—as will later be seen—that this was most likely the case, facilitated
by the spatial proximity of Geneva’s international organizations.
Tracing Spatial Contexts of Global Organizations
The architects of the Palais des Nations considered and implemented meeting points
and gave room to modern communication technologies. No wonder that a spacious
parking lot provided space for opulent cars in the front of the building. Nevertheless,
the city’s official directory shows that these apparently mobile international civil
servants preferred to work and to live in the quarters around these office buildings
as well. For the late 1930s there was an unexpected closeness between European
and non-European organizations, between governmental diplomatic representation
and civil, non-governmental organizations. Although the presumption of a circula-
tion of global knowledge needs examination in each case, the focus on global-local
conjunctions at face value connect international topics in a way rather overlooked
until now.
In the following paragraph, I approach spatial connectivity from three different
perspectives, examining (a) the neighborhood and spatial placement of global orga-
nizations, (b) the porosity of borders separating the private lives of internationalists
and international institutions, and (c) the way in which the spatial connectivity
resulted in networks that overstepped the institutional and personal frameworks of
the actors involved.
An intellectual sightseeing beginning at Palais Wilson reveals that the building
and its environment remained a focal point of global contacts even after the transfer
of the League to Rue de Lausanne. From street number 39–43, all buildings at Quai
Wilson presented a mixture of private and official residencies (Annuaire Genevois,
1937, pp. 468–469). The consulates of Great Britain and Japan and the official rep-
resentation of Romania worked next door to the “délégations auprès de la S.D.N,”
representing Iran, Ireland, and Portugal. In these cases spatial closeness mattered
and rules of contact were formed on a negotiable basis. From this point of view, in
1937 Geneva was far distant from today’s delimitations, where exterritorial sove
reign rights are clearly visible and international organizations separated by control
posts and barbed wire from the city’s territory. In the past, different varieties of
delegations filled the gap between the official diplomatic representations in Bern
and local consulates. Even more interestingly, newly invented institutions of official
national representation at the League overstepped the spatial invisibility of non-
sovereign entities. As delegations at the League or the International Labour
Organization (ILO), dominions such as Canada had their own, at least diplomatic-
like offices. At Quai Wilson, indeed the institutional and personal connectivity
between formal and informal institutions found its spatial expression, which facili-
tated access to information not available otherwise.
In number 41, where most of the diplomatic representatives had their offices, the
list of inhabitants also shows the private address of Massimo Pilotti. He was a well-
known international lawyer, a member of the Academy of International Law in The
Hague, and First President of the Court of Appeal in Trieste, Italy (Notes in Brief,
1939, p. 61). He was in close contact to circles and organizations of international
law and the protection of intellectual property, and later became one of the leading
figures of the European Court of Justice. Before he left Geneva at the end of the year
1937 for political reasons, he worked as the League’s under-secretary general in
charge of the section that cultivated the connections between the League and the
international organizations (LONSEA, Pilotti, n.d.-d). His concerns at work were
literally not far from his private rooms, with the address also being home to an inter-
national organization in the form of the Union Internationale des Etudiants and its
secretary Alexander Hedden. Furthermore, colleagues in similar functions worked
next door. At number 43, with Thomas Frank Johnson (LONSEA, Johnson, n.d.-e),
the secretary general of the Nansen International Office for Refugees, the Geneva
directory shows another of those well-connected personalities, while LONSEA dis-
closes his dense connections to the League, where he worked as an international
civil servant before his appointment as secretary general of the Nansen office.
In the cases mentioned, the spatial coincidence discloses contacts missed by
institutional or professional networks. The spatial dimension of globalization helps
to formulate new hypotheses on the basis of knowledge transfer. Apparently, formal
diplomatic representation and the members of an international civil society were—
at least spatially—closer connected to each other than rules and opportunities of
institutional contacts would suggest.
In the case of Massimo Pilotti’s disturbingly ambivalent activities, a spatial
approach helps to ask whether this person operated one of the channels needed for
transforming information on a global level. This figure’s presumed function as
Mussolini’s contact to the League, and his embarrassing celebration of the Italian
conquest of Ethiopia in Geneva (Salvemini, 1953, p. 448) gain an additional profile
with regard to a glocal context.1 The spatial perspective suggests rather an increase
1
Journals mentioned the presence of Pilotti and of “nombreux fonctionnaires italiens de la S.d.N.
et du B.I.T” among those who celebrated (Les Italiens de Genève fêtent la prise d’Addis-Abeba,
1936).
220 M. Herren
of interest in such entangled connections in the preparation of the Italian withdrawal

from the League in December 1937.
Indeed, although in a very benevolent way, in his pivotal League of Nations
History, Francis Walters confirmed the importance of these informal connections
especially in periods of increasing political tensions. Walters, who agreed that his
precursor Pilotti “had made his peace with fascism,” placed him at the center of
fascist attention: “. . . he was watched and spied upon by the numerous fascists who
frequented Geneva as delegates, as consular officers, or propagandists, and who
sought to win the approval of the men in power in Rome by parading their dislike
for the League” (Walters, 1952, p. 558). As one who probably prepared a legal dis-
course on how Ethiopia could be expelled from the League, Pilotti was extremely
well placed in proximity to Palais Wilson.
eligious and Philosophical Networks: Global Knowledge

R
from Other than Diplomatic Perspectives?
Is spatial connectivity to be understood as a crude coincidence—or as the confirma-

tion of close connections among Western elites? Does the discovery of proximity
just confirm a certain process of adaptation, a process instigating the organized
international civil society to wrap global knowledge in a diplomatic-like form of
communication determined by a European understanding of international rules? Or
does a spatial approach to global knowledge also consider alternative forms of
transboundary contacts?
The search for extra-European organizations in Geneva confirms the previous
findings in an unexpected way. All those civil groups with a global instead of a
European agenda were not situated in a less advantageous position in Geneva. Not
far away from Quai Wilson, and at a similarly expensive address at 46 Quai Gustave
Ador, one of the city’s most beautiful buildings, the “Maison royale,” discloses an
interesting and unexpected combination of inhabitants in 1937. Here, at walking
distance to Palais Wilson, the directory of Geneva lists the official address of the
Turkish consulate, while the League of Nations’ Handbook of International
Organizations locates the international headquarters of the Sufi Movement (League
of Nations, 1938, p. 94) in the same building. A look at the building’s other inhabit-
ants increases the impression of a spatial meeting point underestimated until now,
with it being the site of a remarkable combination of extra-European networks with
a religious focus in an at least semi-official setting.
In the context of religious internationalism, the Sufi Movement occupies a cru-
cial position. This order of universal religiosity based on Islam brought together
disciples from different religious backgrounds. Established in 1923 in Geneva, the
movement developed into an esoteric circle frequented by European and American
followers, an open-minded organization with only the positions of spiritual leaders
connected to Islamic faith. Similar to other (Western) religious movements with an
Asian background (e.g., the Theosophical Society), the Sufi Movement chose not a
spiritual but a secular institutional form and appeared as an international
organization.
The principle form follows function also worked for other than aesthetic ques-
tions, because in the 1920s and 1930s the movement chose the legal form of an
association, not an order or a religious community. Sufi literature and autobiograph-
ical sources of the movement’s leaders highlighted the choice of Geneva as tran-
scendental manifestation of universalism. In this reading, the founder of the Sufi
Movement was guided by transcendental powers to Geneva with the reason to build
the spiritual counterpart to the League, a function confirmed by the fact that the seat
was located across the lake opposite the Palais des Nations (for the relations between
the Sufi Movement and the League of Nations see Inayat-Khan, 2006). Claimed as
a unique feature and as a political contribution of the movement by its followers, the
spatial situation allows differentiation and shows a highly ambivalent situation. In
the same house lived Pierre Bouscharain, an international civil servant and a mem-
ber of the League’s Opium section (LONSEA, Bouscharain, n.d.-f). Working in a
field closely connected to Asia, he also published on internationalism in a religious
context.2 Connections between religious international organizations, experts in
international drug control, and Asian networks are not at the center of academic
attention in today’s research and, again, it is unknown whether Bouscharain was an
open-hearted person who liked a chat with his Sufi neighbors, or someone who
preferred privacy and a strict separation between work and leisure hours. However,
the spatial conjunctions are worth investigating, all the more because the Geneva
directory discloses additional information about the Maison royale—where a repre-
sentative of the Cuban consulate underlined the diplomatic character of number
46—or, at least, reveals an additional element by which official contacts translate
into informal personal cooperation. Moreover, the directory shows five Japanese
inhabitants, whose functions are described as “Délégation du gouvernement jap-
onais au conseil d’administration B.I.T” (Annuaire Genevois, 1937, p. 223). This
apparently featureless information illuminates the rather secret and enclosed life of
Japanese representation after this state’s dramatic withdrawal from the League of
Nations in 1933.
Even in 1937, there were still many places where the former interest in Geneva’s
internationalism remained active or at least had some discrete traces. The examples
presented above disclose the combination of diplomacy and religion as rather under-
estimated carriers of global knowledge. In the case of Geneva, there are two aspects
to recognize. Religious networks presented a way to underline differentiation and
exclusion of other religious communities, but they also gained an explicit interna-
tional and even diplomatic dimension. Especially in the 1930s, when Geneva cele-
brated the 4th centenary of Calvin’s reformation, the awareness of religious
2
For example, he was a discussant at the Camp International de la Jeunesse, organized by the
Alliance universelle pour l’Amitié Internationale par les Eglises (see Ricœur, 1933, p. 128) and
published L’Esprit international dans l’individu in 1932 (Bouscharain, 1932).
222 M. Herren
internationalism increased and gained additional platforms and meeting points.

These organizations clustered in the old city around Rue Calvin, again presenting
strong interferences with other networks, in this case focusing on different interna-
tional youth movements and student organizations. At Rue Calvin, the Methodist
Church possessed landed property at number 12, the address of its German and
Italian branches and the church’s organization for young women (Annuaire
Genevois, 1937, p. 65). Next door, at numbers 13 and 14, the organizations for
Christian students were registered, neighboring the International Migration Service.
Initiated by the Young Women’s Christian Organization (League of Nations, 1938,
p. 72), the Annuaire listed as this institution’s responsible person Suzanne Ferrière
(Annuaire Genevois, 1937, p. 65), a member of the International Committee of the
Red Cross, and a frequent participant in the Swiss delegation for the League of
Nations (see Suzanne Ferrière, 1970). Following the street in the other direction, a
cosmopolitan walker had the chance to pick up the newest books from the Dante
Alighieri Library before visiting the Maison Internationale des Etudiants at 9 Rue
Calvin (Annuaire Genevois, 1937, p. 65). This organization developed within the
well-known tradition of the Cité Universitaire in Paris and the international stu-
dents’ houses in the United States. In Geneva, however, the Maison Internationale
fostered an “oriental” profile and merged higher education, philosophy, and religion
under the umbrella of the League of Nations institutions in such a way that the
claimed apolitical approach became a political profile.
The most remarkable feature of this innovative approach was not so much the
romantic descriptions of colorful saris but the considerable representation of
Geneva’s Indian, Japanese, and Chinese communities in the late 1930s. In July
1936, the Maison Internationale offered a lunch to the members of the League’s
Commission of Intellectual Cooperation. This event brought together diplomats,
internationalists, the newly elected rector of Geneva University William Rappard,
and the Indian philosopher S. Radhakrishnan, later president of India (Maison inter-
nationale des étudiants, 1936). In April 1937, the Maison Internationale organized
a Japanese dinner. Although well covered by the local press (L’Orient et l’Occident
se rencontrent, 1937), the historiographical added value of the event goes beyond
the well-established Orient-meets-Occident metaphor (Said, 1978).
The spatial surrounding at the center of Christian international organizations is
even more interesting in the view of the contemporary political context, because the
Japanese delegate at the BIT and the Chinese minister participated long after the
withdrawal of Japan from the League of Nations and up until just a few months
before the atrocities of Nanjing.3 The spatial approach therefore critically interro-
gates the historiographical presumptions of incidents, turning points, and breaks, or
at least reflects about timelines and how developments overlap on a global scale.
The withdrawal of Japan gives an interesting example of how the decision to stop
membership rather fostered than diminished varieties of contact zones, even on a
3
For example, the Maison Internationale des Etudiants at 9 Rue Calvin, provided such a “contact
zone” (L’Orient et l’Occident se rencontrent, 1937).
diplomatic level. Besides the Japanese consulate at Quai Wilson, and the officials
listed at Quai Gustave Ador, there was an additional seat of the Japanese representa-
tion accredited to the International Labour Office, at Route de Florissant 47 B
(Annuaire Genevois, 1937, p. 1212). Global knowledge flows continued, but their
historical value has remained beyond established modes of interpretation.
Translating Agencies
The examples discussed above throw light on elites, consular representatives, inter-
national civil servants, and section members well established in the League’s secre-
tariat. As mentioned above, global knowledge transfer requires appropriate forms
and also infrastructure. Many clerks, interpreters, secretaries, and drivers, all work-
ing for different international organizations, made the world of Geneva’s interna-
tionalism go round—although this fact is not mentioned at all in reflections about
the historical value or the political importance of international civil society. Are
these subaltern diplomats part of the picture and do they guarantee the infrastructure
mentioned above? With established historiographical methods, these people are dif-
ficult to recognize. They rarely wrote pamphlets, they usually had left their families
and peers, and their subaltern position often did not match their origin and educa-
tional background. Does a spatial approach reveal information other than that
obtained by one analyzing cosmopolitans by investigating their different
backgrounds?
They lived within walking distance of their offices, sharing with their colleagues
in the executive suite the spatial opportunity of transgressing the boundary between
work and leisure. Some examples from the League of Nations’ personnel files might
illustrate the question of who had access to urban zones distinguished by a dense
exchange of border-crossing information.4 Tamara Goetze, first a stenographer and
later a secretary in the Minorities section of the League of Nations, lived just across
the corner from the old League of Nations building. The Chinese Li Dzeh-djen, a
temporary employee in the information section, had his private address at Rue
Charles-Bonnet, next door to the German consulate, the Bureau International de la
Paix, and the Geneva Association for the League of Nations, and just around the
corner from the residence of the Finnish permanent delegation to the League. Not
far away from this address, at Rue Micheli du Crest, lived the Indian Tarini Prasad
Sinha, a short-term employee in the League’s Opium section. Of course, further
debates need additional examples; however, there is an interesting spatial cohesion,
not only between international organizations of different kinds, but also with regard
to those working for these organizations.
4
An extended investigation of these files is part of an ongoing research project. For first results see:
Herren (2013).
224 M. Herren
Conclusion
In this chapter, I have discussed the merging of two historicities, one telling the his-
tory of international organizations, the other focusing on border-crossing communi-
cation and information transfer. Taking the example of Geneva after World War I,
the coincidence of international organizations and knowledge is expressed in the
spatial dimension. Contrary to the usual approach underlining urban international-
ism as the city’s ideological profile and as an expression of the spirit of Geneva, the
question is who is the neighbor, and how can personal networks be derived from
spatial closeness. In this chapter, I have shown that, at least in the 1930s, global
knowledge transfer was related to spatial proximity and therefore to connections
difficult to trace with traditional methodological tools usually introduced for the
understanding of transboundary networks in historical research. A spatial contextu-
alization of global knowledge brought insights into a characteristic of Geneva over-
looked until now. Because Geneva was not the capital where diplomatic
representations gained their well-known profile as extraterritorial space distant from
civil society, the city’s spatial connectivity developed especially well and was prob-
ably supported by semi-official contacts, which fostered the prosperity of a global
civil society. A spatial approach, however, questions whether the example of Geneva
goes beyond the specificities of this city, and whether international organizations
and their personnel are useful examples for analyzing the development of global
spaces and an international civil society in an urban context more generally.
Although there is no need to claim a golden past, a look at today’s situation reveals
a stark contrast. The places described as non habité have increased, barbed wire
protects the entry of the United Nations, the blue plates of UN relief organizations
have become a sign for crisis regions, and the place for addressing civil purposes is
now outside the doors and not at the bar. The decreasing porosity might provide
better local protection but questions a democratic transfer of knowledge on a global
scale.
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the material.
Chapter 12
The Spatial Mobility of Corporate Knowledge:
Expatriation, Global Talent, and the World
City
Jonathan V. Beaverstock
Expatriation, and other forms of labor mobility that cross international borders
within and between firms is a crucial organizational strategy for the spatial mobility
of knowledge in the world economy. At the organizational level, firms deploy their
knowledge-rich, managerial, and expert human capital to circulate both tacit and
explicit (codified) knowledge between subsidiaries, clients, and suppliers; to
develop the organization; and to service existing and new clients outside of the
home country. Expatriation is a process that stretches tacit knowledge across time
and space (Beaverstock, 2004; Faulconbridge, 2008) because of the importance of
“being (there)” (Gertler, 2003) to manage, engage in the production system, and
service clients in co-location. Far from being on the wane in these times of advanced
information technology and communication, expatriation is a strategic mechanism
for a firm to deliver knowledge, skills, expertise, and experience to a particular point
in space and time (e.g., an office, subsidiary, or gas extraction field) (Beaverstock,
2004; Edström & Galbraith, 1977; Millar & Salt, 2009; PricewaterhouseCoopers,
2010a; Scullion & Collings, 2006).
Expatriation is a vital global organizational strategy for knowledge-intensive
professional services in sectors such as accountancy, consulting, and law in which
the delivery of knowledge, tailor-made solutions, and value is embodied in the
employee, especially if the reputation and credentials of the firm rests on the suc-
cess of the professional employee-client relationship (Beaverstock, 2004;
Faulconbridge, 2008; Jones, 2008). Beyond the firm, expatriation feeds into the
competitiveness of cities and regions acting as a conduit to replenish knowledge,
skills, and know-how in local labor markets. Indeed, many world city boosterists
and commentators suggest that attracting and retaining global talent is a significant
factor of production in the success of a world city in the network society (Beaverstock,
2010; Castells, 1996; Florida, 2002; Wigley, 2008).
J.V. Beaverstock (*)

School of Economics, Finance and Management, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-44654-7_12
228 J.V. Beaverstock
The contribution of this chapter is to advance the theoretical and empirical

understanding of contemporary forms of expatriation as an organizational strategy
for the spatial mobility of knowledge and as a global process that enhances the
competiveness of the world city in an age of highly integrated, global information,
communication, and telecommunication (ICT) systems. Accordingly, the rest of
this chapter is divided into seven parts. Following this introduction, parts two, three,
and four focus on explaining the significant concepts that underpin the strategy of
expatriation as a physical medium of knowledge creation, transfer, and exchange
within organizations and between different spatial contexts. In part two, I examine
the structural organization of firms and their mechanisms for creating, sharing, and
exchanging knowledge within the multilocation organization, drawing primarily on
the work of transnational management theorists, Bartlett and Ghoshal (1998). Part
three is a review of human resource perspectives that explain the organizational
strategy of expatriation and their role in the firm’s global knowledge management
system. I look in part four at the agency of place, the world city, in concentrating
and reproducing knowledge management within the network society (Castells,
1996) and enhancing the expatriate’s spatial knowledge networks and career paths
(Beaverstock, 2005, 2010). In parts five and six I introduce case studies of expatria-
tion within global accountancy firms and discuss the agency of foreign workers in
the competitiveness of London’s financial district (Beaverstock, 2007a, 2010;
Beaverstock & Hall, 2012). I conclude in part seven and argue that expatriation will
continue to be a significant form of knowledge development, transfer, and exchange
within organizations, and an essential driver for spatial economic development and
competiveness.
he Firm, International Business Strategy, and Knowledge

T
Management
Increasingly, the resource of knowledge (e.g., the traits of high-value-added profes-

sionalism, expertise, skills, and intelligence, whether in the established professions,
research and development [R&D], medicine, science or engineering), is often a
sticky, tacit competence embodied in human capital (Gertler, 2003; Lowendahl,
1997). The management of that knowledge, on a global scale, has become a key
strategy (and challenge) for firms (Schuler, Jackson, & Tarique, 2011; Scullion,
Collings, & Caligiuri, 2010; Whelan, Collings, & Donnelian, 2010). It is now read-
ily acknowledged that transnational firms organize their assets, labor, interests, and
client and supplier relationships in dynamic and complex networks that span world
regions in many different commodity and value chains (Dicken, 2011).
Simultaneously, firms are transnational communities, a collective of complex inter-
relationships and amalgamations of employees of all nationalities, status, and skill-
sets, with the transnational corporation (TNC) being a
,…thick web of communication possibilities vertically and horizontally…[where]…
[m]anagers’ careers would be varied and involve movement across different subsidiaries as
12 The Spatial Mobility of Corporate Knowledge 229
well as into head office. Senior management would reflect a wider group of nationalities
and experiences than in the multinational enterprise. Learning would be dispersed, often
disorganized but usually multi-directional in terms of its effect. (Morgan, 2001, p. 120)
However, in order to get a more refined and structural explanation of how knowl-
edge is created and shared between a firm’s international subsidiaries, at a concep-
tual level, one can draw on the writings of two eminent management theorists,
Christopher Bartlett and Sumantra Ghoshal, in their widely acclaimed Managing
Across Borders: The Transnational Solution (1998). Bartlett and Ghoshal (1998)
provide a conceptual model to analyze how corporate knowledge, both tacit and
codified, is developed and disseminated within the international multilocational
firm which can provide a framework to account for the strategy of firms that engage
in global staffing and expatriation.
Bartlett and Ghoshal (1998) suggest that a core competence of the multiloca-
tional firm is the “development and diffusion of knowledge” (p. 75) within the orga-
nization in order to efficiently manage assets, capabilities, and operations across
borders (Table 12.1). According to the authors’ four-pronged organizational typol-
ogy of the structure of the firm managing across borders—multinational, global,
international, and transnational—each of them manages its organizational charac-
teristics differently. If one focuses on the “development and diffusion of knowl-
edge,” it is possible to observe a linear progression in the sharing of knowledge,
from a multinational structure, in which knowledge is “developed and retained in
each unit.” to a transnational structure, in which knowledge is “developed jointly
and shared worldwide” (Bartlett & Ghoshal, 1998, p. 75; Table 12.1). As I have
noted elsewhere (Beaverstock, 2004), the key attribute of knowledge development
Table 12.1 Organizational characteristics of the transnational firm

Organizational
characteristics Multinational Global International Transnational
Configuration of Decentralized Centralized and Sources of Dispersed,
assets and and nationally globally scaled core interdependent, and
capabilities self-sufficient competences specialized
centralized,
others
decentralized
Role of overseas Sensing and Implementing Adapting and Differentiated
operations exploiting local parent company leveraging contributions by
opportunities competencies parent national units to
and strategies company integrated,
worldwide
operations
Development Knowledge Knowledge Knowledge Knowledge
and diffusion of developed and developed and developed at developed jointly
knowledge retained within retained at the the center and and shared
each unit core transferred to worldwide
overseas units
Adapted from Bartlett & Ghoshal (1998, p. 5)
and diffusion in transnational firms is that knowledge is circulated both vertically

(up and down between headquarters and subsidiaries) and horizontally (laterally
between subsidiaries) among all units of the firm. Transnational firms are integrated
networks spanning cross-border activities, sustained by communication and mobil-
ity between different subsidiaries and the head office (Beaverstock, 2007a, p. 411)
In a similar vein to Bartlett and Ghoshal (1998), Nohria and Ghoshal (1997, p. 4)
define the firm as a “differentiated network” reflecting the network structure of the
organization made up of a multitude of linkages, chains, and relationships: (a) the
local linkages within each national subsidiary; (b) the linkages between headquar-
ters and the subsidiaries; and (c) the linkages between headquarters and the subsid-
iaries themselves”, with the latter, unlike (b), also including linkages between the
subsidiaries.
There is now sufficient evidence to suggest that firms manage their knowledge
development and diffusion through complex systems of knowledge management
that draw upon a combination of physical and virtual dissemination and exchange,
regardless of whether they exhibit Bartlett and Ghoshal’s (1998) international or
transnational organizational characteristics (Faulconbridge, 2008; Mellahi, Frynas,
& Finlay, 2005). Firms are relational entities with sophisticated knowledge manage-
ment systems to develop, share, and exchange explicit and codified knowledge
through electronic transmission and virtual proximity using efficient and confiden-
tial transmission systems and ICT, including videoconferencing software and, lat-
terly, intra-firm social networking systems. But if one considers the development,
diffusion, and exchange of tacit knowledge, which is often very sticky and embod-
ied in the experience, competences, expertise, skills, and learning capacities of an
individual, the most efficient—and possibly cost-effective—mechanism to transfer
those embodied attributes cross-border from subsidiary A to subsidiary B is to move
the individual physically through, for example, business travel (Faulconbridge,
Beaverstock, Derudder, & Witlox, 2009) or an international assignment (Brewster
& Scullion, 1997; Collings, McDonnell, Gunnigle, & Lavelle, 2010; Scullion &
Collings, 2006).
Moreover, the advent of the transnational form of the contemporary firm has cre-
ated the conditions for the development of a globally functioning, international divi-
sion of highly skilled executive, established professional and managerial, and
high-value scientific labor (in fields such as medicine, technology, R&D, and engi-
neering). This global labor market is inherently reproduced through local labor mar-
kets, but importantly also through the burgeoning number of international
assignments and other types of cross-border hypermobile work (for example, those
involved in regular business travel, short-term rotations, and fly-in and fly-out time-
specific contract work) present in many industrial sectors of the world economy,
such as aerospace and mineral extraction (Millar & Salt, 2009), professional ser-
vices (Beaverstock, 2004; Faulconbridge, 2008; Jones, 2010), executive education
(Hall, 2009), banking and financial services (Beaverstock & Hall, 2012), high tech-
nology (Harvey, 2008), and IT and R&D (Mahroum, 2000; Saxenian, 2007). In
order to examine further the significance of inter- and intra-firm international
assignments as a mechanism for knowledge management and exchange within and
between firms, it is important to draw on the International Human Resource

Management (IHRM) discipline and to discuss the organizational strategy of expa-
triation and global staffing systems.
Expatriation, Global Talent, and Knowledge Exchange
Irrespective of significant advancements in global ICT, TNCs use international

assignments as a fundamental internationalization strategy to transfer and exchange
knowledge, expertise, and learning to and among foreign subsidiaries or other forms
of global investment. These international assignments are synonymous with the
organizational label expatriation (Brewster, 1991; Tung, 1988). In the discipline of
business studies an entirely new branch of management science with the apt name
of International Human Resource Management (IHRM) developed in the late 1960s
to focus on this segment of a firm’s internal labor market. The crux of this new field
is the organizational strategies posited to explain why TNCs use expatriates rather
that locally recruited staff in their foreign subsidiaries, whether these are mineral/
energy extraction sites in the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa)
economies, manufacturing plants in Southeast Asia, or offices in world cities.
The TNC strategy to deploy expatriates in lieu of local, or home country nation-
als, is at the center of debates in contemporary IHRM (Black, Gregerson,
Mendenhall, & Stroh, 1999; Tung, 1988). Almost 50 years ago, Edström and
Galbraith’s (1977) seminal research on international assignments set the benchmark
for clarifying why TNCs transfer staff between their subsidiaries as a way to strate-
gically utilize their human resource capital. Edström and Galbraith (1977) recog-
nized that the TNC adopted international assignments as an integral strategy for
managing its professional and managerial employees and scientific and expert staff
within the firm’s portfolio of foreign investments and, therefore, in the confines of
its international internal labor market. They suggested that TNCs specifically used
international assignments for three main strategic purposes:
1. as a direct mechanism to fill positions and vacancies in foreign locations facing
a lack of locally recruitable, qualified staff
2. as part of their internal global management development program to enhance the
experience, skills, and competences of junior and mid-rank managers and pro-
fessionals—irrespective of the supply of locally qualified managers in the host
location; and
3. as a way to develop the global organization in regard to corporate strategy, com-
mand and control systems, and the sharing of best practice, learning, and
knowledge.
Edström and Galbraith’s (1977) study of the rationale for the international trans-
fer of managers within TNCs to fill positions and to develop managers as well as the
firm still resonates strongly with contemporary analyses of expatriation (Collings
et al., 2010) and, more latterly, scholarship on firms’ global staffing regimes and
global talent management (Scullion & Collings, 2006).
In Collings and Scullion’s (2006) review of global staffing and expatriation, they
synthesized the findings of other contemporary IHRM scholars in order to interro-
gate further Edström and Galbraith’s (1977) writings on the foundations of interna-
tional assignments within TNCs. For example, drawing on Sparrow, Brewster, and
Harris’s (2004) research on globalizing human resource management, they note that
the TNCs’ organizational strategy for sending staff on an international assignment
is sixfold: for career development; to establish an international cadre of managers;
to fill local vacancies resulting from a lack of qualified home-country nationals; to
transfer expertise; to manage and control foreign assets; and to control global strat-
egy and policy. Furthermore, Collings and Scullion (2006) disaggregate the purpose
of expatriation into two conceptual frames (after Evans, Pucik, & Barsoux, 2002).
First, they are demand-driven assignments, which resonates with the organizational
requirement to fill vacancies, manage new investments, or solve problems in situ
because of a dearth of locally qualified home country nationals. Second, they are
learning-driven assignments intended to drive individual career development and
serve as a mechanism to transfer, share, and exchange knowledge between the expa-
triate and home country nationals. Most empirical studies of the social characteris-
tics of corporate-transferee expatriates from the United States, Europe, and Japan
derived from research by scholars of IHRM indicate these workers are predomi-
nately male, with men holding an average of 85 % of such positions across all indus-
trial sectors, as much as 95 % in construction and engineering, and a relatively low
70 % in not-for-profit and charity employment (Shortland, 2009).1
From the early 2000s, the business discourse surrounding TNCs and interna-
tional assignments has shifted away from expatriation, to understanding the global
staffing of organizations as talent management or talent mobility (Tarique & Schuler,
2009). Long before Florida (2002) revisited the subject of talent, the root of its
meaning and representation was brought onto the social sciences stage by the pio-
neers of creativity and space (e.g., Meusburger, Funke & Wunder, 2009), but it is in
the realm of business and management studies that globally nomadic, professional,
managerial, or very expert scientific workers are referred to as global talent. For
example, in 2000 PricewaterhouseCoopers (2000a, 2000b) reported on expatriates
in the discourse of traditional international assignments, focusing on their business
rationale, global compensation packages, and predicted futures. A decade on,
PricewaterhouseCoopers (2010a) published a new framework on international
assignments focused on Talent mobility 2020, which is not out of sync with other
global consulting firms (for example, Deloitte’s [2012] report on The Global Talent
Challenge or The Corporation of London’s [2011] study of Access to Global Talent).
The longevity of expatriation as an organizational strategy currently stems from its
usefulness in the global management of intellectual capital in high value occupa-
tions and skills, reflecting the intensifying shift away from multinational firm struc-
1
Research on expatriates in subjects such as their household formation, employment, identity,
gender, ethnicity, sexuality, community formation, and mobility also has gathered significant inter-
est across the social sciences disciplines, including human geography, sociology, and, of course,
migration studies (e.g., Fechter & Walsh, 2012; Smith & Favell, 2006).
tures (i.e., the dissemination of knowledge primarily from the corporate headquarters
to subsidiaries) to the transnational mode, or the sharing and exchange of knowl-
edge and staffing between all units of the firm (described by Bartlett & Ghoshal
[1998] as the transnational form of the firm). As PricewaterhouseCoopers (2010a)
notes:
Assignments in the past were typically categorised by organisations as being either short-
term or long-term. Today we see many more varied requirements from businesses and
assignees and alignment with the organisation’s talent management objectives. Along with
short-term and long-term assignments, we have frequent travellers, commuters, intra-
regional, and virtual secondments to customers and supplier sites, as well as various
assignee and talent types, such as executive, skill set and project-based, developmental, and
employee initiated, all creating a need for robust global assignment policy framework.
(p. 16)
PricewaterhouseCoopers (2010a, p. 6) predicts that the average number of inter-

national assignments worldwide at 900 companies listed in its sample database will
have grown 50 % from 2009 levels by 2020 to approximately 400,000. Significantly,
PricewaterhouseCoopers suggests that much of this growth in global mobility will
be generated by and in the emerging markets, as more skilled employees from these
countries enter the global talent pool. Therefore, expatriation as an organizational
strategy is an increasingly important facet of the TNC’s portfolio of global talent
mobility (Beaverstock, 2010; Faulconbridge et al., 2009; Millar & Salt, 2009). The
role of international assignments reflect on the one hand the requirements of the
firm to be competitive in a highly globalized world, both in terms of business sys-
tems and location, and on the other, the expectations of talent to have high-value-
added, mobile careers enhancing promotion prospects, personal remuneration, and
a cosmopolitan sense of well-being (Beaverstock, 2011; Beaverstock & Hall, 2012).
But it must be acknowledged that more assignees will necessitate “more business
travel, more virtual tools, and especially more quick, short-term, and commuter
assignments” (PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2010a, p. 4).
orld Cities, Expatriation, and the Spatial Mobility

W
of Knowledge
Invariably, in the manufacturing and service sectors of the world economy, the orga-
nizational structure and location of the firm provides an overwhelmingly urban
working and living experience for the expatriate. Expatriates are city dwellers
throughout the globe. But there is a growing body of evidence to suggest their
agency, practice, and performativity are crucial processes accounting for the geo-
economic sustainability, competiveness, and relationalities of world cities
(Beaverstock, 1994, 2011; Ewers, 2007; Friedmann, 1986; Sassen, 2001a, 2006).
Indeed, many commentators have discussed the role of highly skilled international
migrants (Beaverstock, 1994, 2005, 2007b), “transnational elites” (Friedmann &
Wolff, 1982), the “new international professionals” (Sassen, 2001b), and “dominant
managerial elites” (Castells, 1996) in the making of world cities and their complex
intercity relations and networks. In many ways, organizational processes of expa-
triation, talent management, and global staffing are nourishing the knowledge bases
of world cities, providing a continuous throughflow of talent into these places that
secures them high rankings in the many commercial, highly influential global urban
hierarchies, such as Z/Yen’s Global Financial Center Index 11 (2012), Mastercard’s
(2008) Worldwide Centers of Commerce Index, or the Mercer Group’s (2011)
Quality of Living Worldwide City rankings.
The expatriate, like home country elites, is pulled into world cities and their orga-
nizational networks through intra- or inter-company transfers initiated by the firm or
potential employer, or through other migratory paths, such as those of free-movers,
or European Union (EU) citizens able to migrate at will throughout the EU single
market (Favell, 2008). The structural position of world cities in the new international
division of labor (Cohen, 1981; Hymer, 1972; Friedmann, 1986) ensures that their
spatial economies have unprecedented “global reach” and “command and control”
(Sassen, 2001a) derived from high concentrations of corporate headquarters; signifi-
cant agglomeration economies (clusters) in international finance, professional ser-
vices, media, and education; health service, medicine, biotechnology, R&D, and
creative and cultural industries; cutting-edge information technology and communi-
cation; and state-of-the-art infrastructure (Cook, Pandit, Beaverstock, Taylor, & Pain,
2007; Olds, 2007; Sassen, 2006). The firms in these high-value world city econo-
mies, whether TNCs or small and medium-sized enterprises in manufacturing or
services, create the unprecedented conditions driving demand for highly skilled labor
that are articulated in a globally functioning, spatial division of labor (Beaverstock &
Boardwell, 2000). Moreover, during the last 40 years or so, the growth of the pro-
ducer service “complex” in world cities (Sassen, 2006), particularly in those of the
Global North—London, New York, Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles, Paris, Frankfurt,
Brussels, Madrid, and Amsterdam—have shaped the circumstances for brisk labor
market demand in sectors such as advertising, banking, financial services, profes-
sional services (accounting, consulting, legal, real estate), and information technol-
ogy (City of London, 2011). But the growth of the producer complex has not been
limited to European and North American cities. For example, in Singapore approxi-
mately one million jobs were created in the service sector between 1991 and 2008,
of which a third (some 320 thousand) were in financial and professional services,
such as accounting, legal, and real estate (Ministry of Manpower, 2009). Similar
structural changes are occurring in Moscow (Kolossov, Vendina, & O’Loughlin,
2002), Hong Kong (Meyer, 2000), Shanghai (Lai, 2009), and Mumbai (Patel, 2007).
World city economies are important structural agents in the spatial mobility of
knowledge. Their internal structure, global reach, and economic authority, which
are manifested in complex intra- and inter-city networks, are perpetuated through
the high-value, knowledge-rich labor force attracted to work and live in these places
(Beaverstock, 2005). Essentially, world cities are the global melting pots for highly
talented workers of all nationalities, both internal and international, who fill vacan-
cies and labor market demand in the high-value-added, knowledge-intensive com-
plexes of the city (whether in finance, professional services, creative industries, the
media, or R&D). The bottom line is that expatriation and other forms of mobility
such as business travel are key organizational strategies to deliver skills and exper-
tise and to learn at the point of demand, often through the medium of face-to-face
interaction. “Face-time” remains a very efficient and valued mechanism to exchange
tacit knowledge over time and space, in working environments that depend on direct
interaction with clients to ensure quality of service and leadership as well as to
deliver tailor-made solutions, problem solving, and complex management systems
(Beaverstock, 2007a, 2007b; Faulconbridge, 2008; Jones, 2008).
Finally, it is also important to acknowledge that world cities have significant
agency in enhancing an expatriate’s career aspirations, wealth creation, and living
experience (Beaverstock, 2005). Spatial career paths facilitate the accumulation and
exchange of knowledge and learning within and between different employers and
world city postings and living experiences. Expatriate career paths are a conduit in
which knowledge is created and consumed in world city networks, particularly in an
expatriate’s everyday life experiences and transnational spaces (work, home, social
spaces, etc.). The everyday, world-city life-worlds of expatriates supplying
knowledge-intensive skills and competencies to the workplace and in “transnational
social spaces” (Smith, 1999, p. 120) through “ephemeral networks and practices”
(Beaverstock, 2011, p. 711) reproduce specific epistemic communities, whose life
courses significantly enhance careers and the accumulation of financial, social, and
cultural capital.
lobal Staffing and Expatriation in Professional Service

G
Firms
In the international service economy, the World Trade Organization acknowledges

that people can deliver services to clients across borders through physical move-
ment. This is an integral part of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (defined
as GATS Mode 4) (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
[OECD], 2003). In professional services, which encompass knowledge-intensive,
often tailor-made and highly idiosyncratic services built on reputation and estab-
lished credentials, the liberalization of trade in “natural persons” (GATS Mode 4) is
essential for the firm to circulate knowledge and expertise across borders, embodied
in the tacit professionalism and expertise of the archetypal “professions” like archi-
tects, accountants, or lawyers (Greenwood & Lachman, 1996; Morris & Empson,
1998; Lowendal, Revang, & Fosstenlokken, 2001). The key asset of a service firm
(PSF) is the knowledge capacity of its labor force of both managers and profession-
als, with capital accumulated, clients courted and serviced, and revenues and profits
ultimately accrued through the performance of this workforce and its successful
interaction with the client. Morris and Empson (1998) suggest that a PSF is “an
organization that trades mainly on the knowledge of its human capital, that is, its
employees and the producer-owners, to develop and deliver intangible solutions to
client problems” (p. 610). Thus, in PSFs, one of the most efficient mechanisms to
deliver knowledge, including the tacit form embodied and stuck to established pro-
fessionals, is through the physical movement of such professionals from the firm to
the client or within the global structure of the firm (Lowendahl, 1997). PSFs supply
tailor-made knowledge and expertise to their clients and suppliers and maintain
internal organizational control through co-location using personal interaction, expa-
triation, and hypermobility (Beaverstock, 2007a, 2007b; Faulconbridge, 2008;
Faulconbridge, Beaverstock, Taylor, & Nativel, 2011; Jones, 2008; Nachum, 1999).
Global accounting firms continue to use international assignments and other
forms of corporate mobility to deliver knowledge and expertise between their inter-
national offices and firm-client relations. Over the last decade or so, global account-
ing has been dominated by the “Big Four”—PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC),
Deloitte, Ernst & Young, and KPMG International—with respect to the ranking of
fee income and the size of professional employment (Table 12.2). In 2010, com-
bined, each of the Big Four employed almost half a million professional staff (part-
ners and lawyers) in an average of 149 countries. Global accounting firms require a
wholly-owned presence in each market to be able to deliver their service in co-
location with the client (Dunning, 1993; Hanlon, 1994; Greenwood, Rose, Brown,
Cooper, & Hinings, 1999). Accordingly, these firms provide their major services—
audit and assurance, corporate finance, consultancy, and insolvency (theCityUK,
2012)—through direct, on-site contact with the client, supported by an infrastruc-
ture of specialist financial products, IT software, and legal closure (certificated
qualifications and membership of chartered institutes). Partners and qualified staff
with relevant specializations liaise on a constant basis with clients and co-suppliers
Table 12.2 Top ten International Accountancy Networks, 2011 (Ranked by annual total income
in $m)
Annual
International network Income Member Professional
organization Headquarters ($m) Countries firms Partners staff
1. Deloitte New York 26,578 150 53 9538 129,219
2. Pricewaterhouse London 26,569 154 8625 122,967
Coopers
3. Ernst & Young London 21,255 142 8602 103,393
4. KPMG Amsterdam 20,630 150 7921 105,147
5. BDO Brussels 5284 119 96 4111 34,811
6. RSM International London 3878 83 92 3113 23,490
7. Grant Thornton London 3673 100 96 2511 30,000
International
8. Baker Tilley London 3070 120 150 2600 25,000
International
9. Crowe Horwath New York 2779 108 150 3519 19,537
International
10. PKF International London 2449 125 168 2198 15,292
Source: compiled from Accountancy Age (2011) (www.accountancyage.com)
Note. $m = millions of dollars
(e.g., law firms) to acquire new business, execute contracts, and deliver tailor-made
services, with this work occurring in project teams with other professional services
when called for by a particular business project.
The prevalence of global staffing regimes, international assignments, or other
forms of mobility in the Big Four accounting firms and other smaller global firms is
a normalized organizational strategy for knowledge exchange, transfer, and learning
within the firm-client relationship (Beaverstock, 2007a; Hanlon, 1999). All of the
Big Four have global mobility programs to fill vacancies that cannot be staffed with
available local home country labor; to support management development programs
for all career structures and grades within the firm; and to enhance the corporate
culture of the global firm or partnership structure (Table 12.3).
PricewaterhouseCooper’s (2010b) strategic approach to global mobility and
leadership aptly summarizes the organizational role of international assignments in
the global firms:
Moving our talent people to different locations around the world to match client and busi-
ness needs is key to enabling us to offer the right expertise at the right time. An experience
abroad develops the global business skills and international experience of our people…We
continue to invest heavily in our global mobility programme. In FY [fiscal year] 2010, we
added another 1,600 new participants to our secondment programme, up from 1,400 in FY
2009. (p. 52)
Deloitte’s (2010) Annual Review champions its commitment to global mobility

for its professional staff, emphasizing that mobility is all about, “moving the right
people with the right skills to the right places at the right time to meet the needs of
the business, clients, talent and marketplace–is a competitive imperative…Mobility
opens minds, and can open opportunities” (p. 7). Beyond the Big Four, 2010 data
from the U.K. accountancy professional bodies indicates that of the 424,003 quali-
fied members, 28 % were resident outside of the United Kingdom (119,720), an
increase of 43 % (36,339) from 2002, when 83,381 members were residing outside
of the United Kingdom (theCityUK, 2012).
At the organizational level, global professional services firms are very much akin
to Bartlett and Ghoshal’s (1998) global and transnational organization, in which
Table 12.3 Global mobility in the Big Four accounting firms

New global assignments
Firm Program Fiscal Year 2010 Fiscal Year 2009
Pricewaterhouse Global Mobility Program 1630 1426
Coopers Long-term assignments (945) (713)
Short-term assignments (658) (713)
Deloitte International Mobility Program 3800 2500+
KPMG Global Opportunities Program 2150 N.A.
Ernst & Young Global Exchange Program N.A. N.A.
Source: Firm websites
Note. NA = Not known
Table 12.4 Dimensions of transfer policies in transnational professional service firms

Reasons for transfer
Dimensions Fill positions Develop managers Develop organization
Relative numbers Many Many Many
Specialities Fee-earning Fee-earning Fee-earning
transferred
Location of host All countries All countries All countries
Direction of flow Between subsidiaries Between subsidiaries Between subsidiaries
and between and between and between
headquarters and headquarters and headquarters and
subsidiaries subsidiaries subsidiaries
Age of assignee Throughout career Young to middle Throughout career
Frequency Many moves Several moves Many moves
Nationality of All nationalities All nationalities All nationalities
assignee
Personnel Extensive lists of Extensive lists of Extensive lists of
information candidates monitored candidates monitored candidates monitored by
system by personnel in all by personnel in all personnel in all offices
offices offices
Power of Strong Strong Strong
personnel
department
Strategic Extensive Extensive Extensive
placement and
distribution
Adapted from Edstrom and Galbraith (1977, p. 253).
knowledge is shared among all subsidiaries and units of the organization.

Beaverstock’s (2004, 2007a, 2007b) recent analyses of expatriation within global
accounting, legal, and investment banks reworked Edström and Galbraith’s (1977)
initial dimensions of international assignee transfer policies within organizations
specifically to theorize the use of international assignments in professional services
to fill positions, develop managers, and evolve the organization (Table 12.4).
Global Talent in London’s Financial District
London’s financial district, composed of the City of London and, since the late
1980s, Canary Wharf, has been a magnet for expatriates in banking, finance, and
professional services since the end of the twentieth century following the influx of
U.S., European, and Japanese banks (Michie, 2000). At the onset of the decade of
the 2010s, London is the premier global financial center, ahead of New York,
Singapore, and Hong Kong (Z/Yen, 2012). London’s competiveness rests on its
ability to attract major U.S., European, and Asian global financial institutions; the
quality of its financial environment and regulation; and, importantly, its ability to
attract and retain an international, talented labor force in fierce competition with
other leading financial centers (Beaverstock, 2010; Cook et al., 2007; Jones, 2010;
Z/Yen, 2012). London has a truly deep international talent pool of elite foreign
workers of all nationalities from the European Economic Area (EEA) and non-EEA
countries (City of London, 2011; Wigley, 2008).
The nature and function of occupations in London’s financial district are very
knowledge intensive and essentially cannot be supplanted by information technol-
ogy or mass recruitment from the local, regional, or national labor market. As
research has shown elsewhere (Beaverstock, 1994, 2007b; Jones, 2010; Thrift,
1994), these jobs are highly prized and require a specific set of explicit and tacit
knowledge bases, which often require experience working in other financial centers
or directly with global clients in secondment arrangements. The cornerstone of
these high-value banking and financial services jobs is the ability to work in situ,
with a leading process for knowledge exchange and transfer remaining face-to-face
contact (Amin & Thrift, 1992; Thrift, 1994). Consequently, a significant driver of
the competitiveness and complementariness of London as a global financial center
is the continual supply of elite, expatriate labor that comes to work in its burgeoning
global banks, financial institutions, and professional services firms. Many of those
workers coming into London from outside of the EEA enter as inter-company trans-
fers (ICTs) for specific time periods to fill vacancies, for training, to develop their
professional and management skills in formal programs, and to enhance the global
culture of the firm (Beaverstock & Hall, 2012).
Prior to 2009, the United Kingdom Border Agency released data on work per-
mits for non-EEA nationals. Between 2000 and 2008, a total of 58,911 work per-
mits were issued to non-EEA nationals in financial services (Salt, 2010). Given the
structure of the United Kingdom’s economy, a very large proportion of them would
have entered as ICTs to work and reside in London. The London Borough of the
Corporation of London (its constituency boundary is the City of London) estimated
that in 2009 approximately a quarter (75,000) of the City’s 300,000 banking, finan-
cial, and professional services workers were foreign (Aldrick, 2009), in other words,
expatriates from both EEA and non-EEA destinations. Using the Corporation of
London’s 25 % ratio of foreign workers to total employment in City jobs, Beaverstock
and Hall (2012) calculated possible numbers of expatriates in London’s financial
district (The City of London and Canary Wharf) in any given year since the early
2000s (Table 12.5). Thus, in 2007, at the height of the boom, there may have been
as many as 104,000 foreign workers (expatriates) employed in the City of London
and Canary Wharf. But these approximations could be too low because they may
fail to acknowledge those hypermobile workers typical of the City’s international
labor market (characterized by, e.g., longer-term business travel, short-term rota-
tions of less than 1 year, and business commuting, Faulconbridge et al., 2009).
Table 12.5 Estimation of foreign workers in city-related jobs in the City of London and Canary
Wharf, 2000–2011
Year City related jobsa Estimated foreign workers (25 %b of city-related jobs)
2000 345,000 86,250
2001 350,000 87,500
2002 332,000 83,000
2003 344,000 86,000
2004 370,000 92,500
2005 379,000 94,750
2006 401,000 100,250
2007 417,000 104,250
2008 401,000 100,250
2009 338,000 84,500
2010 315,000c 78,750
2011 288,000c 72,000
a
Estimate of City-type jobs, including banking, financial intermediation, insurance and pension
funds, legal, accountancy, and business consultancy (Centre for Economics and Business Research
[CEBR], 2011; The Corporation of London City Stat Shots [various], and City Research Focus
[various])
b
The Corporation of London estimated that 25 % of the 300,000 City-jobs in 2009 were filled by
foreign workers (Aldrick, 2009)
c
Estimate by City of London of City-jobs only (i.e., excluding Canary Wharf) (CEBR, 2011)
Conclusions
In this chapter, I have argued that expatriation, also more commonly known as inter-
national assignments, remains a key strategy for a firm to transfer and exchange
knowledge between subsidiaries and clients alike, irrespective of rapid improve-
ments in ICT and travel. TNCs that engage in international production through for-
eign direct investment, whether in mineral extraction, manufacturing plant, or office
networks, explicitly use expatriation and other modes of corporate mobilities as an
organizational strategy to deepen, broaden, and enlarge intrinsic and generic knowl-
edge within the firm. But gone are the days of one way flows of knowledge and
people between the headquarters and subservient, knowledge-poor subsidiaries. As
Bartlett and Ghoshal (1998) and others (e.g., Morgan, 2001), have quite rightfully
acknowledged, contemporary firms are highly transnational in scope, with knowl-
edge being shared among all subsidiaries and people flowing in multiple directions
for learning, knowledge transfer and exchange, and the sharing of best practice,
whether in management systems or for the rolling out of corporate policy and strat-
egy. In the knowledge-intensive sectors of the economy, which encompass banking,
finance, accounting, and legal services, as well as other activities such as advertis-
ing, the arts, and even elite sports, expatriation and corporate mobilities are a key
modus operandi of the TNC, because idiosyncratic knowledge, skills, expertise, and
competences are embodied in the individual worker, a function that can seldom be
accomplished by ICT or other forms of technological transmission. As an organiza-

tional strategy, expatriation still facilitates the colocation, or immediate proximity
of the knowledge-rich employee, of whatever nationality, to the specific client or
work colleague to deliver, transfer, or exchange knowledge, which is often in tacit
form and sticky. As the study of global accounting firms has shown, international
assignments remain a major strategy by which a firm can engage with its clientele
and build the knowledge capacity of its worldwide labor force, which is increas-
ingly labeled global talent. Moreover, expatriation and other forms of corporate
mobility have become a vital component of firms’ global talent management and
global staffing regimes.
Secondly, it is important to acknowledge that world cities are the nodes in soci-
ety where knowledge is created, co-produced, and circulated within and between
firms in similar sectors and agglomeration economies, or clusters. Many leading
theorists acknowledge that world cities have economic agency through their com-
mand and control functions and global reach (Sassen, 2001b, 2006), with such
agency being orchestrated through the strategic operations and everyday decision-
making of boardroom executives, fee-earning professionals, and expert scientific
labor. Importantly, the composition of this highly skilled labor market is global in
scope, composed of both home country nationals and expatriates, who are at the
forefront of knowledge production, transfer, and exchange. Indeed, as I have sug-
gested, the world city’s incumbent knowledge economy is continually being nour-
ished by the labor processes of very highly qualified and experienced individuals of
all nationalities who bring a degree of depth to the city’s global talent pool. World
cities are the places where global talent pools are created, sustained, and, for the
very successful cities, such as London, New York, Hong Kong, and Singapore, nur-
tured and developed. Without such internationally focused and spatialized labor
markets being reproduced through expatriation and corporate mobilities, the spatial
mobility of both tacit and codified knowledge would circulate very inefficiently
between firms and cities, because they are simply just not “being (there)” (Gertler,
2003).
As to the future, the management and capture of global talent is going to be
highly competitive for both firms and cities. At the organizational level, corporate
mobilities will consist of an array of global talent systems, from expatriation to the
hypermobilities of flexipatriation with its business travel and commuting. Firms’
human resource policies will respond more to clients demands for more globally
flexible professionals and talented labor to deliver tailor-made solutions and exper-
tise. With respect to world cities, competition to “win the war for talent” (Beaverstock
& Hall, 2012) will become rife as cities try to outbid each other with metrics such
as high rankings in quality of life indices, remuneration, and sustainability to secure
talent to create economic growth and stimulus through highly efficient production
and consumption systems.
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the material.
Chapter 13
Formal Education as a Facilitator
of Migration and Integration: A Case Study
of Nigerian University Graduates
Melanie Mbah
In this chapter I examine the triple nexus of education, migration, and integration. I
analyze how formal tertiary education facilitates emigration and integration. My
research draws on 65 semi-structured interviews with highly skilled1 Nigerian
migrants in the three destination countries of Germany, the United Kingdom, and
the United States. Furthermore, in combination with data from a web-survey I con-
ducted with Nigerian university graduates from three Nigerian universities, a com-
plex picture emerges illustrating this triple nexus. Educational attainment in Nigeria
can be interpreted as taking a person one step closer to the overall aim of migration.
Choosing Nigeria as a case study had four main reasons. The country has (a) the
biggest population in Africa, (b) a large number of tertiary education institutions
with many graduates, (c) high and still-rising numbers of highly skilled migrants,
and (d) an important political and economic role in West Africa. Nigeria is inter-
twined in the West African migration system, both as a receiving and a sending
country. A better understanding of Nigerian migration patterns also means more
knowledge about West African migration patterns in general.
Taking a cultural perspective on migration, it can be interpreted in the Nigerian
setting as something one is expected to achieve as it is a part of the Nigerian culture.
More than 20 years ago Tony Fielding (1992) made an important statement that
This paper is based on findings of my PhD thesis, Brain Drain aus Entwicklungsländern?
Migrationsmotive und -prozesse Hochqualifizierter am Beispiel von Nigeria. (Brain Drain from
Developing Countries? Migration Motivations and Processes of Highly Skilled Nigerian University
Graduates), Karlsruhe, 2014.
1
Highly skilled Nigerian migrants are defined as people with a first university degree who have
been living outside their country of origin for at least 1 year.
M. Mbah (*)
Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis (ITAS), Karlsruhe Institute of
Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-44654-7_13
248 M. Mbah
“migration tends to expose one’s personality; it expresses one’s loyalties and reveals
one’s values and attachments often previously hidden. It is a statement of an
individual’s world-view, and is, therefore, an extremely cultural event” (p. 201).
Fielding is pointing out that migration is part of a culture, and cultures influence
migration processes differently. The role of culture in migration decisions can be
viewed in two ways. First, places with strong place-identities produce low out migra-
tion and high return migration. Second, conformity with the dominant culture plays a
significant role. This means that in places where conformity is high, low migration
rates can be identified, and vice versa (Fielding, 1992, pp. 203–204). Furthermore,
“how the migration is experienced depends on both the cultural characteristics of the
migrant and the cultural context of the migration decision” (Fielding, 1992, p. 205).
Cohen and Sirkeci (2011) widen Fielding’s approach of cultural migration into cul-
tures of migration. With this, they consider migration as culturally framed and socially
defined. For this reason Cohen and Sirkeci (2011, pp. 10–19) argue that migrants usu-
ally have a plan beforehand; migration, therefore, is strategically planned and the
migration process itself underlies a subjective rationality based on expectations of
positive outcomes. Migrants are, of course, social actors “framed by traditional beliefs,
cultural expectations, and social practices” (Cohen & Sirkeci, 2011, p. 14) and the
sociospatial setting plays a crucial role as well. They conclude that:
individuals have nearly limitless needs and wants but only limited means through which to
satisfy them. In this situation migration becomes an important avenue toward satisfying those
wants—not all of them, but certainly more than might be possible without migration. (p. 19)
Drawing on this latter point, I argue that formal education is one of the facilitating
means for migration. Education is highly valued in Nigeria because it is understood
as a means of satisfying people’s needs and wants. It is often unable to fulfil those
expectations and ends up having the effect of creating another desire: the one for
migration, which many consider an answer to their needs.
Within the nexus of education, migration, and integration, I (a) highlight the
Nigerian migration history to integrate it into a cultural perspective of migration; (b)
focus on emigration patterns of highly skilled Nigerian migrants to understand bet-
ter their motivations and how migration is actually realized; (c) explain integration
as a complex process dependent on structural forces and individual abilities; and (d)
introduce a new migration model for West Africa that reflects the migrant’s point of
view. I argue that migration is a continuum in space and time leading to several
outcomes that can be explained with the concepts of brain drain, brain waste, and
brain circulation.
Methodology and Data
The findings are based on my analysis of: (a) 65 semi-structured interviews I con-
ducted with highly skilled Nigerian migrants in Germany, the United Kingdom,
and the United States in 2011 and 2012, and (b) a web-survey of alumni from
13 Formal Education as a Facilitator of Migration and Integration 249
three Nigerian universities (Ibadan, Jos, and Port Harcourt) I carried out in
2010–2011.
My analysis of the web-survey of 244 participants (from a database of 2874
alumni) provided detailed information about the interviewees’ educational and
socioeconomic backgrounds and other matters such as their occupational careers
and international experience. The gender distribution of the participants was 70 %
male and 30 % female. A majority of participants were between 26 and 45 years old
and about 60 % of them were married and had family. About 10 % of the participants
had international experience, either in the form of study leaves or work
experience.
The age distribution of the interviewees in the semi-structured interviews ranged
from 25 to 64 years, with most being between 30 and 50 years old. I interviewed 25
women and 40 men. The minimum amount of time spent in the destination country
at the time of the interviews was 1 year and the maximum was 31 years.
All of the interviews were conducted face-to-face, except for one telephone
interview. The interviews were recorded and transcribed completely, to miss no
important detail. The length of the interviews ranged from 30 min to 2 h. This varia-
tion in length depended on where they were conducted, whether in public (e.g.,
cafés or work places) or in private spaces (e.g., homes or cars). This also greatly
influenced the atmosphere of the interview. Of course, interviewer effects had to be
considered and were avoided as much as possible.
The analysis of the interview transcriptions was made in two main steps. First,
sections of the transcriptions were categorized in codings to obtain a proper picture
of the central issues mentioned. Second, a variety of types were identified and veri-
fied several times regarding their inner cohesion and outer distinction. The six types
identified were then entered into a time-space continuum, which served as the basis
of an actor-centered migration model representing the migrants’ perspective on the
migration process. This approach helped to reveal which structural opportunities
and constraints migrants face when trying to integrate themselves into the host soci-
eties. Quotations as well as narrations of migrants’ biographies are used in the fol-
lowing sections to gain a better understanding of the migrants’ point of view.
Anonymity is guaranteed by the usage of pseudonyms for all interviewee names.
Nigerian Migration History: Migration as a Cultural Event?
The cultural perspective can be projected onto Nigerian migration patterns because
of Nigeria’s extensive migration history, including immigration and internal migra-
tion, as well as emigration. In many ways, Nigeria is typical of West African migra-
tion patterns; after its independence from the United Kingdom in 1960, it initially
suffered an exodus of the highly skilled, induced by both British and Nigerian poli-
tics. As a British colony the country inherited the British educational system. Efforts
to achieve development through education in the early years of independence pro-
duced many secondary school graduates who could neither be absorbed by the
250 M. Mbah
Nigerian economy nor find space in tertiary education institutions. Therefore, many
Nigerians and nationals of other West African countries chose to migrate to the
former colonial powers or to the United States. National policy also fostered these
migration streams, with the former colonial powers often having liberal visa pro-
grams, and the Nigerian government implementing several educational programs to
educate Nigerians abroad (Adepoju, 1985, 1995; Makinwa-Adebusoye, 1992).
Those former developments are still affecting today’s migration patterns, with the
United Kingdom, for example, being the first migration choice for Nigerians if their
migration is educationally driven. During colonial times British rule created highly
mobile populations. In addition to the widespread rural-urban and north-south
movements in response to climate conditions and economic differences, a second
and opposite south-north stream, comprised mainly of Igbo2 people, emerged
because of an educational south-north gradient and the need for educated adminis-
trative staff in the north (Swindell, 1995). The artificial separation of members
belonging to the same ethnic group as a result of the border demarcation fostered
undocumented migration between neighboring countries, a problem that persists to
this day (Makinwa-Adebusoye, 1992). Another important cause was the Biafran
War between 1967 and 1970, which induced internal as well as international migra-
tion streams (Falola, 1999; Swindell, 1995).
Migration, both domestic and international, is thus a longstanding part of
Nigerian culture. It developed from internal, nomadic movements into rural-urban
mobilities and continues with international migration driven primarily by economic
and educational considerations to other (West) African countries and destinations
abroad (mainly the United Kingdom and the United States). Nowadays there are
many different forms of movements, ranging from emigration to back-and-forth
moves, remigration, and re-emigration. In the case of the Cape Verde Islands,
Carling and Akesson (2009, pp. 123, 132–140) attested a migration ideology shaped
through large-scale labor emigration flows between the 1960s and 1970s. Migration
is now a part of Cape Verdeans’ everyday lives because it has such a pervasive influ-
ence in their society, with many Cape Verdeans receiving phone calls and remit-
tances from migrants abroad, as well as experiencing houses being built by migrants.
This migration ideology, or migration culture, applies in other cases as well, such as
Nigeria or, for instance, Uganda (e.g., Binaisa, 2009), Ghana (e.g., Nieswand, 2014;
Smith, 2015), Mexico (e.g., Goldring, 2001), or Asian countries such as Bangladesh
(e.g., Dannecker, 2009), Indonesia, and China (e.g., Xiang & Lindquist, 2014).
Additional to this migration culture, push and pull factors may have a formative
influence on images migrants have of countries abroad. Those push and pull factors
refer to the political, economic, and educational situation in the countries of origin
and destination that can lead to an image of “greener pastures” abroad.
2
Nigeria has more than 250 ethnicities. The Igbo is one of the three main ethnic groups (Hausa,
Igbo, and Yoruba).
migration as Culturally Underpinned and Realized

E
Through Education
My understanding of emigration as being culturally underpinned means that my

research is located within the cultural optic of migration research (Cohen & Sirkeci,
2011; Fielding, 1992). The notion of culture is, therefore, shaping migration aspira-
tions (Carling, 2014; Carling et al., 2013; Efionayi & Piguet, 2011). I also draw on
concepts focusing on networks as being crucial to migration decisions (Choldin,
1999; Fawcett, 1989; Kennedy & Roudometof, 2002; Larsen, Urry, & Axhausen,
2006; Mitchell, 2000; Tilly, 2007). Carling (2002) identified involuntary immobility
as one important pattern of today’s migration. He argues for a separate analysis of
the aspiration and the ability to migrate and introduced an aspiration-ability model.
In my case study, the ability to migrate has already been proved, but what facilitated
the ability to migrate can be clarified. It remains to be analyzed whether the aspira-
tions can be interpreted as cultural in the sense of imaginaries leading to the migra-
tion aspirations of societies and how aspirations come into existence. Carling (2014)
acknowledges that desires for migration are “a fundamental aspect of society that
affects its life and development” (p. 5). He therefore proposes a new model of
migration decisions. Migration aspirations comprise both the desire and the capabil-
ity (or lack thereof) to move, which may result in mobility or immobility. If the goal
has not been achieved or the opposite of what has been wanted is realized, Carling
speaks of repression rather than realization (Carling, 2014). This same concept sup-
ports the development of my migration model. While Mitchell (2000) and others
argue for networks as the most important variable fostering migration decisions, I
argue that the media and narratives of migrants and return-migrants have developed
a special image of greener pastures abroad and continue to nourish it. This myth
leads to such an overwhelming desire for migration that contradictory information
is not adequately considered in the process of migration decisions.
Considering that a migration desire without migration ability cannot lead to a
migration decision, there is a need to examine other determinants. Some important
facilitators of migration are, among others, access to networks (kin or business) and
formal education (Castells, 2000; Choldin, 1999; Hardwick, 2008; King, 2012;
Larsen et al., 2006; Mitchell, 2000; Tilly, 2007). Moreover, my findings show that
visa requirements, in particular, can be very challenging to most seeking to leave a
country, confirming the influence of structural factors. A closer look at the literature
on decision-making processes of migrants shows that they are quite complex, and
that the models explaining them tend to be abstract (Cebula, 1979; DaVanzo, 1981;
Gardner, 1981; Parnwell, 1993; Wolpert, 1965). Goldin, Cameron, and Balarajan
(2009, pp. 97–120) identified three levels of decision-making, namely the individ-
ual, the societal, and the national influences. These levels attest to the complexity of
migration decisions and the importance of not overemphasizing any single one in
particular. Hence, I argue for a complexity of migration decisions in which images
and imagination play a crucial role, as do other factors such as networks and eco-
nomic, political, or e ducational circumstances. Literature focusing on networks as
252 M. Mbah
part of a newer e xplanatory concept in migration studies argues that networks are
social ties determining the individual’s opportunities to act (Hardwick, 2008;
Mitchell, 2000). Networks, therefore, foster migration decisions, because they make
migration processes less risky and costly, thus generating chain migration (Portes &
DeWind, 2004). My contribution in this chapter to the issue of networks is to view
them from a different perspective, less as decision-makers and more as facilitators
to implement a decision already made. Therefore, both education and networks are
important facilitators of migration.
Why do I come to this conclusion? In my analysis of the web-survey I observed
a multifaceted picture of migration aspirations and facilitators. Large family net-
works work as a push factor for migration in that they may be an asset in terms of
financial, social capital, or accommodation issues, both in Nigeria and abroad, that
eases educational attainment and migration. Furthermore, large families may
depend on migration to generate higher household income to satisfy their own needs
in their country of origin. Education facilitates migration because it is easier to
access migration channels with a university degree. First, a graduate with a first
degree seems to have a better chance of obtaining a student visa to study abroad.
Second, students at universities gain access to diverse networks and groups, as well
as to ideas and knowledge, which may motivate them more to go abroad to study.
Third, those who choose a career in science need to acquire international experience
to be competitive in the job market. A majority (76 %) of those alumni already liv-
ing abroad when the web-survey was conducted (2010–2011) stated that educa-
tional attainment was their main motivation. This was also true for alumni who lived
in Nigeria but had international experience. A minority had been abroad for holi-
days and very few of those who had spent time outside of Nigeria indicated having
international work experience. Educational attainment abroad, therefore, has added
importance for Nigerian migrants and former migrants.
Taking the standpoint that migration is a cultural matter, the findings of my study
show that a rather naïve image of life abroad quite often leads to migration deci-
sions. Migrants often follow the routes of former migrants. Prospective migrants
are, therefore, more concerned with the question of how to enter the migration pro-
cess than what kind of outcome migration will have or how to influence the out-
come. Accordingly, Nigerian migration history has induced a culture of migration
expressed in the belief that abroad is paradisiacal. Narratives of highly skilled
Nigerian migrants indicate that images are created not only through migrants, but
through the media as well. John, who had been living in Germany for over 15 years,
underlined the importance of media, in combination with narratives of migrants, in
influencing the images generated and the aspirations to leave the country:
[Y]ou see all the beautiful things…in movies,…and they tell you yes it’s basically the thing
you see on the movie and life is good, everything is wonderful here and the rest of it. Of
course, you want to be part of it.
This one-sided image of destination countries is accompanied by an expectation

of going to the United Kingdom for studies and returning to be immediately
absorbed into the Nigerian labor market. Susan, for example, who had been living
in the United Kingdom for 3 years at the time of the interview, came to study and
had recently finished her master’s degree. She had experienced people who had left
Nigeria for further education and returned to Nigeria being more competitive than
Nigerians who have not been abroad:
Actually the idea of studying abroad…came from my previous background because I did
have my internship with Chevron Nigeria Limited…I found that some of my bosses actu-
ally studied abroad and then they came back to Nigeria to work.
The examples above reflect the image of the country of origin “as underdevel-
oped space” (Akesson & Baaz Eriksson, 2015, p. 23) and the migrants as being
“more developed and advanced” (p. 23) after acquiring western university educa-
tion and having been migrants in a developed country. The positive image of abroad
is so deeply rooted that even strong foundations of trust may not convince prospec-
tive migrants of the opposite. This is shown by the statement of Dennis, whose
parents had lived in the United Kingdom previously, and who, himself, has been
living in the United Kingdom for more than 10 years:
You believe that life is better here [in the United Kingdom]. You believe that you can earn
a better living here.... My parents were here in [the] seventies but you don’t want to believe
[them: his parents] because what you see on TV, you watch CNN, you watch movies, and
with those the picture that is painted is wonderful, better than what you have in Neija at that
point in time…so I was more likely to believe my peers, my friends who had traveled but
they never gave us the true picture but even if they did, we would still have some doubts as
in then “why are you there, why haven’t you run back?”
The image of greener pastures is fed and preserved by migrants who feel forced
to appear to be successful people, even if they are not. The role of one who has made
it is also attractive to the migrants because of the accompanying gain in status. The
following quote from Michael, who was living in the United States, describes this
very vividly:
In Nigeria everybody, if you come from here [the United States], everybody is like “ooh”!
They respect you, they fear you, they follow you around [and] you feel big!…Everybody
wants to stay in line and talk to me…so we, that are there [before emigration], we thought
it is going for him, if I can go over there it will go for me.
Fostering the migration decision is the image of greener pastures, a perception

that generates aspirations and desires for migration and spawns a culture of migra-
tion in which the question becomes how to leave the country rather than if or why
to leave the country. As George, who had been living in Germany for more than 19
years, put it: “If you can leave, you know just leave,…God will be with you.”
Migrants search for facilitators to aid their entry into the migration process, but
do not examine, for instance, what a foreign system really looks like and how they
will adjust to it. The question raised in this section is: How do highly skilled Nigerian
migrants carry out their migration decision? Which factors—facilitators as well as
constraints—can be identified?
The threshold approach of van der Velde and van Naerssen (2015) focuses on all
dimensions of the decision-making process at the personal and structural levels,
including those “affecting whether, when and where to migrate” (p. 6). In their
254 M. Mbah
approach, the personal level also comprises social networks and the level of infor-
mation available. The structural level considers the socioeconomic and political
situation. They identified three thresholds: the mental threshold (the mindset of
people to become a migrant), the locational threshold (familiarity with the destina-
tion country), and the trajectory threshold (route to the destination country) (van der
Velde & van Naerssen, 2015). My findings support this thresholds approach on
three accounts. First, the mental threshold is regarded as the imagination leading to
the aspiration for migration. Second, the locational threshold comes into play
through the role of networks. My findings indicate that networks do play a role
when potential migrants are actively looking for possibilities to leave the country
and are big facilitators in the realization of that dream. Third, the trajectory thresh-
old takes into account the possibility that certain factors in a particular migrant’s life
may outweigh other trajectories; for example, if a certain individual is less able to
connect to networks than another. The most important facilitator for highly skilled
Nigerian migrants in this regard is university education, because it allows them to
apply for a student visa, which seems easier to obtain than other types of visas.
Some students in the United Kingdom told me, for example, that they had planned
their migration for a long time and even saved money to pay the university fees in
the United Kingdom. Nonetheless, not everyone who faces difficulties in the coun-
try of origin or simply aspires to migrate has the resources and capability to do so.
Other factors such as networks and sociospatial contexts play a role in having access
to migration. In this regard Smith’s (2015) description of a Ghanaian prospective
migrant who migrated to the Netherlands indicates that networks, as well as coinci-
dence, play a crucial role. That particular migrant had an uncle, a man of influence
with a huge network, who helped him obtain a visa and financed his flight. Such
“big men” are gatekeepers to resources and networks (e.g., Utas, 2012). There
might be a hidden rationality behind the myth of greener pastures that is created
mainly through images. The existence of migration facilitators, such as education,
dual citizenship, green card or marriage offers, and financial assets, strengthen the
idea of migration as a relevant solution.
I ntegration Between Structural Forces and Individual

Abilities: Migration as a Continuum in Space and Time
The above argument of a culture of migration now leads to the following question:
How does the aspiration of highly skilled Nigerians to migrate affect the Nigerian
educational system? With this inquiry I aim to challenge the rather negative per-
spective on brain drain, taking into account more positive interpretations of brain
circulation. I argue—in spite of a certain extent of brain drain—for a type of brain
circulation that could be supported through specific policy programs and progress in
the quality of education in Nigeria itself. Most graduates leave the country after
completion of a bachelor’s degree in order to gain an international degree (master’s
or PhD). This rather low level of tertiary education on the part of migrants can there-
fore not really be interpreted as brain drain. The focus should lie on the question of
what happens to those who emigrated to further their education abroad with the
intention of returning after graduation. The findings show that most highly skilled
Nigerian migrants face difficulties furthering their education abroad, starting with
the issue of getting their degrees accredited by the host country’s educational sys-
tem. This accreditation process requires either re-examination, which takes time
and can be quite expensive as well, or starting over, which means repeating their
university education from scratch. Neither of these possibilities is attractive from a
migrant’s point of view. The quantitative data provides some evidence of the extent
to which Nigerian graduates are involved in migration and what motivations they
have. As stated above, 10 % of the alumni3 migrated, but the data also covers return
migrants and non-migrants on short-term stays abroad.
The analysis of the qualitative data revealed a typology of the highly skilled
Nigerian migrants that may be linked to certain knowledge flows, namely brain
waste, brain drain, and brain gain or brain circulation (e.g., Salt & Findlay, 1989;
Chikanda, 2007; Lee & Kim, 2010; Pecoraro, 2013). Out of the 65 interviews, six
types of migrants were identified: student migrants, privileged migrants, establisher
migrants, dependent migrants, integrated migrants, and transmigrants. Student
migrants typically are in the country of destination for a few years (1–5 years), are
actively involved in education, send no remittances (indeed they are likely to be
receiving remittances from Nigeria), and are willing to return after graduation, or
after some work experience, if conditions in the home country are right. Privileged
migrants are involved in different fields, including education, but may also be
employed. For them migration is easier to access because they already possess a
residency permit for the country of destination through their familiar relations. That
advantage, as well as their larger and often more well-established networks, gives
them better access to the labor market in the destination countries. Moreover, those
traveling to the United Kingdom whose parents are return migrants have better lan-
guage skills, another benefit for labor market integration. They send no or only
small amounts of money to their country of origin, either because most of their fam-
ily members are abroad or because their family members in Nigeria are well off and
they do not actively plan their return. Their length of stay in the country of destina-
tion varies, with some of them, therefore, visiting Nigeria only periodically, which
means less than every 3 years. The third type, the establisher migrant, is struggling
to integrate into the host society, mainly doing menial jobs, trying to succeed, but
facing various setbacks or failures. Establishers have responsibilities in both soci
eties (Nigeria and the host country). They send remittances to Nigeria, although
they have to take care of family members in the country of destination as well. They
do not plan to return because they do not have the means to do so. Dependent
migrants are those highly skilled Nigerian migrants who did not decide on their own
to migrate; rather they married a Nigerian who already lived in the country of
3
Alumni are here Nigerians who hold a university degree (first or more) from one of the three
Nigerian universities (Ibadan, Jos, Port Harcourt).
256 M. Mbah
d estination. Their everyday lives are often centered around the family, and they may
have children born shortly after immigration or even prior to it. The fifth type is the
integrated migrant. They are well integrated into the host society, meaning they
have well-paid jobs in the tertiary or quaternary sector. They have family in both
societies and thus responsibilities to take care of in both countries, including send-
ing remittances. Integrated migrants make visits to Nigeria either regularly (once a
year) or periodically (less than every 3 years). Whether they will return permanently
to Nigeria in the future is unclear because they feel at home in both countries. The
last type of migrant is the transmigrant. These migrants are highly mobile, with
travel being their most important characteristic. Visits to Nigeria are made not only
regularly, but in fact quite frequently, meaning more than once a year. Keeping in
contact with people in both countries is part of this type of migrant’s everyday life
because they are often involved in typical migrant entrepreneurship. They also face
responsibilities in both societies but find it easier to fulfill them because of their
close contacts with people in both the destination and source countries. The status
of transmigration means having fulfilled the aim of being part of both cultures with-
out losing one’s sense of identity or home.
Based on these types, I argue for a conceptualization of migration as a dynamic
process with several possible trajectories, depending on the individual’s develop-
ment and preferences, which evolve over time and space. The types, too, therefore
must be regarded as non-static affiliations that change along with a migrant’s expe-
riences, preferences, and choices. For a better understanding, I base my argumenta-
tion on the example of a biography of a migrant, James, who migrated to the United
Kingdom in 2004 (Fig. 13.1), 2 years after completing his first degree in Nigeria. He
was born in the United Kingdom and lived part of his childhood there. His parents
returned to Nigeria when he was in his first year of secondary school, in 1989, when
he was 12 years old. His migration was first as a dependent type and then as a privi-
leged type. I mention the former type from the first phase of the life cycle and his
early childhood, in spite of that period not having been part of an independent
migration process, because it did influence his migration biography. Both of his
parents had studied in the United Kingdom but then decided to return to Nigeria:
first just his father, who worked in Nigeria as a banker, and later the whole family.
James recounted that it had always been clear to him that he would re-emigrate to
the United Kingdom one day. After finishing his bachelor’s degree, he did his
National Youth Service Corps in Nigeria with Chevron, an experience that rein-
forced his wish to emigrate to the United Kingdom all the more. Although he was
privileged in the sense that he already had British citizenship and relatives in the
United Kingdom who backed him financially, he struggled finding a job. It took him
1 year to find a job, but he finally found work as a “custody officer” (his own term).
He went on to finish his master’s degree with the hope of finding a better job in the
United Kingdom, although he had in the meantime managed to acquire property for
himself and his nuclear family (showing that he was becoming an integrated type).
He continued to communicate with people in Nigeria, visited Nigeria on a regular
basis, and established a migrant entrepreneurship initiative (as he attempted to
develop into a transmigrant). His parents and some of his siblings were in Nigeria;
Fig. 13.1 Migration as a spatiotemporal continuum (Design by author)

258 M. Mbah
his brother and other relatives were in the United Kingdom, as were his nuclear fam-
ily of his wife and two children. He did not know if and when he wanted to return,
because it was initially important to him to let his children grow up in the United
Kingdom so that they would receive a Western standard of education. According to
this narrative, it appeared that he would either continue to tend toward being the
integrated type or would become a transmigrant in the future.
In summary, the proposed model of a spatiotemporal migration continuum shows
(a) that individuals develop over time and can therefore change from one type of
migrant to another. There are four classic initial types: the student, the privileged, the
establisher, and the dependent migrant. Three of these types do not appear to endure
throughout the entire migration biography, namely the student, privileged, and depen-
dent migrant types, because individuals join the labor market after residing for differ-
ing periods of time in the destination country, depending on the sociospatial context.
(b) Return is not necessarily permanent, but can involve short-term stays as well
as periodic visits, with re-emigration after some time becoming a consideration. (c)
Migration can involve several countries: at least two, the source and the destination
country. (d) Migration can start and continue at various points in life, for instance,
as a child, as a student, during work life, and as a retiree. And (e) decision-making
during the migration process depends on the current life-cycle phase of the migrant
and is influenced by temporal and various sociospatial contexts, as well as by per-
sonal preferences, that can either be seen as factors of opportunity or of constraint.
Furthermore, I argue that the six types have different developmental effects with
respect to the level of transnationalism and a person’s self-identity. Transnationalism
is performed in various ways through, for example, visits, communication (phone,
email, etc.), and money transfers. The self-identity and emotional belonging regard-
ing where home is depends very much on two factors: first, time spent in the host
society, and second, integration into the host society. Migrants can have hybrid
identities and regard more than one place as home (see also Ralph & Staeheli,
2011). Referring to my argumentation regarding the six types, it is possible (follow-
ing Faist, 2008) to categorize those types according to three possible knowledge
flows (brain drain, brain waste, and brain gain or circulation) that are taken as syn-
onyms for development pathways (Fig. 13.2).
Brain drain stands for a loss of knowledge from the source country’s perspective.
This applies to migrants who are highly skilled (holding a bachelor’s, master’s or
higher degree) and emigrate—perhaps after collecting some work experience—to
another country, losing every link of exchange with the country of origin. The
knowledge these migrants acquired in the country of origin now contributes to the
development and competitiveness of the country of destination. This is particularly
true because highly skilled migrants are regarded as human capital, a fact that helps
Fig. 13.2 Developmental impacts of migrants in reference to different knowledge flows (Design
by author)
them integrate into the labor market of the host society and also guarantees the suc-
cessful utilization of their acquired skills (see also Chikanda, 2007; Rizzica, 2008).
Brain waste is more than just a loss of knowledge, because acquired skills and
knowledge remain completely unused in the country of origin, as well as in the
country of destination. Brain waste thus means a deskilling of the migrant labor
force in host societies (Faist, 2008; Fossland, 2013; Pecoraro, 2013).
In contrast to these knowledge flows that are rather negative from the source
country’s perspective, brain gain and brain circulation are represented as win-win-
win situations. The host country gains human capital, both the home and host soci-
ety economies experience a positive impact resulting from circulatory knowledge
flows, and the migrants themselves also benefit (Salt & Findlay, 1989; Findlay,
260 M. Mbah
1995; Jöns, 2009; Lee & Kim, 2010). The country of destination may also see
increased tax income. Remittances to the country of origin supplement its national
income. They might also induce development by encouraging higher educational
attendance rates and the establishment of small-scale businesses, with new ideas
arising from entrepreneurship possibly creating new jobs and income and encourag-
ing a specific societal culture. The migrant benefits from circulatory migration pro-
cesses in that he or she gains in status, maintains contacts in both countries, develops
a hybrid identity, may own two or more homes, and comes to regard transnational
activities as self-fulfillment. Transnationalism includes or, at least, promotes brain
circulation, which is a process that can support economic development in source
countries as Ho (2011), Jöns, Mavroudi, and Heffernan (2015), Larner (2007) and
Saxenian (2006) have argued. Some of the migrant types identified here, for
instance, the transmigrant, the integrated migrant, and the student migrant, can be
located in the spectrum of brain gain or brain circulation. In Fig. 13.2 other migrant
types are located closer to the angles marking negatively connoted knowledge flows
such as brain drain (the privileged migrant type) or brain waste (the dependent and
establisher migrant types).
Simplistic definitions and understandings of knowledge flows are highly con-
tested because migration is viewed as rather multidirectional and complex. Simple
contiguities are negotiable and are not suitable for depicting and explaining the
nexus between migration and development. Akesson and Baaz Eriksson (2015)
argue that policies focusing on brain drain neglect issues of racism and discrimina-
tion in the countries of destination that often lead to a downgrading of skills of
African migrants. The authors postulate that migrants are also unable to easily
transfer skills and knowledge acquired in countries of destination back to their
countries of origin to contribute to development there. They see a failure of a bot-
tom-up concept in both cases and a need for a change in policies. In considering
Akesson and Baaz Eriksson’s (2015) argumentation, I surmise that highly skilled
Nigerian migrants do face racism and discrimination, which often lead to a down-
grading of skills, but in contrast to the authors’ view, I argue that this process of
downgrading does not mean that migrants inevitably remain in miserable economic
or social situations. Depending on the time spent in the host society, on their socio-
spatial context and individual capacities, highly skilled migrants are able to get
good employment and develop a professional career, as well as contribute to the
economic and social development of the origin society.
Moreover, I argue that a focus on economic benefits that can be described as
short-term effects is not suitable for evaluating knowledge flows involving highly
skilled Nigerian migrants. Instead, social and cultural capital must also be included
in the concepts of brain drain, brain waste, and brain gain or brain circulation.
As Binaisa (2009), and more specifically Levitt (1998, p. 933), defines social
remittances as “normative structures, systems of practice and social capital”, I argue
that these social remittances have to be included in concepts of knowledge flows.
I define those developmental effects not only as economic, but also in terms of cul-
tural and social capital. This means that long-term processes, for example, changes
of cultural meanings and societal behaviors resulting from new information, and the
influence of different ways of life introduced by returning migrants (long and short-
term returns), play a crucial role in such knowledge flows but are not well quantifi-
able. Jöns (2009) has shown this effect in the context of transnational knowledge
networks through the example of circular academic mobility to Germany.
The six types in my typology of highly skilled Nigerian migrants can be sorted
into a dynamic system of knowledge flows, as I have illustrated in Fig. 13.2. In that
diagram the closer a particular type is to an angle of the triangle, the closer its asso-
ciation with the corresponding knowledge flow is considered to be. Individuals of
the types located further away from the angles of the triangle cannot be regarded as
expressing one specific knowledge flow. This affiliation may remain so until those
individuals change their trajectory as part of dynamic migration processes. Migrants
are part of migration processes as long as they continue to move, both in terms of
crossing borders and in terms of changing their migrant type. The direction and
level of development flows may change over time, depending on how individuals’
actions and preferences change.
In this section, I emphasized the dynamic quality of migration processes and
linked that aspect to knowledge flows impacting both source and destination coun-
tries. A migrant’s individual level of development was also considered. Accordingly,
migration can proceed along a spatiotemporal continuum, with several potential
outcomes contingent on the trajectories taken by individual migrants. These out-
comes are not static and evolve in response to the migrants’ ongoing development.
I was able to classify these into six types of highly skilled migrants on the basis of
a case study involving Nigerian university graduates.
igration Culturally Underpinned and Educationally

M
Materialized: A Migration Model of Highly Skilled Nigerians
The migration processes described above can be summarized in a migration model

presenting the migrant’s perspective. I retain an actor-oriented view outlining the
structural and individual opportunities and constraints that migrants face. The case
study of Nigerian university graduates thus enables a broader understanding of
migration processes. The migration trajectory model informed by the migrant’s per-
spective (see Fig. 13.3) describes how the migration process is experienced by
highly skilled Nigerian migrants. It takes into account the entire process of migra-
tion, describing the reasons for emigration, the decision-making, and actual migra-
tion; the aims and hopes of the migrant; and the opportunities and constraints they
meet while in the integration process. The model also accounts for a shift of aims
that can result from the situational context in the country of destination, from the
262
Fig. 13.3 Model of the migration process from the migrants’ perspective (Design by author)
M. Mbah
migrants’ own change of self-identity, and their altered perceptions of home. The
decision-making and integration process is influenced by several factors. These are
shown in the boxes with arrows pointing in the direction of the migrants’ develop-
ment status (boxes in the middle lateral segment of the diagram), to be read from left
to right. The other boxes indicate migrants’ strategies and possible influences on
both the country of destination and of origin (arrows indicate the direction of
activity).
To describe the model step by step, I start with (1) the reasons articulated for the
desire to migrate that are influenced by external and internal factors. External fac-
tors come into play through laws and administrative requirements, as well as through
special programs undertaken by potential destination countries. These circum-
stances either facilitate or constrain migration and play a role in the migrant’s deci-
sion to consider migration. Internal factors are ones in the sending country that may
affect the desire for migration through influences such as narratives, media, culture,
and specific images. Potential migrants articulated to me various reasons why they
considered leaving to be the only or best option, also explaining how they had for-
mulated the wish to migrate and finally actively begun to plan how to accomplish it.
From an actor’s point of view, these steps may not be occurring sequentially, but
simultaneously, and must, therefore, not necessarily constitute a deliberate process.
However, my argument is that migration decision making is not that spontaneous in
most cases. Rather, it is an underlying wish that is sharpened through several events
and influences, and either pushed forward actively or undertaken by chance.
(2) Entering the migration process usually requires some preparation. For highly
skilled Nigerians, this includes activating existing networks or developing new ones
and meeting visa requirements on the basis of their formal education, an approach
that requires opting for a student visa. This is step two in the migration model.
(3) The third step is migration, with certain of the migrants’ motivations stem-
ming from the “greener pastures syndrome” and their hopes for higher status in their
country of origin.
(4) Migrants pursue those aims according to their individual capabilities, which are
quite constrained by their individual characters and their sociospatial contexts in the
destination country. Constraints not considered during the migration decision-making
process can cause migrants to postpone continually the fulfillment of their previous
aims. This occurs mainly because migrants do not adequately inform themselves about
the process of integration in the destination country before emigrating. Prior to emigra-
tion the question of how to access the migration process is at the forefront, not how to
integrate or manage after arriving in the destination country. Migrants, therefore, are
forced to postpone their aims in the fourth step, as they realize that they need more time
for integration, hence developing other wishes as well as other demands. During the
migrants’ time of stay in the country of destination, they may be able to develop social
links and networks. Social and economic integration is a strategy as well as an aim that
causes a shift in the individual’s self-identity and understanding of home. The desire for
a permanent return to the source country may be continually articulated but postpone-
ment and unplanned, yet fostered, integration in the host society (see also Sinatti, 2011)
often results in this goal being more of a myth than a reality. Both pathways—return
and integration—are maintained in furthering self-employment possibilities related to
264 M. Mbah
typical migrant entrepreneurship in the country of destination. These enterprises enable

migrants to stay linked to both societies and to acquire property in both countries.
Remittances are also a manifestation of the promise of return and part of dealing with
a migrant’s responsibilities in the source country.
(5) Finally, migrants adjust their aims and shift to a transnational way of life—
another of the potential outcomes of the migration process. Transnationalism
includes return migration; whether it is permanent or short term does not matter,
because the very strong networks these migrants meanwhile have in both countries
have led to significant changes in their self-identities. Migrants now perceive home
to be in both places and are eager to keep in touch with their contacts in the source
and destination countries. Migrants usually perceive transnationalism as being
preferable to permanent return because of their responsibilities and strong links vis-
à-vis the host society and because of their changed, more “hybrid” self-identities
and understanding of home. Recent literature (e.g., Akesson and Baaz Eriksson,
2015) takes this preference into account and confirms the interpretation of migra-
tion leading to transnationalism rather than permanent return or just integration,
with no linkages preserved to the country of origin. With time, migrants appear to
be more likely to stay in the destination country, while maintaining strong links to
the source country. The destination country experiences financial benefits from this,
for instance, in tax income, as well as in the form of the human capital represented
by highly skilled migrants who successfully integrate into the labor market and
make use of their acquired knowledge. Furthermore, migrants may have the socio-
cultural impact of creating a multinational society with different cultures, languages,
and mixtures of those. The source country may also experience socioeconomic
change, as the narratives of migrants continually shift images and cultures;
temporary return visits lead to exchanges between migrants and non-migrants,
possibly fostering knowledge transfers, remittances, and even income generation
and entrepreneurship in the source country.
Conclusions
In this chapter, I have suggested considering education not only as a driving force of
migration undertaken to acquire knowledge but also as an instrument for gaining
access to migration processes. Applying a cultural perspective to migration
(Fielding, 1992; Cohen & Sirkeci, 2011), I identified migration as an intrinsic vari-
able in the daily lives of Nigerian university graduates—as Carling and Akesson
(2009) found for Cape Verdean migrants—that influences the mindsets and attitudes
of migrants, former migrants, and non-migrants. Migration is seen by Nigerian uni-
versity graduates as a path to greener pastures that is worth their effort. Access to
migration thus becomes the overall aim of Nigerian university graduates, despite
circumstances contradicting this choice, such as secure employment in Nigeria or
narratives drawing a rather negative image of living abroad.
Synthesizing my findings from the analysis of the interviews and the web-sur-
vey, I have showed that there are both personal and structural constraints hindering
the effective use of the knowledge base of highly skilled Nigerian migrants. Typical
personal constraints are, for instance, inadequate information and preparedness
before emigration. The most important structural constraints are the differing edu-
cational systems and lack of accreditation of foreign degrees in the countries of
destination, as well as an absence of funding for master’s degree programs in the
country of origin.
In this chapter, I have argued that education functions alongside networks as a
facilitator of migration because requirements for a student visa are easier to fulfill
and universities abroad are more likely to accept migrants who have a university
degree. Furthermore, I defined six types of highly skilled Nigerian migrants to con-
ceptualize migration as a dynamic process with several possible trajectories over
time and space. Migration is thus no longer a uni- or bidirectional process, but, in
fact, a multidirectional and multidimensional one with several back-and-forth steps,
both in terms of national border crossings and shifting between the six migrant
types. Accordingly, outcomes cannot be declared as either positive or negative, but
need to be evaluated in specific contexts. Jöns (2015) concludes in respect to brain
circulation that it “captures physical and virtual, temporary and permanent move-
ments; it accounts for the increasingly networked nature of talent migration; and it
avoids a priori assumptions about causal relationships between the nature, duration,
and effects of talent mobility” (p. 374). Migrants often develop transnational links
that go beyond chatting or communicating with private contacts. The development
of transnational ways of life furthers the circulation of knowledge, capital, and
value flows. These circulations may influence a variety of outcomes that cannot be
foreseen.
With the introduction of a West African model depicting the migration process
from the migrants’ perspective, I incorporated the findings of my interviews and
my web-survey into a more abstract model that is supported by other case studies
(e.g., Ammassari, 2004; Efionayi & Piguet, 2011; Hunter, 2011; Sinatti, 2011;
Tiemoko, 2004). It depicts the migration process, from the migrants’ images of
destination countries and articulated reasons, to the migration facilitators, the
accomplishment of migration, the integration process, and the possible intention of
returning. Hereby I take into account that migrants can take multiple trajectories.
However, the model indicates that the aims of migration are likely to shift with
time, from status and greener pastures to transnationalism, which promotes brain
circulation (e.g., Ho, 2011; Jöns et al., 2015; Larner, 2007). Nigeria could, there-
fore, usefully draw on its highly skilled migrants abroad, as it is already attempting
to do through, for instance, migrant diaspora organizations such as the Nigerians in
Diaspora Organization (NIDO).
Educational migration can be regarded as harmful to Nigerian educational and
economic systems, although it can create benefits when transnational links are
established between Nigerian universities and abroad, and between local and inter-
national companies in ways similar to those discussed by Saxenian (2005, 2006) in
regard to transnational networks constituted through brain circulation between the
United States and India, China, and other Asian countries. Further research could
focus on the conditions that enable the establishment of mutually beneficial transna-
tional linkages of highly skilled migrants between source and destination countries
266 M. Mbah
(concentrating on African countries), in an approach carried out for other countries

in Asia, Europe, and the United States (for the IT sector, see Saxenian, 2006; for
schools and universities, see Waters, 2006; 2007; Jöns, 2009; Jöns et al., 2015).
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the material.
Chapter 14
Trans-knowledge? Geography, Mobility,
and Knowledge in Transnational Education
Johanna L. Waters and Maggi Leung
TNE [Transnational Education] programs are sold as

time-space compressors, extending the spatial reach of
immobile consumers (potential students) who aspire to tap
cultural and social capital nurtured at universities (what
Brinton [2000] has termed “institutional social capital”)
located at the core of the global knowledge economy.
(Leung & Waters, 2013, p. 1)
Is there anything more mobile and less sticky than the knowledge imparted and cre-
ated through transnational higher education (TNE)? The very notion of transna
tionalism implies an inherent mobility and fluidity—a process at ease with
geographical distance and difference. By definition, the mobility of knowledge lies
at the heart of TNE; it crosses, transects, and overcomes the parochialism and
embeddedness of national education systems, to deliver educational programs to
students who are both culturally and spatially removed from home. TNE provides,
we argue, a fascinating case study of the mobility of knowledge, not least because it
lies at the forefront of recent, hugely significant developments in the international-
ization of higher education (HE), globally (Department for Business, Innovation
and Skills [BIS], 2011; Bone, 2010). And yet, very little is known about the geogra-
phies of knowledge within this innovative form of teaching and learning (Leung &
Waters, 2013a; Waters & Leung, 2013b).
In this chapter, we critically examine the mobility of knowledge as a conse-
quence of the growth and expansion of TNE, focusing specifically on the movement
of academic programs between the United Kingdom and Hong Kong, whereby U.K.
universities are the providers and Hong Kong higher education institutions (HEI)
J.L. Waters (*)

Department of Human Geography, School of Geography and the Environment, University of
Oxford, OX1 2JD Oxford, UK
M. Leung
Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Utrecht University,
3512 JE Utrecht, The Netherlands

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-44654-7_14
270 J.L. Waters and M. Leung
the hosts.1 We seek to address a number of questions, including: (a) What is knowl-
edge in relation to TNE? (b) How important is knowledge within TNE? (c) How
well does knowledge travel through TNE? (d) What are the implications of these
findings for TNE (particularly for students and the providers of transnational forms
of education)?
The chapter draws on the results of a recent research project (2009–2011), in
which we undertook a qualitative examination of the transnationalization of higher
education in contemporary Hong Kong, with a particular focus on U.K. (university)
providers. In our project, we conducted 70 in-depth interviews with students (38)
and graduates (32) in Hong Kong, but also acquired substantial input from 18 British
universities (the providers of TNE) and nine employers and recruiters. Some 36
British universities offer over 600 different degree courses (at the bachelor’s, mas-
ter’s, and PhD levels) in Hong Kong at the present time, and the number of pro-
grams continues to grow (British Council, 2010). The United Kingdom has 388,135
offshore students globally, compared to over two million students in U.K. higher
education (HE) in total (British Council, 2010), but British universities are particu-
larly prominent in Hong Kong, where over 70 % of all TNE is provided by British
higher education institutions (HEIs), followed by Australia at around 20 %
(Education Bureau, 2012). The United Kingdom is, therefore, an established pres-
ence in the Hong Kong educational landscape.
A simple definition of transnational education is provided by McBurnie and
Ziguras (2007): “[in TNE] learners are located in a country other than the one in
which the awarding institution is based” (p. 21). Such offshoring of education is:
only possible because higher education is now able to traverse time and space to an extent
never before achievable. For two decades now, transnational programs have been at the
experimental leading edge of efforts to store and standardize curricula to allow for the
delivery of a replicated curriculum to multiple student groups at different times in different
places by different teaching staff. (p. 2)
In other words, TNE involves the capturing, storing, and conveying of academic
knowledge. Basic teaching materials are transported (in hard or electronic format)
and ideas on how to run the programs are often exchanged (between the provider
and the host institution). Some transnational negotiation is inevitable (rarely does
the host institution embrace and adopt the teaching ideas of the foreign university
wholesale and without question). Core textbooks are physically transported, as are
exam scripts for marking. Transnational relationships are built—between the pro-
vider and the host of the programs and, of course, between the provider and their
overseas students. Usually, TNE involves the physical mobility of academic staff (to
teach, to examine, or to provide a “Western” presence at graduation ceremonies), as
1
In this chapter, we use the following terms: provider refers to the country or academic institution
awarding the degree or other qualification in TNE. In the case of our research, these are U.K. HEIs.
Host refers to the country or institution delivering the academic programs (with respect to our
research, these are HEIs or other educational establishments in Hong Kong).
14 Trans-knowledge? Geography, Mobility, and Knowledge in Transnational Education 271
we will expand upon below. It should not be assumed, however, that the “traversing
of time and space” through TNE, as described by McBurnie and Ziguras (2007), is
easy or necessarily wholly successful.
An idealistic portrait of TNE would depict the unproblematic transplanting of
ideas, theories, and empirical realities from one nation-state (continent or region of
the world) to another. This, indeed, is how many of the marketing materials relating
to TNE portray their programs (Leung & Waters, 2013). When necessary, those
delivering these academic programs will tailor the materials to their local audi-
ence—to provide insight and offer examples students can better identify with. Most
of the knowledge contained in the courses, however, is assumed to be generic
enough to travel and be understood by a foreign audience. There will be very little
in the way of cultural barriers to students’ understanding and the delivery of materi-
als in English will be straightforward, because students will be expected to have an
adequate grasp of the language of instruction.
As we will elaborate below, our research on TNE in Hong Kong, however, sug-
gests some problems with this ideal representation. The embodied realities of
knowledge transfer and exchange in TNE include some significant cultural chal-
lenges because of a divergence between the provider and host institutions regarding
their academic practices and expectations. The courses often involve students with
an inadequate grasp of the English language and local lecturers or tutors hired to
deliver these programs widely reverting to Cantonese (for ease of teaching) and
eschewing English. Many of the students we interviewed complained that empirical
examples were far too embedded in a U.K. context to be relevant to their situation
in Hong Kong; conversely, others, who were hoping for a British experience, com-
plained about the lack of this within their program.
Our research left us pondering the following questions: how much thought do the
providers of TNE put into the spatiality of knowledge transfer and exchange? To
what extent do they critically engage with the geography of their practices, and with
what consequences? We refer here to our data, as well as some previously published
work on this topic, to address these questions (see Leung & Waters, 2013; Waters &
Leung, 2013a, 2013b). We begin, however, with a brief discussion of some of the
conceptual ideas underpinning debates in geography around mobility and
knowledge.
Geography, Mobility, and Knowledge
Within geography, knowledge has been widely discussed in relation to the impact of
information and communication technologies (ICTs) upon its transfer. Debates
have tended to polarize around two competing claims: those who argue that ICTs
have succeeded in overcoming the friction of distance and enabled long-distance
knowledge transfers to occur; and those who (conversely) have emphasized the
inevitable stickiness and social embeddedness of (particularly tacit) knowledge,
wherein face-to-face interactions remain essential for successful knowledge transfer

and exchange to take place (see Glücker, Meusburger, & Meskioui [2013] on the
complexities of defining different types of knowledge). Amin (2003), for example,
has argued in favor of claims that technology has greatly facilitated knowledge
transfer. He has written: “that relational proximity is also possible in distantiated
networks, through mobility and a series of other technologies of contact and transla-
tion” (Amin, 2003, p. 116). In his view, “nearness” does not only connote “spatial
proximity,” but can be achieved in other (non-territorial) ways, which can include
(in the context of international firms): “translation, travel, shared routines, talk,
common passions, base standards, brokers, epistemic and community bonding, and
the ordering and orientation provided by files, documents, codes, common software
and so on” (Amin, 2003, p. 127). Such things, Amin opines, are not necessarily
achieved through physical spatial proximity. A similar line of argument is pursued
by Faulconbridge (2006), who, on the basis of his research on professional service
firms, argues that tacit knowledge “can have global geographies when knowledge
management practices focus on reproducing rather than transferring knowledge
across space” (p. 517) (see also earlier work by Beaverstock, 2004, 2005, for a pre-
cursor to these arguments). This, we suggest, may hold some relevance for how we
understand the mobility of knowledge within TNE. Within TNE, knowledge may, in
fact, be reproduced rather than directly and unproblematically transferred. The
reproduction of knowledge requires, at its heart, an understanding of that knowl-
edge. Faulconbridge (2006) describes the “global stretching” of knowledge in pro-
fessional service firms, and argues that while concepts of “local stickiness” invoked
in relation to tacit knowledge are useful for emphasizing the difficulties that some-
times arise when attempting to transfer knowledge within and between organiza-
tions, it is also necessary to recognize that learning may be spatially stretched
beyond scale-defined limits. There is, Faulconbridge asserts, an important differ-
ence between knowledge transfer and what he terms the social production of new
knowledge; globally stretched or spatially distantiated learning, he argues actually
involves the social production of new knowledge and not knowledge transfer (as it
is conventionally understood).
A counterview on geography and knowledge transfer has been elaborated by
Morgan (2004), who described the “exaggerated death of geography” (p. 3). ICTs,
he argues, do not enable the unproblematic transferring of ideas over space. Those
claiming that ICTs have such “distance-destroying capacity … [are] … conflating
spatial reach with social depth” (p. 3). This is the difference between information
and understanding—the former can be transferred using technology over space,
whereas the latter necessitates face-to-face interaction and exchange. This idea
reflects wider debates in economic geography, in which it is claimed that tacit
knowledge is “locationally sticky” (Amin, 2003). Gertler (2003) makes the follow-
ing related claims about knowledge transfer:
learning involving tacit knowledge transfer, when attempted across major institutional-
contextual boundaries, will be subject to formidable obstacles, even in the presence of sub-
stantial corporate wealth and resources … The upshot is that transcending … spatial
proximity may be possible, but it will also be difficult and expensive, because of the funda-
mentally different institutional environments involved … Technological fixes … may not
be sufficient to overcome these obstacles. (p. 95)
These claims, we argue, have significant resonance with our research findings relat-
ing to TNE enacted between the United Kingdom and Hong Kong. TNE, more
generally, invariably involves “fundamentally different institutional environments”
(Gertler, 2003, p. 95)—culturally, socially, and linguistically. However, it remains a
moot point as to whether the institutions involved have devoted the necessary
resources to overcome these obstacles. TNE is often seen as a way of generating
extra revenue for universities and so saving (not spending) money is a primary
concern.
Geographers have also written about the role that migrants play in knowledge
transfer, and Alan Williams’s work has been instrumental in this regard. Williams
draws upon Blacker’s (2002) typology, which distinguishes between different types
of knowledge: embrained, embodied, encultured, embedded, and encoded—some
of which are inherently more mobile than are others.2 The most mobile of all,
Williams claims, is encoded knowledge—as found in text books and manuals.
Meusburger (2013), however, makes the point that simply making knowledge acces-
sible does not make it understood—understanding is the key to true mobility.
Embrained and embodied knowledge have a corporeal mobility, in that they will
move with and within the migrant. Finally, encultured and embedded forms of
knowledge are, in contrast, relatively immovable, as they represent “relational
knowledge, grounded in the institutionally specific relationships between individu-
als” (Williams, 2006, p. 591). The question this raises for us is this: What types of
knowledge (as signified here) does TNE actually represent? In theory, it should be
the epitome of encoded academic knowledge—through the mobility of text books
and intellectual ideas contained within academic journals. Different models of TNE,
however, will involve a different balance in the types of knowledge represented.
Thus, embodied knowledge will be far more prevalent when a flying faculty model
is deployed, than when a franchise model is used.3
More generally, Williams (2006) argues that the movement of knowledge through
migration is perhaps best conceptualized as translation. “Migrants,” he writes, “have
distinctive roles as translators of knowledge . . . The notion of translation takes us
beyond simplistic ideas about transferring immutable knowledge, and leads to con-
sideration of knowledge creation” (p. 593). This invokes the ideas of Faulconbridge
(2006, p. 533) regarding “the social production of new knowledge”—knowledge is
2
Embrained knowledge describes cognitive and conceptual skills, while embodied knowledge
refers to physical experience (practical work within a particular context). Encultured knowledge
describes shared cultural meanings and understandings and embedded knowledge is found within
particular contexts. Finally, encoded knowledge refers to signs and symbols found in books, manu-
als, websites, and policy reports.
3
The flying faculty model refers to when staff from the home institution fly out at intervals to teach
their program, whereas a franchise model involves the home institution selling the degree program
to the host institution, which is then responsible for delivering it.
largely reproduced rather than transferred. We explore, below, the extent to which
knowledge transfer in TNE can be considered translation or knowledge creation.
Louise Ackers (2012) has examined “the relationship between human mobility
and knowledge transfer processes” (p. 131) directly. She describes a move, in the
literature, away from emphasizing long-term embodied migration (captured by the
concept of brain drain) as “the value of short stays and the substitution of physical
co-presence with virtual stays (providing the opportunity for “disembodied” knowl-
edge transfers) became recognized as key mechanisms for relationship-building and
knowledge transfer” (p. 133).
In the proceeding sections and in relation to these debates, we draw upon our
data to address the following issues. First, we consider definitions of knowledge and
transnational in relation to TNE. What does knowledge in TNE actually represent,
and is it the same as capital? This is significant, because much of the extant litera-
ture on international education discusses the capital (not knowledge) that students
acquire. There must also be, we argue, something meaningful about the transna-
tional element of TNE. We discuss the possible interpretations of transnational in
this context. Next, we move on to consider the process of knowledge transfer
through TNE, examining the moving of program content. Two issues arise in rela-
tion to this—(a) the duplication of content in other (associate degree or higher
diploma) courses; (b) the use of British contexts for examples and case studies. The
next section then considers the subject of capital more directly, drawing upon other
published papers to examine the extent to which TNE imparts cultural and social
capital (Bourdieu, 1986) (as opposed to knowledge in its more traditional sense).
The final substantive section of the chapter discusses how (successfully) knowledge
(in its different forms and including capital) is transferred over space through
TNE. Here, issues around language and different models of delivery are particularly
pertinent. We also, in conclusion, suggest some ways in which knowledge transfer
within TNE might be enhanced.
Knowledge, Transnationalism, and TNE
It should go without saying that the primary purpose of education, of any kind, is the
imparting of knowledge and, to a lesser extent, knowledge creation. In other words,
knowledge must be at the center of TNE. It is assumed that students enroll in a par-
ticular program (in our research, these were largely degree programs—both under-
graduate and master’s) with the intention of acquiring knowledge about a subject
matter. The majority of TNE courses presently offered in Hong Kong involve some
sort of business-related subject: for example, a bachelor of arts (with honors) in
applied business, business information technology, international business manage-
ment, business administration and management, or business and law. As explicated
in Jöns (2007), this indicates not only different demands but also different
possibilities with regard to the mobility of different types of knowledge. There is

seen to be a need for transnational business knowledge and this may, in fact, travel
more easily than humanities or social science knowledge. (Humanities programs are
almost non-existent, and social science programs are very rare). These courses offer
a mix of encoded knowledge (international business theory and principles) and
encultured and embedded knowledge (in the U.K. and Hong Kong business envi-
ronments) while also developing, in students, embrained knowledge (Blacker,
2002).
However, perhaps surprisingly, very few of our research subjects (students and
graduates of TNE programs in Hong Kong) discussed their thirst for knowledge.
Rather, they widely articulated a far more instrumental objective—to obtain a
degree, as the following quotations suggest:
The only purpose of having this degree was to provide me with an entry ticket for meeting
the minimum requirement as a degree holder. (Interviewee 6, graduated with a top-up4
degree in 2007)
The degree might not be good enough, but at least I could have a certificate. If you saw
a job with “university graduate” as its requirement, you would be brave enough to send your
application. Without this top-up degree we wouldn’t even apply. (Interviewee 8, has almost
finished a one-year top-up degree)
Employability considerations were fundamental, and the “ticket” was “a degree”

and not a degree in a particular subject, nor the acquisition of a particular set of
skills. Thus, our findings would seem to support other work on the aims and inten-
tions of international students indicating that strategic and instrumental concerns
about employment far outweigh any considerations about the acquisition of knowl-
edge (Waters, 2008). This work largely asserts that contemporary (international)
students are concerned not with the knowledge they will gain through a particular
degree program, but with the capital they will acquire (Brooks & Waters, 2011;
Findlay, King, Smith, Geddes, & Skeldon, 2012; Ong, 1999; Waters, 2006).
However, we also observe below that this may relate to short-term rather than lon-
ger-term time frames. The value to be found in specific degree-related knowledge
and social capital may develop over time, whereas cultural capital may indicate
more short-term and immediate gains or rewards. Here, we are drawing heavily on
the work of sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (1984, 1986); his definitions of capital have
become axiomatic within work on the sociology of education.
Indeed, what our research participants were referring to was the perceived impor-
tance of institutional cultural capital—the symbolic power of the university degree
and the practical power of the degree certificate (Bourdieu, 1986). And this brings
us to consider the relationship between knowledge and capital, and to ask: Are
knowledge and capital interchangeable when it comes to transnational education?
4
In TNE, top-up refers to the fact that students in TNE undergraduate courses will have been
required to complete either an associate degree or a higher diploma at a local tertiary institution,
before transferring into the overseas program. They are supposed to be topping up this earlier
qualification to degree level. Consequently, TNE top-up degrees are usually only 1–2 years in
duration.
Definitionally, there are clear differences between them: The importance of capital
lies in its symbolism and its ability to be converted into something of value (e.g.,
employment or money). Knowledge, on the other hand, is supposed to be of value
in and of itself. Both, however, can be accumulated over time. Cultural capital
(particularly embodied cultural capital) implies a degree of know-how that clearly
involves knowledge of sorts. Social capital, on the other hand, refers to the extent
and quality of one’s social relationships, and the more people you know, the more
extensive (and therefore valuable) your social capital. Therefore social capital, too,
involves knowledge, but is at the same time more than just knowledge. However, we
are primarily interested in whether knowledge and capital are interchangeable in the
particular context of transnational education (as opposed to more generally). And,
in relation to TNE, it is legitimate to argue that they are. Students make little or no
distinction between the cultural and social capital they are expecting to acquire in a
TNE degree course, and the knowledge that they are anticipating accumulating (in
the short term, at least). As described above, actual encoded knowledge would
appear to be of very low immediate priority for students seeking to study in a trans-
national program. Far more important (we have deduced from our data) are the
following: (a) gaining a university degree (any university degree); (b) gaining a
degree from a university that an employer might recognize (the symbolic impor-
tance of the university’s reputation); (c) building social capital (during the degree
course and afterwards through alumni activities). Acquiring knowledge, per se, is a
relatively minor concern. In this chapter, therefore, we consider capital alongside
(and as a subset of) knowledge.
When addressing definitional issues, it is also necessary to consider the difference
that transnationalism makes to the transfer of knowledge in these higher education
contexts. Transnationalism, as it has come to be understood within a substantial body
of academic work over the past two decades, implies a fluid, dynamic, constant
movement of people, objects and ideas back and forth between a home and a host
nation, to the extent that the distinction between home and host becomes necessarily
blurred (e.g., Basch, Glick Schiller, & Szanton Blanc, 1994). “Trans” evokes an ease
of geographical mobility. Transnational education, as we have indicated above,
implies an ongoing transaction or interaction between the home, or provider, institu-
tion and the host, or deliverer. However, the extent to which this term is an accurate
description of the types of interactions that take place in TNE is questionable. For
one, interactions between the home and host institution tend not to be continuous, but
rather focused around certain times of the year or cycles in the academic term. ICTs
are key to many of these exchanges, as face-to-face meetings occur, at best, two or
three times a year. Second, most of the movement seems to be one-way—that is,
from the home to the host institution. Very little mobility (whether of people, prod-
ucts, or ideas) would seem to occur from the host to the home nation or institution
(with the exception sometimes of students’ work for marking). This, again, leads us
to question the appropriateness of the term transnational (education), which tends to
imply a two-way flow. Perhaps the most transnational element of these programs is
the home staff who teach in them, although this is not uniformly applicable—many
TNE programs use a franchise model that employs local lecturers to deliver most, if
not all of the course. We continue in the following to explore the extent to which
transnationalism is apparent within the TNE programs we have examined.
Moving Ideas: The Transfer of Program Content
Because we’re flying faculty we can’t really offer a wide range of electives, so we do tend
to fix the programs so students will have studied these modules, but it’s based entirely on
the U.K. program. So our U.K. modules will be in there—we’ll have selected the core
option, we’ll have selected an appropriate elective. (U.K. HEI, Interview 5)
In Hong Kong, it is stipulated that TNE programs must be offered at the same
time within the home country or institution. In principle, the students in Hong Kong
are expected to graduate with the same knowledge and experience as their British
counterparts. On graduation, they will receive an identical degree certificate. The
mobility of program content is, consequently, essential. As described in the quota-
tion above, however, a flying faculty model (and the resources this demands) makes
it impossible for students in Hong Kong to have the same number of optional
courses within a program as U.K.-based students do. It is just simply impractical.
Interestingly, program content can and often does evolve over time (consequently
decreasing the transnational element), as another U.K. university representative
describes:
To begin with there was quite a close liaison between the module tutors at X [U.K.] univer-
sity and the module tutors delivering the program in Hong Kong. That is to say, the curricu-
lum and the texts and the references the students were using were either identical, or if they
weren’t, then the module tutors here [in the United Kingdom] had to agree to any changes
to the teaching program in Hong Kong. In other words, there was quite a careful policing of
what was being delivered in Hong Kong by academic colleagues here in X [U.K. univer-
sity]. Now over the years, and perhaps in the last four or five years since I have been
involved, that rather close scrutiny has to a large extent been diluted … It was based upon
the success of the first five or six years of the program, and the feeling emerged that, first of
all, colleagues in Hong Kong were more than competent to develop the curriculum and to
develop assignments and develop assessments that were more removed from what was
being delivered in X [U.K. university] . . . We gave to colleagues in Hong Kong far more
autonomy to teach, to develop, to assess and to monitor their own delivery and their pro-
gram. So it was still very much an X [U.K. university] degree, which I think the students
found attractive (or do find attractive), but we delegated to colleagues in Hong Kong far
more responsibility for what they were doing, especially because most, if not all of the
modules were contextualized through the Hong Kong business environment. Part of it [the
delegation of responsibility] arose because, I think, colleagues in Hong Kong were finding
U.K.-based or Western-based case studies perhaps inappropriate to the Hong Kong business
scene and the Hong Kong business culture. (U.K. HEI, Interview 3)
As this quotation illustrates well, the extent of home involvement in knowledge

production and exchange is not static, but changes, with implications for the extent
to which course content can be described as transnational. The U.K. HEI represen-
tative says it is “still a U.K. university degree,” but as control over the course content
is increasingly given to the Hong Kong hosts, is this in name only? He also here
makes reference to the appropriateness of U.K.-based case studies within many

business-type degree programs, an issue that was also raised again and again by
student and graduate interviewees. Most of them found the use of U.K. examples to
be, at best, uninteresting and at worst, irrelevant. However, we found an intriguing
counter-example in Interviewee 15, who was required in her TNE course to study
the U.K. tax system (“Hong Kong has its own tax system”). Surprisingly, this
knowledge proved useful on one particular occasion, when she recently worked for
an Indian company with a branch in the United Kingdom:
For instance, colleagues would ask me what is meant by Value Added Tax, or some tax that
does not exist in Hong Kong. At that moment, I would feel that what I learned was useful,
although I have not had many of these kinds of moments! (Interviewee 15)
Another issue raised by interviewees with regard to program content concerned

the duplication of materials and, in some cases, lecturers. Several students and grad-
uates reported that much of the material learned in their TNE program duplicated
work they had already covered (usually the previous year) in their higher diploma
or associate degree.5 Interviewee 26 claimed:
The knowledge taught [on the TNE program] was the same as that I learned in my higher
diploma course. I could simply use my study notes from my higher diploma course for revi-
sion for my exams in this degree course.
The result, some claimed, was a very similar “learning experience,” because many
of their TNE program teachers had also taught them in their higher diploma or asso-
ciate degree courses. Edward Lee: “Actually, all the courses were lectured by local
teachers who also taught us in my associate degree.” In many cases, the Hong Kong
institutions delivering the TNE program employ locally sourced lecturers to teach
it, and (coincidentally) these are often the same individuals who teach in their asso-
ciate degree or higher diploma courses. As we go on to discuss, this has implica-
tions for the kinds of social capital students are able to acquire in TNE programs
(Waters & Leung, 2013a).
Positive differences in the nature of knowledge on TNE degree programs vis-a-
vis the higher diploma/associate degree were also noted by a minority of interview-
ees, however:
For the higher diploma, most of the time we had to recite something. For the top-up degree
we couldn’t simply recite the materials but had to think … A degree should be like this. If
it is not, I would be afraid. For a degree, we should think more. (Interviewee 17, has almost
completed a one-year top-up program in marketing)
In this case, the knowledge acquired in the degree felt more advanced than previous
knowledge attained in lower degrees or diplomas.
5
The majority of students will have studied for a higher diploma or associate degree in the year
prior to embarking on the transnational program. Usually, this will have been undertaken at a local
tertiary institute. This qualification is unconnected to the TNE program that follows, and thus
duplication is an issue.
The Transfer of Different Forms of Capital
The distribution of the different types and subtypes of capital at any given moment in time
represents the . . . structure of the social world, i.e., the set of constraints, inscribed in the
very reality of that world … determining the chances of success… (Bourdieu, 1986, p. 242)
As discussed in this quotation, in relation to TNE, it makes sense to characterize

capital as a subtype of knowledge acquired through education, not least because
students themselves did not draw a distinction between capital and education. We
therefore briefly discuss transnational capital as a form of knowledge transfer found
within TNE. Pierre Bourdieu (1986, p. 243) famously described three main forms
of capital: economic (“which is immediately and directly convertible into money
and may be institutionalized in the form of property rights”), cultural (“which is
convertible, on certain conditions, into economic capital and may be institutional-
ized in the form of educational qualifications”), and social (“made up of social obli-
gations, which is convertible, in certain conditions, into economic capital”). We
discussed in an earlier publication (Waters & Leung, 2013a) the relationship
between TNE in Hong Kong and the development of institutional social capital
(Brinton, 2000) among students. According to Bourdieu (1986), social capital is
the aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to the possession of a
durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and
recognition—or in other words, to membership in a group—which provides each of its
members with the backing of the collectivity-owned capital, a “credential” which entitles
them to credit, in the various senses of the word. These relationships may exist only in the
practical state, in material and/or symbolic exchanges which help to maintain them. They
may also be socially instituted and guaranteed by the application of a common name (e.g.,
a family or of a school) … . (pp. 248–249)
The common name can be a school or a university, with significant social impli-
cations for individuals for whom the development of social capital is somehow cur-
tailed. In our paper, we argued that, for various reasons, students in U.K. TNE
programs in Hong Kong were unable fully to develop the kinds of institutional
social capital one might expect from a university experience. Space prohibits a
detailed discussion of them here. However, the following points are pertinent to this
chapter’s discussion. The development of social capital is limited because (a) teach-
ing on TNE programs often takes place away from the main university campus
(usually in a downtown location); (b) students therefore miss out on the spatial
advantages that a campus has to offer, including the close proximity of other stu-
dents; (c) limited or no contact with U.K. teaching staff diminishes the transnational
social capital available; (d) alumni associations are significantly underdeveloped;
and, finally, (e) top-up degrees can be over in as little as 1 year and students com-
plained that this did not allow enough time for social capital to be developed. In
Leung and Waters (2013) we also make a specific argument about space and place
in relation to TNE—we stress that students have extremely grounded experiences of
learning (from the physical location of where teaching takes place, to the use of
local lecturers, to the use of local examples in the teaching), and we juxtapose this
with the space-conquering claims of the TNE providers.
However, some capital within TNE programs often does travel, in different ways.
This can include the British academic staff members, who make the regular trips out
to Hong Kong and have (some, if limited) contact with the students, and, as the
quotation below describes, the U.K. university’s brand name. One interviewee said:
One of the things they [the students] say is they like having the British academics out there,
and they always want photographs with you and stuff like that. And at graduation they
always want [their photograph with you]. I mean, one of the things they’ve said to me this
year, and we’ve tried to do something about it, is that they’ve said ‘we need to feel part of
X [U.K. university], we want to be X students, and not just Y [Hong Kong university] stu-
dents. So you know, we’ve done small things like send them out X [letter headed] paper and
X stuff, you know. We try to do that. (U.K. HEI, Interview 9)
This describes a rare example of the U.K. institution being very sensitive to stu-
dents’ needs and their desire to attain some cultural capital from the home univer-
sity—and acting upon this understanding. According to Ackers (2012), short stays
can “play a very important role in promoting knowledge transfer” (p. 13) and so it
is feasible that these brief trips by U.K. academics to teach in TNE programs do
promote transnational knowledge transfer.
ow (And the Limits to How) Knowledge Is Transferred

H
in TNE
In this last section we address two key issues affecting how knowledge is actually
transferred through TNE (in practice) and how these relate to language (and under-
standing), and the mobility of U.K. academics.
Language Issues
As discussed in depth in Waters and Leung (2013b), students undertaking British

TNE programs in Hong Kong are often not as fluent in English as might be assumed
and many, as was reported by them to us, struggled to understand when subjects
were taught by British academics.
No one would challenge them (the U.K. lecturers) because the lessons were conducted in
English. We were not confident with our English proficiency. I am not sure if someone has
ever challenged them, but I would not. My English is not very good. This may be a weak-
ness when compared with graduates from local universities. (Interviewee 26, has almost
completed a one-year top-up program)
Thus, although United Kingdom academics may be seen to embody transnational

knowledge, this knowledge is not being successfully transferred (in many cases) to
students, who lack the essential element of understanding. This important issue
points to problems with the understanding of knowledge and not just the transplant-
ing of information, as noted by Morgan (2004), who is careful to distinguish
between these two concepts (see also work by Meusburger, 2013). For many stu-
dents (it would seem), understanding is the main challenge when it comes to knowl-
edge transfer. Local lecturers employed to teach these courses attempt to remedy
this problem somewhat by reverting to Cantonese and dispensing with English alto-
gether. This has come to the attention of some U.K. universities:
Everything is supposed to be taught in English. I get the impression that sometimes it’s
easier for the staff to just deliver it in whatever. But everything is written, all the assess-
ments are in English, everything, all our stuff is in English. And to be honest, I think …
quite a few of the staff do it … when things are getting a bit difficult, sometimes they revert
to Cantonese (U.K. HEI, Interview 9)
So, while teaching in Cantonese could be seen as facilitating knowledge transfer,

this approach inevitably also diminishes the transnational element of the program
(which is supposed to include English language medium teaching) and, of course,
attenuates the cultural capital to be gained by being taught in (and improving one’s
proficiency in) English.
Mobile Academics
Transnational movements of academics shape the production and dissemination of knowl-

edge and thus the geographies of contemporary knowledge economies. (Jöns, 2007, p. 97)
Geographer Heike Jöns (2007) is unequivocal in her claims regarding the signifi-
cance of academic mobility (the international movements of scientists and scholars)
to the contemporary knowledge economy (see also Ackers, 2012). It plays, she
argues, a key role in (a) the internationalization of higher education; (b) the mainte-
nance of a strong research capacity within universities and countries; and (c) the
longer term development of important transnational social networks. Key to her
argument is exploring the complex relationship between knowledge production and
spatial movement. Here, we touch in brief upon some of her claims and make links
to recent developments in transnational higher education.
To a greater or lesser extent, TNE does involve the transnational movement of
academics and thus has the potential to contribute to significant social transforma-
tion, as highlighted by Jöns (above). As already noted, some programs are taught
entirely by what has come to be called the flying faculty model. This was described
to us by one U.K. academic responsible for administering their department’s TNE
programs in Hong Kong:
[Our programs] are taught solely by flying faculty, so they’re solely our staff. XXX is taught
in blocks over a semester, so they [U.K. staff] will go and teach the initial block over, say,
four or five days, and then local tutors take over with a workshop and seminar support, and
then our lecturers go back and do a revision session at the end … [In our original model]
they basically teach over eight days—it’s over a nine day period, because they take the
Thursday off. So they teach Saturday afternoon and early evening, Sunday all day, Monday,
Tuesday, Wednesday evenings, Friday evening, and again Saturday afternoon/evening and
Sunday all day. (U.K. HEI, Interview 5)
This particular academic department has about ten staff flying out at any one time:
“It is quite a lot of staff, yeah, and it is, it’s very intensive, the flying faculty. It’s quite
resource heavy. But the students do seem to like it. It does seem to be a good selling point.
It distinguishes our program from other programs that are maybe more of a franchise
model.” (U.K. HEI, Interview 5)
This approach also, quite possibly, has an important role to play in the knowledge
transfer process—Ackers’s work on short-term stays within healthcare partnerships
(between the United Kingdom and Uganda) suggests that “where the visits are well
organized, prepared for in advance and form an integrated component of a mutually
planned and coordinated project, they can play a very important role in promoting
knowledge transfer” (Ackers, 2012, p. 13).
In a way, the problem when assessing the transnational movement of knowledge
in TNE lies precisely with the huge diversity of approaches adopted by different
institutions and programs within those institutions. The flying faculty model is the
most hands on when it comes to transnational involvement and represents a high
degree of embodied cultural and social capital. However, very few TNE programs
deploy this model to the extent described here—many fly staff out to Hong Kong to
introduce the program and for graduation at the end, with little or nothing in
between. Others do not involve U.K. staff at all.
Conclusions: So Where Is Knowledge in TNE?
This chapter has considered if and how knowledge is transferred within transna-
tional education. We began with the premise that TNE should, by its very nature,
epitomize knowledge transference over space. In its idealized form, TNE indicates
knowledge transported from one country to another, from one institutional environ-
ment to another, and from one cultural and social context to another. The recent
momentous growth in TNE programs over the past decade suggests the overwhelm-
ing success of this process. Drawing upon our empirical data, however, we argue
that in reality very little consideration has been given (by the providers of TNE) to
the geography of knowledge transmission/exchange and (a wider issue) the geogra-
phies of institutionalized cultural capital. In this chapter we make several observa-
tions about knowledge transfer in TNE. Initially, however, a definition of knowledge
transfer in relation to TNE is needed. First, it attempts to define what we mean by
knowledge in relation to TNE. It would appear that knowledge is both created and
translated in TNE (Faulconbridge, 2006)—knowledge creation is particularly
apparent over time, as U.K. HEIs (for cost and other reasons) loosen their control
over their programs and Hong Kong HEIs are given more control. We initiated a
discussion of knowledge in relation to different forms of (institutionalized) capital,
asking whether knowledge and capital could be seen as interchangeable when it

comes to (transnational) education. We concluded that, on the basis of our data and
the research of others on international students, yes, capital should usefully be con-
ceived as a subset of knowledge within TNE (for students and immediate graduates,
if not perhaps for individuals who have been in the workplace for some time). We
then examined the transnational element of TNE and discussed the obvious limits to
transnationalism within this form of long-distance education. These limits need to
be better reflected in TNE marketing and literature, which tends to assume the
unproblematic transplanting of ideas and symbolic capital (Leung & Waters, 2013).
More generally, the transfer of knowledge and capital within TNE programs is ham-
pered by language problems, structural problems with the programs themselves (for
example, the absence of alumni associations and the tendency to teach students off
campus), and the increasing propensity towards using a (cheaper) franchise model
of teaching (as opposed to using flying faculty to deliver the course). According to
Ackers (2012), short term stays, such as those practiced by some U.K. academics in
Hong Kong, can be productive and actively promote knowledge transfer. However,
such stays are, it would appear, increasingly rare within TNE, as more and more
control is handed over to the Hong Kong partner. This is not necessarily a bad thing,
with there being advantages of this model for students, but it raises questions about
the transnational nature of knowledge in these circumstances, and the extent to
which it is being transferred or created. When a flying faculty model is applied, the
transfer of embodied knowledge is hampered by the use of lecturers’ use of English,
which is poorly understood by students. And yet, this model is clearly more funda-
mentally transnational in nature. Conversely, where a franchise model is deployed
(with use of local staff), students gain better understanding of the materials (through
use of Cantonese in teaching and use of local examples), and yet the transnational
element is significantly attenuated. An open discussion among U.K. universities
about the geography of the knowledge transfer process within TNE, as it currently
stands, may result in a richer and more valuable experience for the students under-
taking these programs.
Acknowledgements We gratefully acknowledge the generous financial support of the Economic

and Social Research Council in the United Kingdom (RES-000-22-3000) and the Research Grants
Council in Hong Kong. We also acknowledge the work of Yutin Ki, who conducted many of the
interviews for this project.
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the material.
The Klaus Tschira Stiftung
Physicist Dr. h.c. Dr.-Ing. E. h. Klaus Tschira (1940–2015) established the German
foundation Klaus Tschira Stiftung in 1995. The Klaus Tschira Stiftung is one of
Europe’s largest privately funded non-profit foundations. It promotes the advance-
ment of natural sciences, mathematics, and computer science and strives to raise
appreciation for these fields. The focal points of the Foundation are “Natural
Science – Right from the Beginning”, “Research” and “Science Communication”.
The Klaus Tschira Stiftung commitments begin in the kindergartens and continue
at primary and secondary schools, universities and research facilities. The
Foundation champions new methods of scientific knowledge transfer, and supports
both development and intelligible presentation of research findings. The Klaus
Tschira Stiftung pursues its objectives by conducting projects of its own, but also
awards subsidies upon application and positive assessment. The Stiftung has also
founded its own affiliations that promote sustainability among the selected topics.
Klaus Tschira’s commitment to this objective was honored in 1999 with the
“Deutscher Stifterpreis”, the prize awarded by the National Association of German
Foundations.
The Klaus Tschira Stiftung is located in Heidelberg with its head office in the
Villa Bosch (Fig. 1), which used to be the residence of the Nobel laureate in
chemistry Carl Bosch. www.klaus-tschira-stiftung.de

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-44654-7
288 The Klaus Tschira Stiftung
Fig. 1 The Villa Bosch (© Peter Meusburger)
Fig. 2 Participants of the symposium “Spatial Mobility of Knowledge” at the studio of the Villa
Bosch in Heidelberg (Photo: Jonathan Ihrig, Heidelberg)
Index
A Agglomeration, 127, 234, 241

Academic(s), 3, 4, 11, 12, 15, 143, 147, Agriculture, agricultural, 8, 11, 12, 123, 124,
152, 166–168, 170, 172, 174, 178, 130, 131, 134–135, 185, 188, 189, 194,
186–190, 194, 196, 197, 203, 205, 196–200, 203, 204
206, 280 Alexandria, 10
appointment, 143, 157–178 Alpine Club, 90
career, 8, 175, 176, 188, 189, 198, Amazonia, 93, 96
199, 207 American Association for the Advancement of
collaboration, 8, 11, 30, 145, 152, 168 Science, 149
exchange, 198 Americanization, 13, 197, 206
expertise, 12, 185–200, 203–205, 207 Amsterdam, 10, 234, 236
hegemony, 188 Ancien Régime, 78
knowledge, 11, 123, 124, 126, 129, 186, Ancient
190, 205, 270, 273 Egyptians, 9, 51
leave, 158, 173, 186, 188–190, 198 English universities, 174
mobility, 11, 186, 261, 281 Greeks, 107, 110
networks, 13, 124, 173, 192, 197, 204, 205 history, 130, 131
professionalization, 12, 160 learning, 111
sociability, 174–178 texts, 112
travel, 8, 12, 13, 186, 188–192, 194, trade networks, 11
196, 197, 204, 205, 206 Andalusia, Andalusian, al-Andalus, 57, 63
Academy of International Law Anglo-American, 4, 10, 105, 188
(The Hague), 219 Angola, 92
Actor-network theory, 3, 5, 42, 108, 213. Arab, Arabic, 41, 51, 63, 72, 146, 192
See also Trinity of actants Archaeology, 8, 11, 53, 123–135, 146
Actors, 3, 5, 24, 27, 35, 37, 79, 144, 213, 215, Archive, archival, 7, 10, 87, 98, 100,
218, 248, 261, 263 101, 188
Adelaide, 163, 164, 171, 173, 176, 177 Artifact, 87, 88, 101, 131
Advisory work, 12, 194–197, 203, 205–207 Arts, 7, 125, 126, 240, 274
Africa, 9, 68–70, 74, 75, 77, 92, 142, 143, 147, Artwork, 87, 88
150, 157, 167, 186, 190, 192, 194, 197, Asia, 9, 77, 221, 266
204, 247 Assam, 189, 200
Agency, agents, 3, 86, 88, 93, 94, 96, 101, Australia, 12, 141, 146, 157, 159, 164, 169, 171,
131, 217, 228, 233, 235, 239, 241 172, 174, 177, 178, 190, 194, 197, 270

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-44654-7
290 Index
Austria-Hungary, 143 colony, 12, 70, 141, 143, 157, 186, 190,
Authorship, 38, 67–69, 73, 75, 79, 101 192, 206, 249
Axis powers, 203 dominion, 190–199, 205–206, 219
empire, 8, 12, 70, 141, 143–148, 150, 151,
157, 185–200, 203–207
B imperialism, 12, 187
Baghdad, 52, 63 India, 12, 71, 78, 191, 192, 194–199, 205
Barada river, 57 Isles, 69, 141, 149, 158
Bargaining, 215 Bronze Age, 134
Batavia (Jakarta), 96, 200 Buddhism, Buddhist, 51, 52, 54
BCE, 9, 52–54 Bureaucracy, bureaucrat, 52, 133
Belgium, 143 Byzantine, 53, 54, 58
Belief, 3, 28, 36, 77, 185, 203, 248, 252
Bell Company, 29
Bengal, 71, 75, 76 C
Berkeley, 105, 171 Calcutta, 146, 200
Berlin, 1, 2, 7, 170 Cambridge (England), 10, 12, 13, 142, 145,
Bible, 185 146, 159, 160, 163, 164, 168, 170,
Biography, biographical, 10, 69, 72, 86, 91, 172–177, 191, 195
93, 101, 158, 186, 188, 189, 198, 207, Canada, 12, 141, 159, 160, 168, 169, 171,
218, 249 172, 174, 175, 177, 190, 192, 194,
Book, 1–5, 7–10, 29, 40, 53, 54, 58, 60, 61, 197, 199, 219
64, 67–69, 71, 73, 75–80, 87, 88, 90, Canon, 11, 123
97, 101, 124, 148, 158, 188, 189, Cantonese, 15, 271, 281, 283
222, 273 Capacity
binding, 60 absorptive, 25, 26, 37
history, 67 cognitive, 25, 28–29, 32, 36, 39, 43
learning, 9, 53, 54 communication, 132
trade, 67, 71, 76 knowledge, 235, 241
Bookseller, 68, 72, 78 research, 281
Border Cape of Good Hope, 70, 79, 145, 161
crossing, 214, 223, 224 Capital
disciplinary, 29 cultural, 5, 15, 235, 260, 276, 280–282
international, 227 economic, 279
national, 213, 265 social, 15, 252, 260, 274–276, 278,
Boundary, 13, 33, 35, 68, 126, 129, 146, 148, 279, 282
150, 151, 168, 171, 223, 239, 272 symbolic, 5, 283
Botany, 176, 199 Capitalism, 8, 188
Brain Career, 8, 11, 15, 70, 72, 116, 117, 143–146,
circulation, 14, 248, 254, 255, 259, 260, 265 148, 154, 169–171, 189, 198, 199,
drain, 14, 248, 254, 255, 258, 260, 274 204, 205, 207, 228, 232, 235, 237,
gain, 14, 255, 258–260 249, 252, 260
waste, 14, 248, 255, 258–260 Cartography, cartographic, 105, 106
Britain, 4, 8–10, 12, 69–71, 78, 87, 91, Çatalhöyük, 131, 132, 134
141–152, 157, 158, 160–162, 164–172, Categorization, 23–44, 67, 80, 125,
174, 175, 186, 188, 196, 197, 203, 218 144, 215
British Catholics, catholic, 70
academic world, 12, 141, 146, 157–178, 197 Center of calculation, 8, 111, 112, 116, 188
Africa, 12, 191, 195, 196, 205 Central Asia, 51–53, 58, 93
Association for the Advancement of Century
Science (BAAS), 149, 173, 194, 199 first, 54, 56
Burma, 146 second, 53, 110
Central African Territories, 196 third, 56
colonialism, 150 fourth, 130
Index 291
fifth, 54 Colonial
sixth, 54 development, 189, 194, 203, 207
seventh, 52 Development and Welfare Act, 203
eighth, 51, 52 government, 12, 185
ninth, 53, 54, 57 institution, 158
tenth, 56, 58, 61 planning, 196
eleventh, 53, 56, 59 policy, 14, 70, 142, 194, 200
twelfth, 51, 54, 57, 59 reform, 12, 186, 194, 196, 203, 206
thirteenth, 53, 58–61 Colonies, 144, 164, 249
fourteenth, 60, 61 Committee
fifteenth, 10, 59, 112 advisory, 165, 177, 204
sixteenth, 51, 52, 54, 63, 147 appointment, 12, 162
seventeenth, 10, 57, 63, 112, 158 expeditions, 147
eighteenth, 54, 58, 63, 77, 148, 158, 170, London, 160, 164, 165, 171, 173
187, 194 Mount Everest Committee, 90
nineteenth, 1, 9–11, 29, 58, 61, 69, 73, 79, search, 162–163
80, 91, 93, 123–125, 128, 130, 135, selection, 12, 160, 163–166, 170, 172
141–143, 145, 147, 148, 150, 157, 158, War Agricultural Committee, 203
164, 166, 168, 174, 186, 213, 214 Commonwealth, 190, 194, 197
twentieth, 8, 10, 54, 125, 126, 141, 159, Communication
161, 164, 165, 172, 176, 188, 199, channel, 6, 37
206, 238 model, 9, 36–43, 131
twenty-first, 14, 41, 126, 128, 217 nonverbal, 30, 31
Chemistry, 28, 158, 162, 171, 173 process, 8, 9, 23, 24, 26, 28, 33, 36–40,
Children, 198, 256, 258 43, 44
China, Chinese, 9, 32, 41, 51, 52, 54, 56, 58, technology, 6, 8, 9, 13, 29–31, 214,
145, 146, 148, 213, 222, 223, 231, 218, 271
250, 265 Communicator–recipient model, 5, 26
Choros, 110, 113, 114 Communities
Christianity, Christian, 10, 51, 54, 63, 77, colonial, 194
105–118, 185, 186, 203, 222 epistemic, 15, 23, 27, 28, 235
Church, 54, 147, 185, 222 ethnic, 95
City, cities, 13, 53, 54, 58, 126–135, 151, 212, linguistic, 68
214, 222, 224, 227–241 political, 76
Civil servant, 13, 166, 215, 218, 219, of practice, 27, 36, 127
221, 223 religious, 221
Class, 12, 59, 126, 133, 160, 176, 177, 187, scholarly, 145
194, 198 transnational, 228
Classical, 53, 73, 157 Competence, 27, 34, 35, 40, 159, 160,
Code, 33, 34, 37, 39–41, 43 228–231, 240
Collaboration, 8, 11, 30, 141–152, 168 Competitiveness, 3, 7, 14, 23, 158, 159, 227,
Collection, 15, 74, 75, 86–91, 93, 95, 98, 228, 258
101, 102 Conference. See also Congress
College academic, 101
Canterbury College (New Zealand), 160 Allied Colonial Universities
Corpus Christi College (Cambridge), Conference, 158
167–168 of the American Association for the
Kumasi College of Technology (Ghana), Advancement of Science, 149
204 of the British Association for the
Manchester College of Technology, 173 Advancement of Science (BAAS),
St. John’s College (Cambridge), 189, 198, 173, 194, 199
201, 205 Canadian Universities Conference, 170
Trinity College (Cambridge), 145 on Food and Agriculture
Trinity College (Dublin), 76 (United Nations), 203
292 Index
Conference (cont.) Decolonization, 12, 126, 186, 188, 190, 194,

Geographical Conference, 143 196, 204–206
International Geographical Union (IGU) Degree program, 4, 8, 14, 265, 273–275, 278
Conference, 118, 149 Design
International Social Insurance principles, 95
Conference, 217 strategies, 94–100
travel, 192, 197 Diaspora, 265
Conflict. See also War Differentiation
intergroup, 133 nominal, 34–36
local, 216 ordinal, 34–36
social, 205 Diffusion, 8, 9, 23, 34, 37, 39, 40, 43,
Congress. See also Conference 52–63, 229
international, 213 Diplomacy, 216, 221
International Geographical Congress, 149 Disciplinary, 11, 15, 29, 123–126, 128,
International Geological Congress, 148 160, 162, 164, 166, 171, 175,
Constitution, 142 186, 187
Constructivism, constructionism, 3 committees, 161
Contact cultures, 128
face-to-face, 13, 15, 29–31, 239 gatekeepers, 113
indirect, 30, 31 identities, 186
planning, 30 knowledge, 8, 11, 123, 160
routine, 30 networks, 171, 174
zones, 13, 215, 222 societies, 175
Context specialization, 160, 161
cultural, 2, 4, 9, 10, 43, 248 Disciplines, 2, 5, 11, 12, 28, 32, 36, 37, 41,
economic, 2 42, 123–135, 144, 146–150, 161,
glocal, 219 168, 174, 187, 190, 194, 205,
political, 2, 43, 222 231, 232
social, 2, 282 Disparities, 30, 178, 204, 205
Coordination, 23 Dominica, 70
Cosmopolitanism, cosmopolitan, 11, 14, 133, Dominion, 190, 191, 195, 197–199, 205,
148–150, 152, 212, 214, 215, 222, 206, 219
223, 233 Dutch Empire, 112
Court of Appeal (Trieste), 219 Dutch Golden Age, 112
Creativity, creative, 6, 10, 23, 36, 127, 131, Dynamic hybrids, 3, 5
232, 234
Credibility, credible, 10, 40, 69, 74
Criticism, critical, 28, 74, 161 E
Critique, 2, 3, 11, 27, 86, 131, 142, 149–152, Early modern
187, 203 intellectual movements, 11
Cultural times, 8
barriers, 271 East African Agricultural and Forestry
capital, 5, 15, 235, 260, 276, 280–282 Research Organization, 203–204
Cyborgs, 5 East India Company, 10, 71, 74–76, 93, 145
Cycle Economic
of capitalization, 8 capital, 279
life, 256, 258 development, 126, 228, 260
growth, 127, 241
reform, 125
D revenue, 194, 203, 205
Darjeeling, 91, 94, 98 theory, 31
Decision making, 6, 29–31, 42, 241, 251, 253, Economist, 31, 32
258, 263 Editing, 69, 80
Index 293
Education Exploration, 1, 8, 10, 68, 85, 86, 88–95,

formal, 14, 247–255, 257, 258, 260, 261, 97–99, 101, 102
263–266 Export, 9, 51, 60, 63, 64, 199, 203
higher, 8, 14, 85, 87, 142, 204, 222, 260,
269, 270, 276, 281
institution, 14, 142, 247, 250, 269 F
system, 269 Fabriano, 61
tertiary, 196, 247, 250, 255 Family
transnational, 4, 14–15, 269–283 and friends, 197
Educational histories, 101
franchise, 157 members, 255
program, 250, 269 names, 91
Egyptians, Egyptian, 9, 51–53, 59, 63, 146 networks, 14, 252
Elite, elitist, 4, 8, 59, 157, 166, 197, 206, 215, Fascism, fascist, 216, 220
220, 223, 233, 239, 240 Fez, 63
Emigration, 51, 151, 247–254, 261, 263, 265 Field site, 7
Emotion, 32, 39, 42 Fieldwork, 87, 146, 192, 202
Empire, 11, 13, 52, 70, 93, 94, 174, 186–190, Film, 87–91
192, 194, 197–206 Firm, 13, 14, 24, 27, 34, 69, 72, 77, 80,
Empowerment, 12, 196, 197, 203, 206 227–241, 272
colonial, 197 Financial District, 228, 238–240
through education, 12, 196, 206 Flight, 106, 200, 202, 254
Energy, 56, 57, 231 Fluid objects, 67
Engineering, 157, 228, 230, 232 Flying faculty, 15, 273, 277, 281–283
England, English, 72, 79, 91, 145, 146, 157, France, French, 2, 9, 60, 63, 70, 76, 78–80,
159, 162, 164–167, 171, 172, 177 125, 143, 145–147, 170, 186
English Parliament, 60 Frankfurt-on-Oder, 1
Enlightenment, 73, 147 Freiberg, 1
Entomologists, 145 Freiburg, 10
Entrepreneurship, 260, 264 Friendship, 145, 178, 217
Episodic circuits, 7
Epistemological pluralism, 11
Epistemology, 10, 35 G
Esperantist, 217 Gender, 175, 187, 232, 249
Estonia, 40 Geneva, 8, 13, 211–216
Ethnography, ethnology, 117, 142 Geographia generalis, 68
Eurasia, 51, 56, 61 Geographical
Eurocentrism, 5 distance, 269
European Court of Justice, 219 knowledge, 10, 76, 187
Europe, European, 1, 8–13, 24, 51, 53, 56–60, mobility, 1, 2, 6, 7, 276
62, 63, 68–70, 73–75, 78, 80, 87, 88, scale, 2
93, 95–97, 141–152, 168–171, 176, Geography
186–188, 191, 192, 197, 199, 200, 204, applied, 116, 118
212, 217, 218, 220, 232, 234, 266 classical Greek, 110
Evolution, evolutionary, 42, 69, 73, 130, 131, cultural, 9, 53–54
133, 197, 215 economic, 117, 126, 272
Excavation, 59, 146 of education, 2
Exhibition, 10, 85–87, 89–98, 100–102 historical, 64, 67, 119, 188, 189, 206
Expat, expatriation, 13, 227–241 human, 10, 11, 30, 118, 126, 232
Expedition, 86, 90–94, 96–98, 145, 146 of ideas, 106, 118
Expert, expertise, 6, 9, 10, 13, 25–27, 31, 34, of knowledge, 15, 32, 42, 188, 269, 282
35, 39–41, 69, 94, 95, 101, 158–161, new scientific, 143, 144
164, 165, 167, 178, 192, 194, 196, 197, political, 125
200, 203, 205, 207, 212, 221, 227, 228, of reading and reception, 81
230–232, 235–237, 240, 241 regional, 11, 111, 114, 126
294 Index
Geography (cont.) History

of science, 2 of botany, 101
of selection, 157–178 of cartography, 55
social, 117 of geography, 2, 10, 87, 93
urban, 118, 129 hidden, 10, 85, 86, 88–95, 97–99, 101
Geological Survey, 144 of science, 28, 67, 94, 188
Geology, 1, 144, 145, 148, 178 Hong Kong, 4, 234, 238, 241, 269–271, 273,
Geos, 110, 111, 113 274, 277–282
Germany, German, 9, 14, 60, 68, 76, 77, 79, Human geography, 30, 126, 232. See also
80, 124, 143, 145, 147, 168, 170, 171, Geography
211, 222, 223, 247, 248, 252, 253, 261 Humanism, 71
Ghana, 190, 199, 204, 250 Humanities, 4, 6, 7, 11, 28, 41, 77, 126,
Global 186, 275
accounting firm, 236, 241
city, 4, 8, 127, 129
contacts, 218 I
Financial Centre Index, 234 Iberian, 56, 59, 61
financial institution, 238 Identity, 4, 39, 42, 77, 95, 98, 141, 142, 144,
meeting point, 13, 213 149–152, 232, 256
networks, 68, 211–224 Ideographic, 125
north, 8, 234 Ideology, 32, 142, 175, 187, 250
pipeline, 5, 127 Ideoscape, 5
society, 213 Illiterate, 41
south, 8 Imagination, 5, 14, 143, 251, 254
talent, 13, 227–241 Immateriality, immaterial, 3, 6, 7
Globalization, 127, 129, 147, 214, 215 Immobility, immobile, 4, 14, 251
Glocal, 219 Immutable mobile, 5, 67
God, 185, 203, 253 Imperial
Göttingen, 1, 158, 170 governance, 12, 186, 194, 207
Governance, 5, 12, 23, 44, 133, 186, 194, 204, intervention, 196
205, 207 knowledge production, 198
Graduates, 4, 8, 14, 161, 162, 166, 168, 169, networks, 13, 142, 145–147, 152, 188, 200,
172, 247–255, 257, 258, 260, 261, 204, 205
263–266, 270, 275, 277, 278, 280, 283 travel, 12, 186–188, 191–198, 205, 206
Gravity, 33, 114 Imperialism, 8, 142–144, 147, 149–152, 186,
Great Depression, 194 188, 205
Greece, Greek, 10, 52, 58, 160 Import, 133, 134
Greener pastures, 250, 251, 253, 254, 263–265 India, Indian, 12, 54, 58, 62, 94, 98, 143,
Grenada, 70, 72 151, 166–168, 197, 199,
222, 278
Indian
H Civil Service, 143, 164, 167
Hagia Sophia, 54 Educational Service, 166–168
Hegemony, 12, 188, 199 Indictment, 124, 128–131
Heritage Lottery Fund, 87 Indigenous, 8, 10, 24, 26, 86, 88, 93, 96, 150,
Heterotopia, 10 186, 203
High Commissioner, 165, 185, 217 Industrialization, 214
Higher education, 8, 14, 85, 87, 142, 196, 204, Industry, industrial, 40, 56, 59, 63, 115, 127,
269, 270, 276, 281 176, 185, 230, 232
Highly skilled, 14, 230, 233, 241, 247–249, Inequality, 9, 29, 133
252–255, 258, 260–265 Information
High-tech industry, 2 technology, 227, 234, 239, 274
Hispanic, 4 Technology Revolution, 5
Historicity, 224 Innovation, innovative, 23, 26, 27, 59, 127,
Historiography, 89, 142, 144, 147, 213 189, 200, 216, 222, 269
Index 295
Institution, institutional, 1, 2, 4, 5, 8, 11–15, J

23, 24, 27, 32, 36, 38, 40, 43, 44, Japan, Japanese, 54, 58, 62, 145, 148, 149,
86–88, 101, 123, 125, 128, 135, 141, 216, 218, 221, 222, 232, 238
142, 157–159, 165–168, 170, 172–174, Java, 145, 200
176, 178, 186, 188, 192, 194, 196, 197, Jena, 2, 7
204, 205, 211, 213–215, 217–219, 221, Jerusalem, 71, 146
222, 239, 250, 270–272, 275–280 Jew, Jewish, 177
Integration, 3, 7, 13, 14, 127, 192, 197,
205, 247–255, 257, 258, 260, 261,
263–266 K
Intellectual, 4, 8, 11, 24, 25, 28, 37, 38, 68, Knowledge
69, 72, 79, 94, 126, 128, 143, 152, categories, 26
176, 199, 207, 215, 218, 219, center, 8
232, 273 cluster, 6, 15
Interest, 3, 6, 10, 14, 15, 27, 32, 36, 38, 41, codified, 5, 6, 31–35, 227, 229, 230, 241
70, 71, 77, 87, 141, 145, 149, 163, disciplinary, 11, 123, 160
171, 205, 211, 213, 217, 220, dissemination, 2, 24, 25, 232, 281
221, 232 economy, 241, 281
Intermediaries, 10, 24, 68, 86, 88, 93, 96, 101 embedded, 273, 275
International embodied, 273, 283
African Association, 144 embrained, 273, 275
assignment, 13, 230–233, 236, 237, encoded, 273, 275, 276
240, 241 encultured, 37, 273, 275
Broadcasting Union, 217 exchange, 13, 23, 24, 27, 30, 34, 36, 43,
Committee of the Red Cross, 13, 212, 141–152, 231–233, 237, 239
217, 222 explicit, 5, 9, 35, 227, 230, 239
Human Resource Management (IHRM), factual, 34, 35, 39, 41, 42
13, 231, 232 framework, 126
Labour Organization (ILO), 219 grades of, 23–24, 35, 36
migrant, 233 high grade, 26, 30, 36, 43
mobility, 4, 237 hub, 102, 123
Olympic Committee, 98 implicit, 5, 9, 34, 35, 39
organization, 13, 148, 211, 213–215, indigenous, 8, 24, 26, 88
217–224 and information, 6, 7, 9, 23, 31–34
scholarship, 158 low grade, 43
space, 12, 146, 213, 216–218 nationalized, 129, 215
student, 3, 222, 275, 283 networks, 188
Internationalism, 8, 11, 13, 149, 152, 211–224 orientation, 35, 39, 41, 42
Calvinist, 212 practical, 11, 123, 126–127
public, 8, 13, 211–224 production, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11, 15, 27,
religious, 220, 221 101, 123, 124, 127, 141, 150, 186–190,
scientific, 11, 149, 152 192, 197, 205, 241, 277, 281
Internationalization, 231, 269, 281 routine, 26, 34, 36
Internet, 5, 29, 32, 33, 40, 41 secret, 6, 38
Intervention, 24, 67, 68, 159, 196 seditious, 67–81
Interwar sharing, 23–26, 34, 37, 38, 43
Geneva, 13 spillover, 23, 26, 27, 34, 43
period, 94, 165, 174 tacit, 6, 9, 13, 34, 35, 127, 227, 235, 239,
Iowa City, 113, 115 271, 272
Ireland, Irish, 9, 76, 157, 159, 172, 218 transfer, 9, 10, 13, 15, 24, 25, 32, 36, 40,
Islam, Islamic, 54, 56, 220 85, 86, 88–95, 97–99, 101, 219, 223,
Italy, Italian, 57, 59, 61–63, 143, 213, 224, 240, 264, 271–274, 279–283
219, 222 types, 2, 6, 8, 14, 272, 273, 275
296 Index
Koran, 60, 63 M
Korea, 54 Mamluk, 59
Management
development program, 231, 237
L human resource, 13, 232
Labor knowledge, 23, 228–231, 272
market, 13, 227, 230, 231, 234, 239, 241, talent, 231–234, 241
252, 255, 258, 264 Manuscript, 40, 54, 63, 69, 87, 88, 176
mobility, 13, 227 Map, mapping, 88, 200, 215
Laboratory Marxist, 143
Cavendish Laboratory (Cambridge), Master Plan for the East
161, 163, 176 (Generalplan Ost), 116
Davy-Faraday Laboratory (London), 173 Materiality, material, 6, 7, 100
Los Alamos National Laboratory, 113 Mathematics, 64, 163, 171, 172
Plasma Laboratory (Princeton), 109 Matrix, 7
Radiation Laboratory Means of communication, 29
(Cambridge, Mass.), 113 Medicine, 28, 125, 148, 157, 161, 174, 176,
Ladakh, 93 228, 230, 234
Landeskunde, 117 Medieval, 53, 58–60, 63
Landscape Mediterranean, 9, 51–53, 57, 62, 63
educational, 270 Meeting point, 211, 215, 216, 218, 220, 222
urban, 213 Men, 71, 73, 74, 78, 90, 91, 94, 100, 147, 148,
Language, 15, 24–27, 33, 34, 36, 40, 41, 64, 157, 158, 160–164, 166, 167, 170–172,
72, 79, 85, 86, 94, 133, 146, 148, 157, 175, 176, 200, 220, 232, 249, 254
168, 187, 192, 255, 264, 271, 274, Merchant, 52, 60, 63, 70, 71, 131
280–281, 283 Merit, 12, 158, 159, 161
Latin America, 2, 150 Mesopotamia, Mesopotamian, 132, 134, 199
Law, 1, 67, 125, 157, 227, 237, 274 Methods
League of Nations, 13, 211–217, 220–223 quantitative, 114
League of Nations Search Engine (LONSEA), Mexico, 250
211, 213, 214, 217, 219, 221 Middle Ages, 56, 98, 147
Learning, 2, 8, 9, 11, 15, 23, 27, 34, 36–40, Migrant
43, 85, 149, 187, 190, 229–232, 235, biographies, 249, 256, 258
237, 240, 269, 272, 278, 279 entrepreneurship, 256, 264
Leave of absence, 158, 164, 173, 186, establisher, 255, 260
188–190, 198 integrated, 255, 256, 260
Lebensraum, 117, 118 privileged, 255, 260
Lecture, lecturing, 40, 151, 171, 195, 197 skilled, 247, 258, 260, 261, 264, 265
Leipzig, 77–78, 81, 146, 170 student, 255, 260
Library, 10, 41, 53, 59, 111, 159, 176, 189, types, 14, 258, 260, 265
207, 212, 222 Migration
Linguistic reinterpretation, 68 aspiration, 251, 252, 254
Local decision, 248, 251–253, 263
buzz, 5, 13 history, 248–250, 252
empowerment, 196, 206 model, 248, 249, 251, 261–264
knowledge, 88, 93, 95, 206 process, 248, 249, 252, 253, 256, 258,
labor markets, 13, 227, 230, 241 260–265
lecturer, 15, 271, 276, 279, 281 skilled, 2, 14, 248, 252–255, 258, 260–265
populations, 4, 10 studies, 2, 232, 252
Location theory, 116 trajectories, 14, 261
London, 69, 85, 115, 127, 145, 158, 192, 228 Military, 5, 40, 76, 133, 144, 169, 198–200,
Lund, 10, 106, 113, 115–118 205–207
Index 297
Millennium, 9, 112, 130 Natural philosophers, 145

Mind, 37–38, 68, 71, 101, 144, 215 Nature, natural, 4, 9, 12, 54, 71, 73, 78,
Mineralogy, 1 94, 126, 128, 131, 142, 159, 173,
Mismanagement, 59, 75 186–188, 198, 205, 239, 265, 278,
Mobile 282, 283
academics, 281–282 Neolithic, 134
knowledge, 4, 15, 81 Nepal, 91
populations, 250 The Netherlands, 57, 211, 254
Mobility(ies) Networking, 14, 143–146, 198, 205, 230
academic, 11, 186, 205, 261, 281 Networks
epistemological, 2 academic, 13, 124, 167, 173, 192, 197,
geographical, 1, 2, 6, 7, 276 204, 205
international, 4, 237 cultural, 15
interdependent, 4 family, 14, 252
of knowledge, 2–15, 51 friendship, 12, 15, 206
paradigm, 3 global, 68, 211–224
research, 3 imperial, 13, 142, 145–147, 152, 188, 200,
social, 2 204, 205
spatial, 23–44, 67, 68, 80, 85, 124, knowledge, 8, 187, 206, 228, 261
227–241 professional, 219
student (see Student migrant) social, 230, 253, 281
talent, 232, 233, 265 trade, 11, 134, 192
transnational, 14, 261 transnational, 265
Modern world city, 14, 127, 129, 235
academic experts, 206, 207 Network society, 5, 227, 228
civilization, 126 New Mexico, 4
disciplines, 124 New South Wales, 146, 160
history, 145, 151 New York, 127, 129, 163, 199, 234, 236,
life, 158 238, 241
nations, 125 New Zealand, 12, 157, 160, 161, 165, 166,
science, 42 172, 174, 175, 192, 197
state, 75 Nigeria, Nigerian, 14, 199, 247–255, 257, 258,
university, 125, 147 260, 261, 263–266
Modernity, 215 Nile, 52, 57, 94
Modernization, 126, 214, 215 Nobel Prize, 28, 30
Monopoly, 125 Nomothetic, 125, 126
Montreal, 149, 162 Non-human, 3, 125
Motivations, 31, 32, 35–37, 43, 142–147, 152, North Africa, 53, 54
248, 252, 255, 263 Northern Europe, 14
Mount Everest, 89–91, 94, 96–98 Nubia, 64, 146
Moyne Commission, 200, 202–204, 206 Nuremberg, 60
Museum, 85, 92, 101, 102
Muslim, Muslims, 51–54, 56, 58, 62, 63
Mutable mobiles, 67 O
Objects
fluid, 67
N immaterial, 3
National material, 3
sentiment, 142 physical, 40
socialist, 211, 216 tangible, 105
Nationalism, 142, 147, 213, 216 Offshoring, 270
Nation state, 142, 186, 213, 271 Ontology, 4, 6
298 Index
Organization Policy
colonial, 194 agricultural, 199, 203
diaspora, 265 colonial, 14, 70, 142, 194, 196, 200
global, 218–220, 227, 231 corporate, 194, 240
humanitarian, 217 government, 194
imperial, 192, 205 health, 151
international, 13, 148, 211, 213–215, human resource, 241
217–224 imperial, 142, 189, 206
non-European, 218 national, 250
nongovernmental, 217, 218 reform, 206
theory, 2, 30 transfer, 238
transnational, 230, 237 university, 178
Orientalism, 5, 125, 186 Politics, political, 2, 10, 11, 13, 35, 40, 43,
Orientation 68–74, 76–78, 80, 85, 94, 117, 125,
contacts, 30 126, 129, 132, 150, 159, 162, 169,
knowledge, 35, 39, 41, 42 172, 177, 187, 189, 194, 196, 206,
Ottomans, 29, 54 211, 212, 214, 219, 220, 222, 223,
Oxford, 12, 142, 144, 146, 147, 159–161, 163, 247, 249–251, 254
167, 170, 173–175, 177, 194, 205 Postcolonial, 86, 93, 186, 188, 197, 204
Post-Victorian imperialists, 203, 206
Power, 6, 7, 13, 29, 30, 37–40, 56, 57, 125,
P 126, 142, 150, 158, 161–165, 203, 206,
Palais des Nations, 212, 216–218, 221 220, 221, 238, 250
Palais Royale, 108 Practices, 1–7, 9–13, 15, 26–27, 36, 38, 42,
Palais Wilson, 217, 218, 220 56, 62, 68, 71, 73, 86, 91, 94, 124, 125,
Palestine, 58, 146 127, 131, 158–162, 171, 173, 178, 186,
Paper, 9, 29, 51, 72, 85, 123, 146, 159, 189, 187, 198, 199, 203, 205, 231, 233, 235,
247, 274 240, 248, 260, 271, 272, 280, 283
making, 8, 9, 51–63 agricultural, 199
mills, 9, 56–57, 62 appointment, 12, 167, 173
Papyrus, 9, 52–53, 60 colonial, 71
Paradigm, paradigmatic, 10, 11, 28, 42, 135, 215 educational, 4
Parchment, 9, 52–54, 59–62 employment, 94
Paris, 2, 7, 78–81, 146, 170, 216, 222, 234 imperial, 11
Pergamon, 53 knowledge management, 272
Perpignan, 60 knowledge producing, 7, 188
Philadelphia, 145, 149 material, 9
Photography, 10, 87–90, 92, 98, 101, 102, 280 mixed rotational farming, 203
Physical networking, 198, 205
co-presence, 274, 279 planning, 116
environment, 9 research, 7, 12, 125
experience, 273 selection, 158–160, 167, 171, 173
labor, 88 social, 107, 248
mobility, 14, 270 Premodern world, 132
movement, 3, 235, 236 PricewaterhouseCoopers, 227, 233, 236, 237
objects, 40 Print, printed, 29, 51, 64, 67–69, 75, 78, 79,
science, 105, 113 88, 92, 98, 176
Physics, 33, 41, 85, 165, 172, 176, 177, 198 Producer services, 3, 234
Pitt Rivers Museum, 102 Professionalization, 12, 160, 217
Place Professional knowledge, 26
specificity, 6, 7, 15 Progress, 12, 68, 125, 126, 130, 175, 186,
of work, 6, 13, 249 229, 254
Placelessness, 108, 109 Property rights, 24, 25, 279
Platform, 6, 37, 39, 40, 222 Protestants, 70
Index 299
Public author, 53
engagement, 86 citizen, 110
sphere, 213, 214 empire, 56
Publishing, 9, 10, 28, 33, 38, 40, 41, 69, 70, Romania, 218
72, 75–78, 85, 91, 92, 97, 105, 145, Rome, 2, 7, 53, 175, 220
146, 149–151, 221, 232, 271, 274 Routine
contact, 30, 31
knowledge, 26, 34, 36
Q Royal
Quantitative Asiatic Society (London), 143
methods, 105, 114 Commission on the West Indies, 200
revolution, 105, 113 Geographical Society (London), 10, 69,
87, 89, 93, 96, 97, 99, 100, 102, 143,
144, 146, 149, 150, 192
R Society (London), 143, 150, 159, 175,
Race, racist, 12, 15, 78, 93, 151, 159, 170, 203, 204
174, 177, 186, 187, 194, 203 Rubber Research Institute (Kuala Lumpur), 205
Rationalism, 106, 107, 109, 112 Rural, 4, 116, 134
Rationality Rural-urban, 250
hidden, 254 Russia, 143, 231
subjective, 248
Rawalpindi, 199
Reading, 72, 75–76, 78, 79, 81, 88, 101, 148, S
185, 214, 221 Sabbatical, 190
Recruitment, 86, 94, 98, 158, 160, 162, Sajur river, 58
164–167, 169, 172, 231, 239 Salt Lake City, 106
Red Army, 117 Scale
Reich Commission for the Strengthening of geographical, 3
Germandom, 116 global, 15, 222, 224, 228
Religion, 38, 51, 54, 144, 221, 222 macro, 36
Remittances, 147, 189, 250, 255, 256, micro, 36
260, 264 Scholarly
Renaissance, 112, 147, 189 networking, 141, 143–147, 170
Representation, 3–5, 33, 38, 59, 67, 69, 71, 72, travel, 146, 158, 171, 174, 176
74, 93, 101, 124, 129, 132, 149, 160, Scholars, 2, 7, 11, 12, 24, 26, 28, 31, 37, 38,
200, 203, 211–216, 232, 249, 259, 264, 41, 58, 61, 131, 141–152, 160, 161,
271, 273, 274, 279, 282 167, 168, 170, 171, 176, 186, 232, 281
Republic of letters, 147–149 Scholarship, 9, 37, 86, 130, 143, 147, 148,
Research. See also University 158, 160, 164, 170, 172, 186–188, 231
laboratory, 31, 197 (see also Laboratory) Sciences, 2, 7, 8, 28, 32, 41, 42, 93, 124, 125,
leave, 189, 190, 205 128–132, 134, 135, 142–145, 147–149,
practice, 6, 7, 12, 125 151, 157, 160, 172, 173, 178, 187, 188,
travel, 7, 192 206, 228, 252, 275
Researchers, 3–5, 7, 10, 95, 100, 101, 123, Science studies, 42, 106–108, 118, 126
124, 126, 128, 131, 135, 199 Scientific
Revolution advisor, 199, 203
agricultural, 134, 135 career, 148, 189
French, 2, 78 expertise, 186, 192, 194, 196
information technology, 5 infrastructure, 205
quantitative, 105, 113 internationalism, 11, 149, 152
urban, 127, 133–135 knowledge, 3, 26, 34, 187
Rhodes Trust, 163 travel, 2, 7, 186
Robots, 3, 5 Scotland, Scottish, 68, 71, 142, 151, 160, 165,
Roman, 53, 70 170, 172, 174
300 Index
Seattle, 10 disparities, 30, 178

Sectarian divide, 70 mobility of knowledge, 23–44, 67, 68, 80,
Secular, 212, 221 85, 124, 227, 228, 233–235
Selection, 158–160, 167, 171, 173 relations, 7, 37
Self-perception, 42 representation, 211–216
Settler universities, 12, 157–162, 167, 168, science, 11
170–173, 175, 178 Spatiality, 13, 124, 130, 187, 211–224, 271
Sherpa, 89, 90, 94, 97, 98 Spirit of Geneva, 13, 211–216, 224
Shifting cultivation, 203 Spy, 211
Silk, 25, 29, 32, 34–36, 38, 39, 43, 54, 56, Stalinist, 216
58, 60 Standardization, 7, 215
Singapore, 216, 234, 238, 241 Standards, 4, 200, 215, 272
Skills, 4–6, 13, 15, 95, 127, 161, 171, 192, State, 11, 40, 54, 58, 70, 77, 123–125, 128,
227, 228, 230–232, 235, 237, 239, 240, 129, 131–135, 142, 150, 198, 206, 212,
259, 269, 273, 275 216, 234, 279
cognitive, 36, 38 Structural forces, 248, 254–261
downgrading of, 260 Student
embodied, 4 graduate, 114, 115, 117, 198, 199
language, 15, 25, 192, 255 immobile, 14
management, 239 international, 3, 222, 275, 283
professional, 34, 36 migrant, 255, 260
Social women, 176
capital, 15, 252, 260, 274–276, 278, Sufi Movement, 220, 221
279, 282 Sweden, 117, 118
conflict, 205 Sydney, 148, 159–161, 164, 168, 170, 173,
constructivism, constructionism, 174, 176
3, 108 Symbol, 157, 273
distance, 3 Symbolic
knowledge, 124–126, 128 capital, 5, 283
practice, 248 meaning of places, 30
proximity, 172–174 power, 275
relationship, 3, 276 Syria, Syrian, 58, 63
sciences, 3, 4, 8, 11, 28, 41, 123–135, 160, System
205, 232, 275 education, 269
Society, 30, 40, 71, 78, 86, 87, 89, 93, 125, impulsive, 37, 39, 42–43
130, 147, 151, 169, 203, 215–220, innovation, 26
223, 224, 241, 250, 251, 255, 258–260, management, 228, 230, 235, 240
263, 264 migration, 247
South Africa, 12, 91, 141, 157, 159, 161, 165, mobility, 3
168, 174, 175, 177, 185, 190, 199, 231 production, 227
South African Literary Association and reflective, 39
Scientific Institution, 145 social, 23, 24, 26, 29–32, 35, 38, 178
South New Guinea, 148 tax, 278
Southern Rhodesia, 185, 196 town, 118
Soviet Union, 117 trading, 94
Space of trust, 12, 158, 161, 172, 173
epistemological, 2 urban, 128, 129
of flows, 4, 8, 127 value, 4, 15
of places, 4, 8
Spatial
adaptation, 54–63 T
analysis, 8, 10, 105–118 Talent, 23, 74, 265
context, 38, 218–220, 228 mobility, 232, 265
design strategies, 86 migration, 265
Index 301
Tartu, 10 business, 14, 29, 230, 233, 235, 239, 241

Techniques conference, 191, 192, 197
of paper making, 51 cultures, 187
statistical, 114 overseas, 189, 190, 198, 206
Technology, 1, 3, 24, 25, 27, 29–32, 54–64, research, 7, 192
68, 88, 142, 160, 230, 272 Trinity of actants, 3, 7
Technoscape, 5 Tropics, tropical, 13, 72, 151, 189, 199, 200,
Text, 5, 26, 58, 67, 68, 70, 71, 73, 74, 76–81, 203, 205, 207
105, 129, 130, 273 Truth, 10, 35, 41, 63, 74, 80–81, 144, 158
Textbook, 129, 130, 132, 270 scientific, 158
Theory, theoretical spot, 10, 106, 108–109, 111–116, 118
actor-network, 3, 5, 42, 108, 213 Typology, 14, 229, 255, 261, 273
big bang, 5
central flow, 127
central place, 10, 114, 115, 117, 118 U
communication, 32 Uncertainty, 30, 31, 135
continential drift, 28 Understanding, 11, 26, 31, 33, 69, 78, 80, 101,
evolution, 130 107, 123, 124, 130–132, 135, 144, 187,
international business, 275 203, 211–213, 215, 220, 224, 228, 232,
neoclassical, 42 247, 249, 251, 256, 261, 263, 264,
organization, 2, 30 271–273, 280, 281, 283
of social constructivism, Union Internationale des Etudiants, 219
constructionism, 108 United Kingdom, 4, 14, 87, 129, 168, 170,
trade, 129 174, 185, 237, 239, 247–250, 252–256,
Thought style, 27, 37–38, 41, 42 269, 270, 273, 277, 278, 280, 282
Tibet, 91, 93, 101 United Nations, 203, 212, 217, 224
Tigris, 57 United States, 4, 11, 12, 14, 129, 162, 163,
Time-space, 249 168–172, 174, 191, 192, 195, 197,
Tlemcen, 63 199, 203, 204, 222, 232, 247, 248,
Tobago, 70 250, 253, 265
Topos, 110, 113, 114 University College. See also College
Torah, 53 London, 146, 158, 159, 198
Toronto, 159, 161, 168–172, 177, 199 of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, 196
Trade, 11, 51, 53, 63–64, 129, 131, 134, 192, Toronto, 159
200, 235 University(ies), 1, 4, 11, 12, 40, 41, 123–126,
Transatlantic Science Movement, 148 130, 141–143, 145, 147, 152, 157–163,
Transformation, 15, 54, 68, 101, 129, 165–170, 172, 174, 175, 178, 186, 188,
188, 281 189, 197, 198, 206, 252–255, 270, 275,
Transition from patronage to merit, 159 276. See also College
Translation, 10, 24, 67–69, 76–81, 85, 88, 147, of Adelaide, 171
148, 187, 215, 272, 273 Australian, 160, 163, 164, 166, 175
Transmigration, transmigrant, 255, 256, 260 of Berlin, 2
Transnational of Bombay, 143
communities, 228 British, 4, 141, 159, 161, 167, 169, 170,
education, 4, 15, 270–282 173, 174, 186, 206, 270
labor mobility, 13 of Cairo, 194
mobility, 4, 270–282 of California, 146, 171
networks, 265 of Cambridge, 12, 145, 164, 185–200,
Transnationalism, 14, 258, 260, 264, 265, 269, 202–207
274–277, 283 Canadian, 162, 163, 166, 169, 170, 174
Travel of the Cape of Good Hope, 161
academic, 8, 12, 13, 186, 188–192, 194, of Cape Town, 165, 169
196, 197, 204–206 civic, 161, 166, 167, 173
302 Index
University(ies) (cont.) of Tartu, 117

colonial, 143, 158 of Toronto, 163, 169, 171, 177 (see also
continental, 158 University College)
degree, 4, 247, 252, 255, 265, 275–277 U.K., 14, 269, 270, 277, 280,
disciplines, 11 281, 283
of Dundee, 150 U.S., 12, 125
of Edinburgh, 151 of Washington (Seattle), 114–116
education, 147, 253–255 of the Witwatersrand, 175
European, 199 Yale University, 148
of Freiburg, 116 Urban
of Geneva, 222 economics, 126, 128, 129
German, 147, 170 hierarchies, 234
German-speaking, 124 hinterland, 117
of Göttingen, 158, 170 history, 129
graduates, 247–266 landscape, 213
Harvard University, 148, 177 models, 114
Heidelberg University, 28, 216 planning, 214
Indian, 166, 167 political science, 129
of Iowa, 115 revolution, 127, 133–135
John Hopkins University, 148 sociology, 129
library, 41, 207 studies, 129
of Liverpool, 146, 172 system, 128
of London, 148, 174, 196 Uruk, 135
of Lund, 117
Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, 113 V
of Manchester, 162, 205 Valencia, 59
McGill University, 162, 163 Vancouver, 144
of Melbourne, 164, 169, 173, 175 Vietnam, 54
modern, 125, 147 Virtual
of New Mexico, 4 information, 5
New Zealand, 12, 160 proximity, 230
Nigerian, 247–266 space, 101
North American, 112 tools, 233
Northwestern University, 114 travel, 3
Otago University, 160 Visibility, 37, 38, 40, 88, 90
of Oxford, 144, 187 Visiting appointment, 191
of Paris, 170, 222
policies, 178
positions, 12 W
Queen’s University, 172 War. See also World War I; World War II
of Rangoon, 204 American Civil War, 58
research, 188, 190, 191, 197 Biafran War, 250
scientists and scholars, 11, 186 Seven Years’ War, 70
Scottish, 160 Sino-Japanese War, 216
settler, 12, 157–162, 167, 168, 170–173, Water
175, 178 marks, 61, 63
of Sheffield, 173 resources, 196
South African, 12, 165 power, 56, 57
of South Carolina, 75 Wehrmacht, 117
students, 4, 280 West Indies, 167, 192, 197, 203, 204, 206
studies, 4, 147 Women, 10, 12, 92, 94, 157, 174–176, 178,
of Sydney, 146, 168, 169, 173 200, 222, 249
Index 303
World Calendar Association, 217 Y

World cities, 13, 127, 129, 227–241 Yemen, 58, 62
World city network, 14, 127, 129, 235 Young Men’s Christian Association, 217
World War I, 13, 91, 145, 151, 167, 170, Young Women’s Christian Organization, 222
173–175, 191, 198, 200, 211, 213, 214,
217, 224
World War II, 166, 169, 170, 190–192, 196, Z
197, 203, 206, 211 Zanzibar, 92, 94, 204

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Heike Jöns · Peter Meusburger

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/7568

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016959460

Printed on acid-free paper

This Springer imprint is published by Springer Nature

1 Mobilities of Knowledge: An Introduction............................................ 1

Part I Circulation, Transfer, and Adaptation

Part II Mediators, Networks, and Learning

The Klaus Tschira Stiftung............................................................................. 287

Carl Christian Abrahamsson Department of Sociology and Human Geography,

Peter Meusburger Department of Geography, Heidelberg University, Heidelberg,

Heike Jöns, Michael Heffernan, and Peter Meusburger

Wenn man sich zu den Gegenständen selbst begibt, hält man

This book examines how the geographical mobility of people, practices, institu-

© The Author(s) 2017 1

g­ eographical scales, focusing on professionals in high-­tech industries (e.g., Harvey,

Drawing on these insights, we suggest adding a sixth dimension to Urry’s

Table 1.1 Six interdependent forms of mobility

on this codified/tacit binary, see chapter by Meusburger). Accordingly, the eco-

g­ eographical mobility arises partly from the place-specificity of different research

d­ iscussing systematic “cycles of capitalization” in “centres of calculation” (p. 220)

is shaped by different environments. Meusburger argues that a comparable level of

increasingly uneven integration of different parts of empire into British academic

s­ ervices, thus reproducing the centrality, competitiveness, and cosmopolitanism of

widely promoted, conventional view that transnational education is unproblematic

[D]irect communication between the adherents of different

© The Author(s) 2017 23

mobility of higher grades of knowledge is so selective in the spatial dimension; and

Collaborative Knowledge Discretionary Knowledge

The owner of the knowledge The owner or communicator of

The use of the knowledge is The knowledge is publicly

The communication of the The grade of knowledge

Knowledge sharing between This category of knowledge

pitfalls.3 In order to avoid misunderstandings and inadequate generalizations,

 hortcomings and Disputable Assumptions in Research

 ree Access to Knowledge Is Not Equivalent to Acquisition

A large part of authors doing research on knowledge spin-offs, knowledge

within an organization, a community of practice, or an epistemic community;

 he Impact of New Information and Communication

Some of the problematic assumptions about the mobility of knowledge can be

Personal information of Jean Gottmann (Oxford) in March 1977.

centers8; and to a decentralization of routine activities in low-cost peripheries

I s Codified Knowledge a Public Good and a Tradable

For details about successful persuasion see Cialdini (2008).

For Lorentzian (2+1)-gravity with vanishing cosmological constant, each element λ ∈

Vorverständnis (prior understanding).

als, the distinction between knowledge and information becomes indispensable.

Nominal and Ordinal Differentiations of Knowledge

Metaphors such as knowledge spillovers or knowledge flows are misleading for

tation knowledge14 (Meusburger, 2015a); or between substantive and significant

understood by people having a certain degree of prior knowledge at their disposal.

 n Attempt to Construct a More Realistic Communication

When studying the communication and spatial dissemination of different categories

In order to reduce the complexity of the communication process between person

differ as a function of the characteristics of knowledge” (p. 468).

Ability to Articulate Impulse Filter of Factual Filter of Orientation

Cognitive Processes Reflective System Impulsive System

society, billions of dollars are spent to conduct or prevent industrial or military

The filter of factual knowledge decides whether a person is able to understand

1 Mobilities of Knowledge: An Introduction............................................ 1

g eographical scales, focusing on professionals in high-tech industries (e.g., Harvey,

g eographical mobility arises partly from the place-specificity of different research

d iscussing systematic “cycles of capitalization” in “centres of calculation” (p. 220)

s ervices, thus reproducing the centrality, competitiveness, and cosmopolitanism of

hortcomings and Disputable Assumptions in Research

ree Access to Knowledge Is Not Equivalent to Acquisition

he Impact of New Information and Communication

I s Codified Knowledge a Public Good and a Tradable

Nominal and Ordinal Differentiations of Knowledge

n Attempt to Construct a More Realistic Communication

The Early Diffusion of Papermaking

The Replacement of Papyrus and Parchment

Cultural Geographies of Papermaking

The widespread availability of paper encouraged an extraordinary culture of book-

Spatial Adaptations in the Technology of Papermaking

Raw Material Used for Papermaking

Further Processing of Paper

Trade Relations and the Decline of Arab Papermaking

William Macintosh: A Colonial Life

Polishing, Publication, and Reception of Macintosh’s Travels

The Reading and Afterlife of Travels

Conclusion: Text, Translation, and Truth

Macintosh’s Travels, as a first independent outing into the publication of extra-

expeditions (discussed further below). The focus of the image reproduced in

permitting identification of an underlying (theoretically defined) causal structure.

he View from Somewhere: Place and the Spatial Mobility

Spatial Mobility of Knowledge

A History and Geography of Spatial Analysis

The Early Years

The Later Years

Seattle and Iowa City

The Times and Spaces of Academic Social Knowledges

Practical Knowledges in, Through, and Out of Cities

Of Mainstream Social Science

Of Mainstream Archaeology

Debates Generated by Bringing Cities Back In

Cities and the Creation of States

Cities and the Development of Agriculture