UnderstandingScientific science: indifference: Understanding boredom Understanding science in a Mexican planetarium

A thesis submitted to the University of Manchester for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Social Sciences and Law A thesis submitted to the University of Manchester for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Social Sciences and Law 2004

2004

María Alejandra Sánc hez Vázquez

Department of Social Anthropology María Alejandra Sánc hez-Vázquez

Department of Social Anthropology

List of contents Table of contents

List of figures 4 List of abbreviations 4 Abstract 5 Declaration 6 Copyright statement 6 Acknowledgements 7

Introduction 10

Explaining science: 10 Case one, the Engineer on Mars 10 Case two, the Biologists in Tequila 11 First arguments and first questions 13 A dual approach to the understanding of science 15 Exploring the public understandings 17 The scientists’ understanding of the laity 22 Scientists self image 24 The communication of science 26 Explorations in a planetarium 27

Chapter one: A planetarium’s multiverse 31

The Planetarium 32 The museographic exhibitions 34 The vintage car collection 35 The interactive zone in the Planetarium 37 The astronomy zone 39 The Jurassic world 42 The observatory and the telescopes workshop 42 The gardens 42 Abandoned areas 44 The Planetarium’s multiverse 47

Chapter two: Three ways to sense space 51

An ideal space for the understanding of science? 52 The offices 52 Borderlines 55 The doors 56 The hideouts 59 Meaningful spaces, spatial practices 60 The Planetarium’s great divide 61 Visitors in the public spaces 65

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Chapter three: Explaining and understanding science at the Planetarium 70

Parallel understandings 75 Possible outcomes and their implications 77 From public to private (or private understandings?) 80 The objects take the lead 84 An unacknowledged learning community 85 Ignored to conceive 86

Chapter four: On boredom 91

Boredom and the Planetarium 92 Signs of boredom 95 The stick and the carrot 99 Learning about boredom 101 Boredom in museums 103 Boredom as a social issue 107 Thinking about the invisible 108 Boredom, the eternal enemy? 109

Chapter five: Time, trust and understanding 114

Fear and life-long understanding 114 Timing, competition and the communication of scientific knowledge 120 Participation, belief and trust 128 Under the light of time 134

Chapter six: The unintended understanding of power 139

The first transformation attempts 139 The limits of interactivity 142 The scientists’ participation 144 Dealing with the first volunteers 146 Negotiating the power of science 148 The redefinition of the public 151 The implications for a nation-state 155 The depoliticisation of the advancement of science 161

Conclusion: Understanding science 164

When the individual is made responsible for understanding science… 164 When the scientists are made responsible… 168 When the difficulty of understanding science is made accountable… 169 The unintended understanding of power 169

Bibliography 174

3 List of figures

Figure 1. The planetarium and its grass menagerie 32 Figure 2. The Van der Graaf generator 38 Figure 3. The Solar System Room 40 Figure 4. The engines’ ramp 44 Figure 5. The electro-shocks machine 113 Figure 6. The boy and the dinosaur 115 Figure 7. The auditorium on a typical day 138

List of abbreviations

NAFTA North American Free Trade Agreement Jpfs Just plain folks PUS Public understanding of science NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration UNAM Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

4 Abstract

The subject of this ethnographic research is the promotion of public scientific literacy in a Mexican planetarium. The planetarium, in the process of transition from an established public institution to a privately-funded science centre, provided the opportunity to study a range of perspectives on the public understanding of science and raised important questions about the potential for communicating scientific knowledge within such institutions.

I argue that this planetarium is ineffective in some ways but highly effective in unexpected aspects. The physical description of the institutional environments reveals a dull and boring place where staff work day after day in a repetitive, and un-stimulating relationship with the administration of the Centre. It is through the contact between the staff and the visitors that the understanding of science emerges as a possibility. The problem is that the institution sees its role primarily as that of the provider of the media through which science is communicated to the public, ignoring and unintentionally limiting the social interactions through which learning can take place.

As a result individuals find it very difficult to engage with the scientific principles embedded in the displays and hence fail to further their understanding of science. This occurs not because the individual fails to understand what is being communicated at a surface level, but because s/he cannot participate and is rendered passive in the communication process. Interactive exhibits designed to draw the visitors in do not greatly increase the social interaction. The thesis shows how the various ways in which interaction is limited foster an attitude of indifference in those who are effectively ignored.

Furthermore, the institutional failure in this respect not only prevents better understandings of science, but actually promotes an indifferent attitude towards science turning the visitors into apolitical beings who will not challenge or question the social consequences of contemporary entrepreneurial science. It is thus suggested that this institution, instead of raising the standards of scientific literacy may in fact be fostering a generalised indifference towards the development of science.

These points are developed in two ways: By treating the understanding of science as a social and political process; and by addressing the historical problem of the stagnation of the endogenous development of science in Mexico. Scientific activities in Mexico are more strongly connected to transnational scientific networks than they are to local concerns. These circumstances are reflected also in the museum sector and exemplified here with an analysis of three areas of activity: The purchase of transnational interactive technologies, the negotiations for the enrolment of scientists in the entrepreneurial project of transforming the public planetarium into a modern private science centre, and the purposeful ignoring of the communication circuits already established between the planetarium’s staff and the visitors to the centre.

Overall the work seeks to highlight the ways in which indifference towards science as much as the idealising discourses of and about science are aiding in the unchallenged reproduction of neoliberal uses of scientific knowledge.

5 Declaration

No portion of the work referred to in the thesis/dissertation has been submitted in support of an application for another degree or qualification of this or any other university or other institute of learning.

Copyright statement

Copyright in text of this thesis/dissertation rests with the Author. Copies (by any process) either in full, or of extracts, may be made only in accordance with instruction given by the Author and lodged in the John Rylands University Library of Manchester. Details may be obtained from the Librarian. This page must form part of any such copies made. Further copies (by any process) of copies made in accordance with such instructions may not be made without the permission (in writing) of the Author.

The ownership of any intellectual property rights which may be described in this thesis/dissertation is vested in the University of Manchester, subject to any prior agreement to the contrary, and may not be made available for use by third parties without the written permission of the University, which will prescribe the terms and conditions of any such agreement.

Further information on the conditions under which disclosures and exploitation may take place is available from the Head of the Department of Social Anthropology.

6 Acknowledgements

Carrying out this research was not boring at all, although some chapters may thus imply. It is thanks to the people I met through this experience, but especially thanks to those who accompanied me through this long journey that the past four years have become a mind blowing personal story. First of course I thank the Mexican Council for Science and Technology for funding this opportunity which would otherwise have been impossible to undertake. Next, I thank the people of the Department of Social Anthropology in the University of Manchester for all their unremitting support. To the people in the Planetarium, thank you. I know I remained as an intruder until the end of my stay, but you put up with me and my questions; you invited me to what went on, you were always very respectful to my presence and my work and you allowed me to share the spaces with you. Thanks to Arturo Gallegos, for all your support and interest. Betty, Profesor Miguel Angel, Livier, and all the guides, thanks to you for every day of your company. To my friends in the Planetarium, Maribel and Yolanda, without you it would have been a difficult time. You helped me to understand the extremes and face life differently. Doctor Levy, thanks for trusting in whatever I was doing in the Planetarium. This thesis might come as a surprise to you but I hope that it can help your best projects in some way. Thanks to all the people who amiably allowed me to interview them. To the people working in the Board of Patrons thanks for allowing me to sit in on your meetings. To the scientists involved thanks for the interviews, the coffees, the books, the chats, the lessons. To Brenda, Isela and Leticia Reyes for sharing with me your experiences as popularisers. I will always remember how admirable what you do is. To my friends Ana Ramírez Carr and Don for your hospitality and kindness. To Raul and Alejandra for those years of friendship and the ones to come. Ale, through you I met Penny, so I thank you for this experience. Through Wolfgang I met you, but he will be thanked later. I still don’t know how. Dear Penny, you’ve put up with Maria very well. Thanks for reading my work, as I have always said and always meant. Your advice has surprised me from day one, no phrase can really express my gratitude to your intellectual support. To my friends in the Muriel Stott, Mariana, Wendy, Richard and Emily, thanks for all your help and friendship through these years. Keir, Elena, Alejandra, Cecilie, Siiri, William, Cordelia, Mayrén, Tim, Frida, Sandra, Martin and Gloria: It has been a pleasure meeting you all. Emilene, thanks for proof-reading this thesis. To Manchester, for the rain that I never stop loving, for the people, for the feelings. And now that it is time to go back and I do not know what will come next, I can say that I certainly know who is going to be there, nearest to me: Abuelo, how much I would have liked to see you again. I’ve missed you. Lulú, voy para allá. Ahora sí vamos a poder preguntar a Wolfgang por qué el Sol sale todos los días del mismo lugar y se va a la misma hora. Me haces sonreir, te quiero tanto Lulú. Carmen, gracias por siempre mantenerme cerca de ti, todos tus mensajes y tu presencia. Beatriz, gracias por tu interés, cariño y compañía a la distancia. To the Steffen and Dieck families, thank you.

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To my parents Jorge and Consuelo, thanks for all your advice and good faith. Chelo, this is with you. No matter what I think, no matter what I know, no matter how far I am, you are always with me. Jorge Eric, your messages are the best. I have finished thanks to those good vibes that you sent to me that rainy morning. Bsssssss, Bsssssssssssssss they go back to you so that I find you happy, and are happy forever. Dania, what can I tell you? Forgive me for not being there. And thank you for succeeding, for continuing and for bringing Leonardo to this world against all the odds. Gracias Dania. Leonardo: Soy Ale. No sabes cuánto he pensado en ti ni cuánto me ha inspirado tu llegada: Welcome young man! Finally, my deepest thanks Wolfgang, for everything and all that I never imagined a man could be and become. For waiting. I love you.

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To Wolfgang.

9 Introduction

This ethnographic research is about the dilemmas inherent in the popularisation of science in neo-colonial contexts and neoliberal economies. It explores how the knowledge-power gap can increase in times when many popularisation campaigns are organised. Here I present some of the observations that made me aware not only of the difficulties of understanding science as a lay person, but of the complexities of explaining science when boredom and indifference are sometimes the immediate experiences of it. To study the implications that explaining science has for wider social groups — wider than the scientists’ and engineers’ perspectives — I opted for the ethnographic study of a place where science is communicated to the public on a daily basis. I have been interested in witnessing how scientific knowledge is presented to the lay public and who presents it to whom. The setting chosen is a planetarium and science centre located in a city in the western side of Mexico. Opting for a planetarium as the main site for fieldwork necessarily situates this research not only in the anthropological field but also within museum studies, the social studies of science and the public understanding of science studies. I will introduce my explorations into the world of the public understanding of science in Mexico with the aid of two ethnographic episodes. Afterwards, from the review of the literature in the field of the public understanding of science (PUS) the first questions that lead the present document will emerge.

Explaining science

Case One, the Engineer on Mars: The speech by an engineer addressed to a group of indigenous children in a rural classroom in Mexico awoke my interest in the study of the communication of science and its understanding. This engineer, acknowledged in the country for his long term interest in the popularisation of science and technology, was presenting that morning in 1998 the benefits that the construction of the first radio-telescope built on Mexican soil would bring to those peasants living near to the future observatory.

10 This engineer aimed at making science look familiar and exciting to those children, so he prepared a talk that would take the children from the construction of the radio- telescope and other important technologies, to the exploration of Mars. He explained that, while the construction of the radio-telescope entailed the development of Mexican astronomy, it would benefit other industrial sectors too. Some scientists and engineers were working at that moment on the development of a very light but strong material for the radio-telescope’s antenna. He told the children how exciting this was: ‘This material is the same that is used for the cords of the rackets that you play tennis with!’ He went on to explain how the development of astronomy is central to building better radars such as those used in Mercedes Benz cars; all this with the participation of Mexican scientists and engineers. The engineer wanted the children to feel thrilled about the technologies being developed so close to their peasant communities, but he did not pay attention to the questions and expectations that his comments would raise. He was not aware either of the expectations that the project had already raised in the region. Was he aware of the economic situation of those peasant towns? Was he trying to say that some day tennis courts, Mercedes Benz cars, roads and pavement would be common in that impoverished region? Certainly not, but for him the social implications of his comments were not as relevant as the instrument he was promoting, hence, by stressing the benefits he was careless with the issue of the beneficiaries. The engineer’s intervention captures one of the dilemmas faced when scientific knowledge is popularised: the more marginal the audience is to a scientific community, the more compromising it will be to explain science and technology uses and advantages in the everyday life of that audience. Celebrating science entails avoiding the subject of accessibility and the implications of the advancement of science.

Case Two, the Biologists in Tequila: The year is 2001. Bats became the target of a regional conservation campaign, a fight against superstition and depredation in the surrounding countryside of Jalisco, in western Mexico. Some species of bats are in danger of extinction and it is presumed that local people may have killed large groups by smoking the caves where they dwell. Pilar and Lulú, biologists working for the National University (UNAM), used to explain to peasant children that bats act as pollinators of the agave plant and other species of the region, so killing them harms a whole ecosystem in a delicate equilibrium. They explained how killing one animal species is connected with the extinction of the plants on which the economy of the region depends in Tequila, Jalisco. 11 They commented that the children they worked with around Tequila were prone to believe in ‘el chupacabras’, a sort of evil creature that sucks blood and kills cows and horses, and some said that it kills people too. In parallel, the bats, as nocturnal animals, are suspicious creatures because they live in caves during the days, and are thought by some people to be vampires. The biologists explained that people should not fear bats because only two species are bloodsuckers and the rest only feed on fruits and nectar, pollinating the plants they get their food from. Bats should be protected and the superstitious beliefs of the people should be abandoned. In Tequila, though, crucial to the industrial process of distiling the agave is to cut the plant when it is not yet fully grown. Its cycle does not start from being a seed and does not finish any more with the bloom of the agave flower. This is because the plant is harvested before it blooms in order to extract the syrup to produce the spirit. Surely people should not permit anyone to kill bats by smoking the caves where the animals live, but it should also be explained that the industry of tequila is not allowing the agave to bloom, and that it has cleared immense extensions of land to plant only the agave. The bat populations are thus decreasing as their food supplies diminish. I marvelled at hearing their complex but clear processes of making connections between plants, animals and habitats. It was not clear though why these biologists believed that the peasant populations should be made responsible for the extinction of a species when the nearby industrial production of the tequila spirit is a greater problem. In their explanations that depended upon the interconnectedness of the species, the human link was represented and misrepresented at the same time. Its representation consisted in relating bad local habits with major devastations, making the children feel responsible for their actions for or against nature. The human link was missing when these women avoided talking about the impacts of the massive exploitation of nature, for which these children were not responsible at all. Two rationalities, the rural and the industrial, are in competition. Both rationalities are incorporated into the scientific discourses through both representation and misrepresentation. The population of bats can be sacrificed for the blooming of the spirit industry, whereas the rural and superstitious rationale by contrast can hardly be defended since it lacks the economic strength of the industrial development. I was curious about the need the biologists felt to explain the environment from a scientific point of view to the children who necessarily had some knowledge from living in those places. I remember asking another populariser the reasons for her interest in explaining how to live by the rivers with which her audience had lived for generations. Without hesitation she answered that ‘things have changed’; people know how to live in 12 their places but some things they do are not right any more. Some activities – in these cases the rural ones – are rendered irrational, unnecessary and even harmful. This opinion of course depends on the perspective of whoever is raising the issue.

First arguments and first questions

In these two cases, the dwellers were invited to think about their habits and habitats in order to develop a responsible attitude for the environment, but the mention of industrial and agricultural development massively affecting the same regions was carefully excluded from the explanations. People like these biologists or the engineer take the responsibility for explaining the relationships of humanity with nature. They do not stop to question, in public, other issues such as industrial pollution and irresponsibility. This does not mean that they are unaware of the industrial and agricultural impact in the environment, but when they go to these towns to explain what they think people should know in order to live in the best way possible, they avoid commenting on the actual conditions imposed by the neighbouring environments of production. These popularisers nevertheless promote a sense of guilt, expectations and social responsibility together with their partial explanations of the environments of production. The children who understand these environmental explanations get excited about the new information and go back to their homes to tell these stories to their families. In this way not only the children learn, but through them whole communities become ‘better’ informed. In both examples, these people share a sort of ethos of the populariser; they also share a characteristic resistance for giving information that is deeply related with their audiences’ exclusion from a productive system. It seems as if the proposal of these popularisers was to understand only that fragment of knowledge that signals individual responsibility. When the individual addressed is not presumed responsible anymore for the changes or the implications, the explanation stops. In the first case, however, no individual in the audience can be made responsible for the success of science. Why does the popularisation of the sciences of nature seem so relevant but understanding the hegemonic principles of its application by the human kind are rendered irrelevant? How is it so easy to disguise the massive implications that the application of science brings about? How do we get so used and grow indifferent to these partial explanations? A populariser in the northern desert of Sonora told me one day that the children that attend the in situ popularisation events ‘are experiencing a renewal of their interest in nature.’ These popularisers – as the ones who fill the account that follows – are taking part 13 in what Marshall Sahlins said was ‘the change of ideas about nature’ and ‘the viability of the traditional cultures’ (Sahlins 2000, 171). Popularisers are explaining in scientific terms some aspects of the natural world; it is through this new lens that children are presumably experiencing a renovated interest in their surroundings. The experiencing of nature and of the traditional is being transformed while indifference to partial explanations becomes more common. Sahlins has written about counteracting a ‘sentimental pessimism’ that has pervaded the anthropological quest since its professional beginnings with Malinowski: a presentiment that has fuelled generations of anthropologists in the search for disappearing primeval cultures. 1 Sahlins explains that these changes of ideas about nature and tradition in relationship with ‘modernity’ and its products should fuel more of today’s anthropological quests because it seems that we are now describing ‘a different planet’ (Sahlins 2000, 171). In this new planet, popularisers are a crucial aid in the promotion of the viability of technoscience and other industrial developments, but how do they – how do we – get so used to technoscience without understanding more of it? Most of these popularisers work with the support of a museum, an NGO or a university, and their goal – to explain nature in the natural context – is in a sense to control the behaviour of those marginal groups. Popularisers seem to be agents that are promoting new forms of governmentality in Foucault’s sense. That is, ‘all the processes through which the populations’ conduct is governed’ (Foucault in Ferguson and Gupta 2002, 989). Ferguson and Gupta set a basic question that this research addresses. This thesis explores how governmentality in times of technoscience takes ‘place.’ These authors propose that every ethnography in neoliberal times and contexts should address the bureaucratic embodiment of the state’s spatialization. Ferguson and Gupta ask what happens in spatial terms when the functions of the state and other contemporary national and transnational organizations such as NGOs or private bodies ‘overlap’? What happens when not only the nation-state regulates the spaces of governmentality but those of other bodies too? It is the understanding of a transnational governmentality that these authors suggest should be sought in current ethnographic accounts. ‘How are states themselves spatialised?’ they ask (Ferguson and Gupta 2002). A planetarium was chosen as the setting for the exploration of the explanation and understanding of science because it is a public institution that was in the process of privatisation at the time when this ethnographic research was starting. This change of administration opened up the possibility to observe

1 Ana Tsing’s ethnography, In the Realm of the Diamond Queen, is a good example of an anthropologist that highlights the search for the pristine tribe that lives a perfect communal life in isolation. 14 that nascent spatialisation of the state and a private administrative body. But let me first explain the significance of studying the popularisation of science.

A dual approach to the understanding of science

The concept of the Public Understanding of Science (PUS) has no exact parallel in Mexico. It certainly can be translated into ‘comprensión pública de la ciencia’ but there has never been such an extensive campaign as the one that took place some decades ago in the United Kingdom, Europe and the United States against scientific illiteracy (Durant et al. 1996; Pickstone 2001, 192).2 This is partly because, so far, the Mexican state has sought to reduce illiteracy first. A national campaign for the public understanding of science was organised in 1994 as part of the NAFTA treaty. This does not go to say, however that there have not been people interested and highly active in the popularisation of science in Mexico. The English word popularisers, stands for those people known in Mexico as ‘divulgadores’. For language purposes I will call here popularisers or science communicators those people who are dedicated to the popularisation of science, or to the public understanding of science, and whose work is called ‘divulgación de la ciencia’ (divulgence of science). Their actions are defined as comprehending ‘all kind of activities that enhance and update scientific knowledge, with only one condition: these have to be extra-scholar activities, outside of the academic and regulated education system, dedicated to the non-specialist public’ (Calvo Hernando in Anaya 2002, 13; translation mine). Other authors like Bourges Rodríguez plainly state that to divulge means ‘to make something of public knowledge’ (2002, 45). Some authors debate the meaning of the words ‘divulgación’ and ‘difusión’. Marcelino Cereijido (2002), for example, claims that only those fifteen or twenty specialised scientists of a specific field will understand each other when they talk about their own speciality; when these people communicate their knowledge among their community they are doing ‘difusión’ (diffusion). The word ‘divulgar’, on the other hand, includes the concept ‘vulgo’. Cereijido writes that the rest of the scientific community, other specialists from other

2 Following John Pickstone’s analysis of the history of the public understanding in contemporary Britain, a recent move towards the political right in public administration had several consequences for the scientific and academic groups. Universities suffered expenditure cuts and a combination of a sceptical public and neo- liberal governments ‘provoked some scientists to mount campaigns to improve ‘the public understanding of science’ in order to guarantee funding for their research projects’ and to protect the scientific enterprise from adverse criticism (Pickstone 2000, 192). This governmental transformation relied on the support of taxpayers who had to be informed about and sympathetic towards the centrality of scientific knowledge for society. The need to explain science to the lay public grew for the last twenty years although the interest in the public understanding is not that new (Irwin and Wynne 1996, 3-7). The public understanding became a ‘corporate good and a corporate goal’ (Ibid, 196) and educational, industrial and economic interests were merged together in such activities and projects. 15 communities and the people in general are ‘el vulgo’ and need the divulgence of science.3 It is important to note that I am always referring to the divulgence of science and not its diffusion which among studiers of science has the oversimplifying theoretical connotation of automatic circulation (Barry 2001, 139) (Latour 1987, 142; Napolitano 1998, 11, 182; 2003).4 The phrase ‘understanding science’, stands for the exploration of the processes of explanation and understanding in a specific public context. Instead of prescribing from the onset what should be understood – as the PUS movement implied in its origins – I approached the field of research with the intention of exploring the what, who and how of the communication of science. I have tried hard to keep myself from making judgements as to what is ‘good’ popularisation of science and what is ‘bad’ or ‘mistaken’. Hence, in spite of this judgemental constraint – or should I say thanks to it – I ended up writing about the significance of boredom, indifference and bureaucracy too. In the Anglo-Saxon context much of what goes on about the studies of the PUS stems from two meaningful approximations to the study of knowledge and the knower. This dual approximation was well captured by the anthropologist Laura Nader: While Malinowski challenged the dogma that primitive man was characterized by irrationality, Leach was correct to direct us toward examining the widely accepted belief that science and scientists are characterized by rationality (Nader 1996, 273).

In very general terms, the PUS literature revolves around the demystification and contextualisation of scientific knowledge, its institutional control and the scientist persona.5 Meanwhile, the proper understanding of what the public is and how people understand science in specific contexts matters a great deal in explaining issues such as interest, trust and belief in science.6 The major subjects that are therefore breached by the literature in general are, for example, the lay person’s use of knowledge, the relevance of exploring ignorance, the need to understand how scientists understand society, the problematisation of the universality and institutionalisation of scientific knowledge, and the transformations that information undergoes when it is made public. Issues around consumption and communication are at the lead of this field as it tries to leave behind the ideals of

3 In the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the etymology of the word divulge comes from the ‘Latin divulgare, from dis- + vulgare: to make known, from vulgus mob.’ And it has two connotations: ‘1: archaic: to make public: proclaim; 2: to make known (as a confidence or secret).’ The noun of this transitive verb is divulgence, but I will stick to the words popularise and popularisation as a translation of the concept because these are the ones most commonly used in the English language. 4 The learning, understanding or adoption of the technoscientific culture is far from straightforward because the complexity of the socio-political contexts is at the bottom of its existence. See for example Latour 1987; Shapin 1996; Lafuente and Pimentel 2000, 107. 5 See Lévy-Leblond 1992; Wynne 1992 and 1993; Yearley 1994; Irwin and Wyne 1996; Kerr et al. 1997; Michael 1998; Field and Powell 2001. 6 See Wynne 1992; Neidhardt 1993; Wynne 1993; Michael 1996; Durant et al. 1996; Alsop 1999; Bauer et al. 2000; Ungar 2000; Sjoberg 2000; Roth and Lee 2002; Roth et al. 2004; Sturgis and Allum 2004. 16 popularisation that promoted the genius as the supreme learner.7 PUS studies more often than not privilege context, the exploration of ignorance, the presence of the mass media, as well as wider moral and political issues related to our understandings of science, the scientist and the lay person. The study of the public understanding of science began with quantitative explorations proposed by governmental agencies in the industrialised world to measure how much the lay public knew about science (Durant et al. 1996, 235). These first studies were baptised later as the ‘deficit model studies’ because they focused on what people did not know about seemingly basic scientific knowledge. Critics of the deficit model argued against the model’s reductionism as it showed only one of the many complex trajectories of scientific knowledge in society. These first critiques became the basis for the problematisation of what ‘understanding science’ may mean.

Exploring public understandings

In 1988, interested in the social anthropology of cognition, Jean Lave highlighted the complexities of what lay people know about mathematics (1988; 1996). Interested in the mathematical skills of those whom she called ‘just plain folks’ (jpfs), she explained that proficiency in mathematics should be explored in contextual and not in abstract terms. She showed that everyday mathematical practice is different from formalized mathematics because the latter’s sophistication began after mathematics were isolated from ‘situated forms of experience’ (1988, 98). From the study of people shopping for food and measuring their meals with the Weight Watchers’ programme, Lave explained that jpfs solve mathematical problems by generating, transforming and even abandoning problems as an ongoing activity. For Lave cognition is a ‘complex social phenomenon’, one that is not only in the head of the person but a phenomenon that is socially organised: ‘Cognition’ observed in everyday practice is distributed — stretched over, not divided among — mind, body, activity and culturally organized settings (which include other actors) (Lave 1988, 1).

These investigations showed how mistaken it is to assume that ‘everyday practice is simple, erroneous, routine, particular, concrete — in short, inferior.’ Interpreting the failure to know, reinterpreted as a failure to understand, has led to the exploration of the ‘deficiencies’ of the knowledge of the jpfs instead of its characteristics (Lave 1988; 93, 97).

7 See Lury 1996; Macdonald 1998b and Michael 1998 on consumer practices and consumer culture. See Hooper-Greenhill 1994a; Nelkin 1994; Rennie and Stocklmayer 2003 and Burns et al. 2003 on communication perspectives. 17 This basic misinterpretation about the inferiority of everyday cognitive practices has been produced and reproduced partly under the influence of fundamental ideas shared among scientists’ — and here Lave especially included the ideas shared by many experts of cognition, anthropologists and psychologists — which developed from old assumptions about the ‘primitive mind’ as opposed to the ‘civilized mind’ (Lave 1996, 93-97). The normative models of the scientific or mathematical mind as being ‘logical, rational, representational and generalizing’ have helped in the preservation of the civilized mind by ‘idealizing the separation of thought from action’ (Ibid 98). Lave also showed that people know how to do calculations in so far as they are meaningful to their situated practices. But whenever a jpfs has to sit down and solve abstract mathematical problems then s/he becomes the exemplar of that ‘inferior other’ incapable of solving those abstractions. Since certain kinds of knowledge and procedures are so deeply ingrained in our schooled minds, whenever we fail in solving a formal problem we immediately say that we are not good with maths (Ibid 99). This suggests that for jpfs as well as for scientists, certain kinds of ‘competence’ are equated with the ‘superior’ thinking of utilitarian rationality. It further suggests that this unquestioned belief must often lead to incompetent and inappropriate displays of ‘rationality’ by those who do not feel entitled to the real thing (Lave 1996, 99).

Lave certainly proved that the ways people calculate, or their cognitive processes are not inferior to those of scientists; she showed that these are differently situated and should be understood and explored as such. She went further to explain that we ‘are all more successful at playing our parts in the cultural politics of the world we inhabit than we are in understanding them’ (Ibid 100), suggesting the common but partial interest in understanding the scientific and the everyday practices. Taking into consideration Lave’s ethnographic accounts, Brian Wynne (1993) emphasised that lay people are considerably more reflexive about their social relationships to science than are scientists themselves, who seem to resist any reflexive negotiation in the relationship between science and society. This author showed an explicit interest in the study of the public ignorance of science which led him to elaborate on what he called the ‘scientists’ ignorance of the public.’ He asserted that ignorance in many cases represents a different moral stand or political orientation and not just a vacuum of information. The lay people use information about science to orient their decisions and relationships of dependency with, and degrees of trust in, scientific institutions (Wynne 1993, 329). The scientists, on the other hand, raise discursive boundaries to avoid discussions about their social responsibility, as shown by Kerr and collaborators (1997). But let us detail first the ways in which the lay public understands science.

18 On a first approximation, Wynne (1993) found to his surprise a very passive attitude towards understanding science among individuals who were personally related to scientific gadgets. What he interpreted as passivity among the patients in an X-ray clinic and workers in a nuclear plant alike was in fact a simplistic first explanation of people’s interest in science. Wynne acknowledged later that these individuals were really the ‘competent sociologists’ who in fact were ‘vigilant and active seekers of knowledge’ of a different sort. They were more interested in the environment and the trustworthiness of the organizations on which they had to depend than in the scientific information as such (Wynne 1992, 40). The workers in the nuclear plant for example, did not care about the scientific reasons behind the security measures because getting deeper into these issues would bring about doubts, insecurity, distrust and finally less precaution and more risks. So, as Michael acknowledged too, a ‘practical functionality and a collaborative relationship’ with those who know is established (Michael 1996, 122). Wynne understood that his own questionings about the people’s apparent indifference disturbed the ‘necessary social fabric of interdependency’ between the workers and the scientists or the patients and the doctors. These people were ‘actively, if tacitly and intuitively, positioning themselves, using their knowledge of their social relationship and institutions, and the extent and basis of social trust and dependency’ (Wynne 1992, 39). People actively engage with the understanding of the social dimensions of science because of its embeddedness in society and the importance of relating with it in moral terms (Ibid). For Wynne it is therefore necessary that any PUS research considers that the ‘technical ignorance lamented as an intellectual vacuum (and a social defect)’ can be understood and explained instead as an active construction. Elaborating on one’s own technical ignorance shows that we are in fact establishing relationships of ‘dependency, trust, alienation, division of labour’ with science (Ibid, 39). Wynne concluded that out of the three elements that should be incorporated in any description of science (its formal contents; its methods and processes; and its forms of institutional embedding, organization and control) the latter is essential to the lay public understanding of science. This is because the institutional is the ‘social dimension which permeates all experience of and responses to science’ (Ibid, 42). Explicitly embracing the construction of ignorance as a significant social process, Ungar used his research about the public understanding of the ozone hole and the climate change to explain how the ‘knowledge society’ ‘militates against the acquisition of scientific knowledge’ (Ungar 2000, 297). He explained the relevance of the ‘knowledge-ignorance paradox’ that is observed in societies where the individual is exposed to the media, 19 advertisements, texts, institutions, conversations and all sort of situations where ‘celebrity facts’ about science are interspersed. The individual is in a situation where the popular culture becomes familiar almost as if by osmosis (Ibid 301). But the explosion of available information has also brought a parallel increase in ignorance (Ibid 300). It is in these environments, buoyant with information of all sorts, that the acquisition of accurate scientific knowledge is difficult and the mass media plays a very important part. First he explained that the media usually avoids or treats in very superficial terms scientific issues. This happens, he wrote, because the media exists in so far as there is public interest in it. Scientific knowledge is difficult to present in the media because it always needs to be decoded and simplified. Explaining science represents a rather costly and risky endeavour. In this context ‘celebrity facts’ thrive in capturing the attention of the majority of the people. This is made possible by the popular metaphors and fears — part of the popular culture — that the media uses to facilitate the grasp over scientific information (Ibid). Ungar also highlighted the importance of exploring ‘the social utility of knowledge’. He built up his arguments on the premise that information is crucial for anyone, but for the majority information is chiefly useful as a ‘conversational resource’. Being so, ‘the conversational utility of knowledge moves the issue from within the individual into the realm of popular culture’ (Ibid 301). Among individuals, any topic that facilitates the social ritual of talking will be welcomed and pursued, but whenever a topic becomes a ‘speech barrier’ most individuals will opt to withdraw from conversation. These speech barriers ‘render spaces of ignorance pervasive’ and also relegate specialists to their specialised bubbles (Ibid 299). Disagreeing with Ungar’s knowledge-ignorance paradox, Roth and Lee proposed to consider scientific literacy ‘as a property of collective activity rather than individual minds’ (Roth and Lee 2002, 33). Their conclusions came from observing a community concerned with the pollution of a neighbouring creek and the problems with water in general. Various members of different ages and occupations, including children and native elders, became involved in the collection of technical information that would give support to their demands for environmental protection. In the meetings and other activities, the participants interacted collectively sharing the knowledge they had. The information they shared was not the same, but it was complementary; hence the idea of seeing scientific literacy as something that is constructed collectively. Ungar’s knowledge-ignorance paradox could not explain the activity around the creek because every contribution of any member of the community became ‘part of the context of the activity.’ Each contribution was reintegrated to the conversation and on the whole, the resulting dialogue became a knowledge resource for the whole group. The 20 information the individuals shared became relevant and the resulting knowledge of the creek and related issues ‘emerged indeterminately as a feature of their collective engagement’ (Ibid 41). Scientific literacy in this setting looked like ‘an indeterminate outcome of conversational activity’ (Ibid 50). Supporting, to an extent, Ungar’s and Roth and Lee’s views about the importance of information when it becomes part of everyday dialogues, Claeson and colleagues wrote about the need to include ‘the existential, metaphysical, moral, political, and social knowledge that is already embedded in people’s talk’ as part of the definition of scientific literacy (Claeson et al. 1996, 102). These authors explained how worldviews are inscribed in scientific images; hence our understandings of scientific information take the shape of familiar cultural assumptions. Influenced by these discussions, Durant, Hansen and Bauer (1996) defined the public understandings of the genetics phenomenon as ‘active constructs, the products of multiply-mediated historical and cultural (including the mass media’s) influences, which may be expected to diverge significantly from those professional understandings of science with which they coexist’ (Durant et al. 1996, 236). In this view of what public understandings are, the authors proposed that in order to better explain the public understandings of genetics and science in general, one should remember that whatever scientific information is made public, its meaning may change, along with its connotations and its significance, as it becomes part of the mass culture (Ibid 246). Durant and collaborators would say that, so far, the studies reviewed ‘do justice to the lay public’ (Durant et al. 1996, 237). The lay people may be deemed ignorant from the specialists’ point of view, but then ignorance can turn into a political choice. Although the laity is not defended as specialists either, the PUS studiers show that people may have in their favour that they do not act idealising the separation of thought from action as scientists do. The scientific literacy that is constructed collectively, as well as the knowledge that individuals do have about specific aspects, allows them to establish moral and interdependent relationships with a utilitarian rationality. To think that a person does not understand science is therefore a misleading and vacuous supposition. None of these scholars, however explored the question of what if the plain folks miscalculate, or what if the collective construction of knowledge turns out to be misleading or plainly mistaken. Neither do we read in these accounts how the existential and metaphysical, shape the lay understanding of science, as was suggested by Claeson and his colleagues (1996). Neither do we know how mistaken scientific knowledge or metaphysical suppositions have an effect on what the scientists deem it important to explain. In every case, we are left with a poignant question: Whatever the scientists would like the public to 21 understand, the public understandings will never get close to the experts’ understandings. So, is there a purpose in or justification for ignoring the significance of those collective constructions of knowledge? And, what are the current explanations of science aiming at in particular contexts?

The scientists’ understanding of the laity

The previous account proves Malinowski right: The plain folk, as an equal of the old cherished ‘primitive’ are not as ignorant as the ‘civilized scientist’ seems to think. But what is there to be understood about the apparently dismissive attitude of these savants proposed by Leach? In 1993 Wynne critiqued the research done about the public understanding of science for centring upon the public while leaving unchallenged the ‘lack of reflexive problematization of science’ (Wynne 1993, 321). He promoted studies that not only portrayed hegemonic versions of scientific knowledge and the ‘misunderstandings’ of the lay people but also the limited understandings of the scientists about society. In a later publication he commented that without a reflexive dimension scientific approaches to the public understanding issue would ‘only encourage public ambivalence or even alienation’ (Irwin and Wynne 1996, 8). Ten to twenty years ago, many PUS studies were devoted to finding better ways to explain scientific knowledge, while the conceptualisation of an ‘objective’ ‘science’ was thoroughly questioned by sociologists and historians of science.8 Wynne, for example, suggested developing a self-reflexive image of science after demonstrating that it was science’s presentation of itself that was hampering understanding (1992). Lévy-Leblond (1992) proposed completing the studies and activities around the understanding of science with the inclusion of the scientists’ understanding of the public, recognising that scientists like any other person have knowledge gaps. He suggested eradicating ideas of scientists as ‘universal experts’ compared with non-scientists as ‘not universal non-experts.’ He emphasised that specialists and non-specialists share a ‘public misunderstanding of science’ (Ibid, 17). He questioned why the lay public is asked to understand science when the scientists are not asked to understand ‘the nature of their own work and ponder the possible effects of their discoveries.’ By applying this symmetrical approach it became evident that between people and scientists there was a knowledge gap, but more

8 Some sociological and historical studies of science are Hughes 1983; Knorr Cetina 1983; Shapin and Schaffer 1985; Latour 1987, 1988, 1999; Latour and Woolgar 1986; Shapin 1996. About studies of science with an anthropological perspective see Traweek 1988; Martin 1997; Zabusky 1995; Rabinow 1996; Vessuri 1997; Lawrence and Shapin 1998; Berglund 1998; Hayden 2001, 2003; Helmreich 2003. 22 importantly, Lévy-Leblond highlighted the pervasive power gap that ‘puts scientific and technical developments outside of democratic control’ (Ibid 20). Yearley (1994) sustained the idea that misunderstanding science takes place partly because there is not much knowledge about what science is really like. Not enough attention is paid to showing that science is ‘rooted in scientists’ activity’ and little is explained to the public about how much ‘the character of scientific knowledge depends on the nature of scientific work’ (Yearley 1994, 245). Following Steven Shapin’s recommendation to use the sociology of scientific knowledge to explore public understandings, Yearley highlighted the importance of skilled judgement and interpretation, of trust in people and in assumptions, and the time required to assess, re-assess and re- analyse scientific claims as the three key points for understanding the authority of science or its lack of authority in contexts outside academia. Explaining to the public that science is essentially the product of the scientists’ practices, acknowledging that trust plays a role in the advancement of science, that scientists’ judgements are always controversial and that is impossible to reach the one and only ‘true’ answer, could result in better informed public understandings. The consideration of these factors could help the science studiers to give advice on how science ‘ought to be presented’ by cultural institutions such as science centres and museums (Yearley 1994). Irwin and Wynne (1996), in a more radical approach, suggested disposing of the assumption that the problems of understanding should rest with the public, when it is at the level of the relationships established between experts, institutions and publics that meanings and understandings are shaped (Ibid, 214). They argue, for example, that problematic situations such as distortion, apathy, resistance to accept the experts’ lead and the exaggeration of scientific results had been seen in the past as problems of communication, when the ethnographic information shows that many things might be going wrong instead with ‘the organisation, control and conduct of “science”’ (Ibid). In the search for better public understandings, these authors show that it is as inaccurate as it is contradictory to blame the scientist or the public for the problems of scientific literacy and understanding. As in the examples of the engineer and the biologists given earlier, it is clear that the role of the mediator – be this a scientist or not – should be explored, rather than limiting scientific communication to just two parties and blaming one for miscommunication or misunderstanding. Is it not that the development of problematic understandings should be observed among the mediators and popularisers too and not only among scientists? To understand better how scientific knowledge is being communicated and by whom, Irvin and Wynne have explained that the domain of science has been artificially 23 divided into contexts of validation of use and contexts of dissemination, and the problems of understanding, interpretation and misunderstanding originate in the first but consolidate in the latter: Thus the ‘public understanding of science’ problematique has been constructed in such a way as to project onto ‘the public’ the internal problems and insecurities about legitimation, public identification, and the negotiation of science’s own identity which pervade scientific institutions (Irwin and Wynne 1996, 214).

They conclude that more than a public misunderstanding, there is rather a more significant partial understanding on the side of the scientists about ‘their own epistemological limitations’ (Ibid), and a compliant bond with cultural institutions that popularise scientific knowledge. It is in this interstice where this research fits in. A planetarium, especially one that is about to be transformed and where the collaboration of entrepreneurs and scientists may be central, should show how issues of communication as well as the determination to conceive only a context of dissemination, may or may not be creating spaces in which ambivalence and alienation are cultivated, as Irwin and Wynne described (1996, 8); where a knowledge gap may or may not be in the process of increasing; and in which the exhibition may or may not be leaving science outside of democratic control (Levy-Leblond 1992, 20).

Scientists’ self image

Science professionals have developed flexible ways to embrace social responsibility (Zabusky 1995; Sánchez-Vázquez 2000). This ambivalent interest in and relationship with society necessarily complements any exploration into the partial understandings of science. After analysing how scientists work together and face conflicts of interaction, trust, power and communication, Zabusky (1995), explained how the scientists she worked with had in mind co-operating for a common, though deeply personal goal; they strive ‘not simply to make something but to find something’ (Zabusky 1995, 198) She then associated this general attitude with a theology, and compared her research and the organisation of her analysis to the direction followed by Emile Durkheim, whose first sociological analysis was about The Division of Labour, and later wrote The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. She explained that one of the forces that keep European scientists working together – apart from their engagement in the bureaucratic and technoscientific activities – is a parallel articulation of more inspirational ‘unattainable desires and a vision of the good’ (Ibid). But although these ideals are so transcendent as to orient their daily practices, they are seen as

24 something external, not scientific. For Zabusky it is precisely from this externality that the scientists derive the legitimacy of their practices (Zabusky 1995, 198). Kerr and collaborators (1997) became interested in the discursive boundaries exercised by the scientists when talking about their responsibility towards society. The authors found that these boundaries allow the scientists to deflect towards an abstract society any responsibility for the use of the knowledge they produce. When some scientists address any public, the rhetoric of success attributed to the development of science is accompanied by the scientists’ concerns about the social and ethical implications of their work. The authors call this a ‘dual rhetoric of success and concern’ (Ibid 280). By showing awareness of the conflicts but separating themselves from the subjectivities of society, scientists strengthen their professional power. These boundaries protect the scientists’ cognitive authority (Ibid 290). The existential and moral issues that have been used by the scientists lead us back to the Malinowski-Leach dichotomy. To present the literature that has made the PUS studies a significant field for the study of science I quoted Laura Nader’s comparison between these two seminal anthropologists. However, I did so without fully acknowledging that in Nader’s agenda it was important to explain that science together with magic and religion comprise the three ‘corners of the constellation’ that prove wrong those who believe in the primitive/civilized dichotomy. I have eliminated so far any mention of magic or religion in order to highlight, along with the rest of the authors, the irreducibility of the lay person’s understandings of science. Nevertheless, this review has so far ended up in the discussion around the moral and transcendental visions of the common good that facilitate the scientists’ intervention in public and political affairs. Being aware of how I directed the readers’ attention towards science alone, I would like to carry on with the overwhelming presence of the popularisation aims that float around us. Scientific knowledge is made relevant for our daily lives day after day everywhere. The presence of scientific knowledge is what makes the research into the communication of science significant and complementary to the study of science and technology. The problematic division between contexts of validation of use and contexts of dissemination as suggested by Irwin and Wynne (1996) invites discussion and analysis. Today it is acknowledged that the division may be significant in the increase of a power gap that makes difficult any kind of management of the development and application of scientific knowledge. It is necessary henceforth, to explain whether the increase of the knowledge gap is also produced in contexts of dissemination such as planetariums and science centres.

25 In these explorations, studies concerning the practice of museum exhibitions will also lead this account in search of better answers about agency.9

The communication of science

Irwin and Wynne suggested that the PUS studies involve wider social issues, wider than just problems of communication or problems around the presentation of science (1996, 214). A salient study of the communication of science was published by Neidhardt in 1993. He embarked upon the task of defining in theoretical and empirical terms what the public is. His aim, though, was to show that in situations where ‘science meets the public’ the distance between science and the public — both being different communication systems — cannot be eliminated. The two ‘systems’ are easy to distinguish given the ways in which valuable information is communicated in each. Neidhardt explained that the public is a construct that has some ‘empirical entities that everybody can perceive’ such as those actors who speak, the mass media and the messages they put into circulation. The public as a construct ‘is a reality of its own and it works with some reliability’ (Neidhardt 1993, 339). The public is also a community that understands itself as a ‘moral community’ (Ibid 346). Neidhardt carried on explaining the different patterns of perception, relevance of criteria and the different languages that the public and the scientific systems of communication have. The audience categorised as public is flexible and fluid, hence difficult to define; the participation of the audience in public communication is motivated by ‘practical interests and consequential concerns’ (Ibid 341). Then we have the mass media. In the media, the public ‘finds its expression’ but the media exists in so far as it is successful to create and maintain a mass audience. To do so, there is an important development towards the professionalisation of those who participate in it and this is done in a context of commercialisation (Neidhardt 1993, 341). The media has developed a functional tendency to excite more than to convince (342) to which the public audience has grown accustomed. As a result, the public ‘follows its own rules establishing attention and, sometimes, consent’ (347). Compared with the scientists, the public as a ‘knowledge producing system’ may seem rather limited. Public opinion is based upon the construction of messages of extreme difference, as is the case with catastrophes, crisis and polarizing conflicts. ‘The public exercises a mode of

9 See for example Barry 1998; Bennett 1995, 1998; Bouquet 1998; Durant 1994, Durant et al. 1996; Harvey 1998; Hooper Greenhill 1992; Macdonald 1998a, 1998b, 2001, 2002; Macdonald and Silverstone 1992; Miles and Tout 1994. 26 communication which is not in principle worse, but which is different’ to science’s (Neidhardt 1993, 347). For most audiences, the understanding of science is not accurate on the eyes of the scientists, but is straightforward in relation to the aims of simplification of the media. Although the lexicon that makes science inaccessible is part of the problem, explaining is a matter of performing important transformations and ‘high amounts of restructuring’ of all that has been encrypted in single concepts. Science is a reductionist word itself, and the same applies to the presentation of scientific information in the media.10 Statistics in case of risk, for example, do not cover all the qualitative questions that the public would like to know. Neidhardt concluded that the communication difficulties between the public and scientists are a dilemma, a problem without solution. Understanding is somehow deflected because the mediators of public audiences define how and what aspects of science are communicated according to their own requirements for salience and survival. This makes it impossible for scientists to explain what it is desirable for the lay public – as a moral community – to understand. In this sense, the communication between the general public and the scientists through the media will always end up in a degree of miscommunication and misunderstandings on both sides. The representation of science as the hegemonic way of knowing, one that is abstract and should not be subjective, has become scientists’ ‘own backlash’, leading to their cultural alienation in times when they need more public support in order to develop further (Wynne 1992).

Explorations in a planetarium

The study of a science centre is straightforwardly justifiable given that, as a cultural institution, and as a context of dissemination of scientific knowledge, it is related to the state, the nation, the public, groups of scientists and other cultural institutions that are also interested in the use and application of knowledge with ideological purposes. This research has been proposed as an attempt to explore the explanations and understandings that take shape in one region of Mexican territory. It has condensed around the notions of social space suggested by Henri Lefebvre. He explained that the ways in which every space is conceived will be different to how it is lived and perceived (Lefebvre 1991 [1974]). I begin the description of the Planetarium with the three maps that coexist in parallel in the same space. Fortunately, I began a one-year period of fieldwork just when a group of

10 Karin Knorr-Cetina (1999) has explained the reductionism of the concept science and how it hides a variety of epistemic cultures, or disciplines, and ways of knowing, explaining, researching and understanding differently. 27 entrepreneurs and university teachers began to work for the privatisation of the public institution. During the first stages of the transformation of this centre which was previously funded with public resources, I had the opportunity to witness how a space was conceived, thus providing this research with a more interesting panorama. I gathered the experiences to describe how a public space is lived and perceived, and how it was re- imagined. In the first chapter I describe the spaces for exhibition. The place provides the material emplacement of the everyday activities of a group of science communicators. From the spatial divisions, in the second chapter I delve into the description of the division of labour between the different groups that worked in that institution and I give an account of the consequences that the privatisation of the science centre had on the quotidian practices of the workers. The Planetarium’s spatial crevices serve as markers of the staff’s working routines, and as hideouts to escape from their repetitiveness. I define the Planetarium as a constant juxtaposition of spaces for interaction, routine, escapism and exchange. In these spaces, the Planetarium’s vocation was avowed day after day in a relentless and slight metamorphosis; whereas the members of the staff were not necessarily involved, inspired or changing apace. Through chapters one, two and three I describe a collection of environments where the communication of science seems inefficient, where the people involved in the explanations of science for the public appear unprepared. My interest from the outset is to explain what is communicated in these environments in spite of the apparently dysfunctional impression they give. Although it is simple to realise that an inefficient environment can be hampering the understanding of science, it has not been so straightforward to describe why. It is important to consider if an inefficient environment is really ineffective, especially when understanding is seen as a life-long relentless process, social and inevitable by definition. I consider it mandatory to stop and gaze first into any museographic environment before describing it as a powerful institutional environment where the powerful ideas of a class are transmitted – as is usually the case. The problem with assuming the power of the institution is that it is not well understood exactly how this power has an effect on the conduct of the visitors. The fourth chapter is about boredom. With the ‘discovery’ of boredom I let myself flow at the pace imposed by the environment in the Planetarium. Boredom cannot be avoided, so why should we fight against it? Public education is turning into something so complicated because immediacy is acquiring an extra value: faster computers and more input during childhood or more education for the young while they can assimilate faster. Is the immediate embodiment of the artificial experience really helping people understand 28 science? Boredom is central to explain that an obsession for fun and its implementation in dense ideological spaces ends up being a trap where science is rendered boring. With the observation of this environment I began thinking that boredom may be useful. It might lead the individual to states of calm and contemplation useful for the understanding of anything. Chapter five departs from the simple idea that learning any discipline takes time but there is an obsession in science centres for the immediate experience and understanding of science. In chapter five I discuss the perceptions of time in the Planetarium. Linear time, a product of modern thinking, very useful in the synchronisation of production, is also adopted in the explication of science. The imposition of a linear time in activities of understanding prevents personal processes of understanding, but more significantly, it thwarts the development of trust and further participation in settings where the practice of science may develop. I argue that not only notions of truth give strength to scientific claims. Notions of trust have facilitated the expansion of the network of scientific communities too. So in chapter five, from the description of the manipulation of the time for learning, I describe three dramas in which the processes of understanding were visible. Interaction and communication are taken here as the point of departure to explain the active side of every context in the production of meaning. By bringing together mediating processes like a shared context, interaction and communication, we start exploring the symbolic and material dimension of possible understandings. But by thinking about understanding in temporal terms, subtleties of its processual nature appear. Issues like the moments of understanding, the timeliness of our explanatory actions, the relevance of contact between generations, or the necessity of our presence in the process, make clear that attending to the explanations of science in a public – and later in a private – space is a good way to explore how a nation-state gets trapped in its periphery, in relationship to the countries that determine the pace of technoscientific progress. The objectives here are therefore to explore how scientific notions are made public in exhibition, what sorts of dialogues are established, and what sort of understandings are going to emerge. The process of designing the spaces in a science centre ends up resembling a collage of decisions taken by people that bring to the negotiating table myriad interests. The representation of the sciences is not the only concern, but it is the flexible subject around which powerful interests are merged. This is why chapter six is mainly dedicated to the analysis of the progression of the plans to transform the institution into the public venue that is developing in the shadow of the daily activities described in the first five chapters. I explain how the Planetarium, while being transformed from a public to a private 29 institution, implied the conception of a space by an elite group of professionals and entrepreneurs. This conceived space would be designed to cater for a middle and upper middle class segment of society. I emphasise the notion of purposeful ignoring by saying that this transformation implied ignoring the present needs of the current visitors and employees who belonged to the lower middle and working classes. In the sixth chapter I am already evidencing how a world of objects takes precedence over the relationships between people. The exploration of this process makes me conclude that a privatisation is more accurately described as a process of substitution given the indifference that seems to pervade the plans and projects. Chapter six is about the place that objects occupy in the popularisation of science. The description of the ways in which the exhibits are designed and purchased shows how this peripheral setting, the Planetarium, becomes linked into the wider technoscientific networks, beyond the ‘Great Divide’ (Latour 1987, 212). It became necessary to put together a history of the political and economical understandings of science in this particular context. This history will only be presented in the last chapter. Although it is envisioned that a historical panorama should help to contextualise this research, my intention is to describe the landscapes I perceived and later put them in a wider context. This document resembles a critique of an institution and I feel certain that if a populariser reads this document s/he will claim that institutions like planetariums and science centres do their best, and that whatever little they do it will always be better than nothing. S/he would also say that not all the planetariums, science centres, science museums and children’s museums are the same in Mexico or anywhere else. No, they are not the same. My aim, although it originally emerged from disillusionment, has been to describe one place, its organisation and henceforth understand how this institution, as I got to know it, could be affecting the social landscape where it is located. This description and analysis might as well point at situations that have been overlooked in other science museum studies. Popularisation discourses around science make it impossible for its practitioners to materialise the power so much extolled. It is this sense of failure or malfunction that has led the narrative of the present document. The analysis has been driven by the need to understand how that economic necessity for scientific development becomes so widespread, but why its power to liberate and help progress does not follow.

30

Chapter one: A planetarium’s multiverse

The idea of a gap separating ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ societies justifies efforts to make scientific knowledge public. Many people believe in what in the eyes of Bruno Latour has been the failed dream of modernity: that science and technology should help to dominate nature and liberate humankind (Latour 1993). Somehow the opposite has come true. Through its understanding and dominion of nature, science has become the most effective means of increasing the gap in development (Herrera 1981 [1971], 14). Many popularisers of science believe steadfastly in the promises of scientific bounty and overlook its essential complexity. For others what matters is the security of being better informed. In every case it is necessary to study the popularisers aims to better describe the laity understandings. Julieta Fierro is a popular contemporary Mexican science communicator who believes the only way to encourage the development of a population with a good scientific education is to provide an environment where scientific information becomes ‘exceedingly available’. Understanding science should be as straightforward as learning a new language in the country where it is spoken: where you learn by immersion in that language’s context (Fierro Gossman 2002, 162). She writes that the same is possible with science and suggests that popularisers should aim to create an environment where science is readily available.1 It would be interesting to explore and describe this ‘best-case scenario’ suggested by Fierro should it exist. I chose to conduct the research for this thesis at a planetarium: a centre of science communication, rather than one of core scientific research. As an institution conceived explicitly for the communication of science, this would allow me to explore how understanding is informed by society and culture. By staying at a specific venue I was consciously trying to live with people

1 Julieta Fierro’s ideas have transcended the traditional style of ways of doing popularisation in museums and publishing in Mexico. Recently she was invited to become a member of the Real Academia de la Lengua Española to foster her interest in incorporating scientific terms into Spanish dictionaries in order to transform them into words of current usage.

31 whose occupation means they must understand and communicate science on a daily basis. In a sense I have looked for a place where science would be ‘exceedingly available’ as in Fierro’s vision. In this chapter I explain why I consider that the Mexican planetarium I explored was a spatial multiverse. I discuss the meaning and significance of the antonym universe. Although every planetarium’s objective is the scientific explanation of the universe, in this planetarium I found multiplicity rather than universality: many scientific disciplines, and a parallel understanding of the exhibition’s aims.

Figure 1. The Planetarium and its grass menagerie (Source: María Alejandra Sánchez Vázquez).

The Planetarium

The institution that I will refer to from now on as the Planetarium was the first science centre built in the Western region of Mexico. It is on the Northern outskirts of a Mexican city, in a densely populated and economically deprived tourist area. The Planetarium is at the natural edge of the city; a deep ravine just behind the neighbouring metropolitan zoo physically limits further urban expansion. The Planetarium is one of the public museums coordinated by the Office of Culture in the city. Museums of art, history, and palaeontology, one of popular culture, a children’s museum, and several private galleries preceded the construction of two of the newest museums in the city: a science centre planned by the local university, and a vast children’s

32 museum funded by the government. These new buildings were built while the privatisation and transformation into a science centre of our Planetarium began. A façade of plated glass planes ornaments the front and sides of the Planetarium, which constitutes a landmark in the metropolis. Surrounded by gardens, this immense building, wider than it is tall, with a half-dome protruding from its roof has become a familiar sight since it was built in 1982. It was named the Planetarium because of its geodesic Omnimax auditorium and the daily shows of stars, constellations and planets. By this simple name the visitors and employees know the institution, ignoring the official and more elaborated name. Inside the Planetarium, visitors are welcomed by a broad main level with exhibition rooms and a round tower at the centre. Around the tower, a spiral ramp gives access to the Omnimax screen, which seats two hundred people. The dome’s star projector was under repair for the duration of my year-long field-work period at the centre, so the planetarium’s show was substituted temporarily with two astronomy films shown daily in a second auditorium, which had a flat screen and capacity for three hundred people.2 The Planetarium’s main attraction – the projection of the night skies - was closed for the renovation of the seats and carpets, the repair of the star projector and the redesign of the sound system. During 2001 and 2002, the Planetarium felt more like a museum with a theatre hall than a conventional planetarium where visitors observe and hear explanations of constellations, eclipses or the transit of planets through the sky. The Planetarium is divided into various areas with specific functions. Surrounded by gardens, the building houses an administrative section, workshops and museum rooms; one section is all interactive. A visit to the Planetarium starts by paying around 30 pence entry at the cash desk. The fee includes a visit to five exhibition rooms: astronomy, recreational physics, telecommunications, the telephone exhibition and the vintage car saloon. The Planetarium’s hallway opens on to four corridors where the guides’ information desk is placed. One of the seven guides (six women and a man) working daily at the Planetarium asks the visitors before the tour to leave extra bags or food at the information desk. This rule was tightened after several items were stolen, but is mainly to stop people eating inside the exhibition rooms.

2 With the use of capital letters I will differentiate the name of the venue from the hall with its stars show.

33 The museographic exhibitions

To the right and left of the entrance, two collections of objects are displayed. A gate with no name to the right welcomes visitors to an exhibition installed by the Mexican institution that administers the telegraph and national satellite communication system. The telecommunications exhibition opened in 1991 and, as I was told by its guard, has not changed since. Sub-divided into five rooms, the area describes the history of the telecommunications industry with the display of artefacts and their North American creators. The collection includes artefacts evoking the invention of the electromagnetic telegraph, the development of the telephone, the radio communications and satellite technology, displayed in the order of their invention. Portraits of Thomas Alva Edison and Graham Bell are displayed together with a sample of the first telegraphs and a chart with Samuel Morse’s alphabet and his portrait. The telecommunications corridor precedes an area with objects collected by the institution throughout its lifetime. Some of the objects have been vandalised – scratched with tags, names and initials – or have missing buttons. Visitors do not stay long in the telecommunications room unless the guide explains the development of the remote connections between telephones, antennae and satellites. The same happens in the other exhibition across the foyer, dedicated to the history of the telephone. The telephone exhibition was founded and donated by the telephone company that has monopolised the service in Mexico. It simulates a small town, styled as an archetypal North American ‘Wild West’. The telephone company’s logo welcomes the visitor to a collection of telephone models from the first candle-stick version to switchboards and telephones from the 1980s, the decade the room was inaugurated. These objects, kept inside dusty window cases, give way to the real-size models of the telephone installations that run under every sidewalk in the country. Here the visitor can see photographs showing the history of the development of the telephone monopoly in the city and the region, where the first telephone was installed in 1891. The photographs include the difficult and the benign years of the enterprise with images of development, destruction, renovation, and success (from earthquakes to the first telephone calls by Mexican presidents and entrepreneurs). In a more hands-on exhibition, two parabolic antennae ten metres apart stand one in front of the other, with their focal point at the same height. Visitors can climb two steps and speak or

34 whisper into the focal point of one antenna and a second person, standing in front of the twin antenna, will hear clearly.3

The vintage car collection

Around thirty immaculate cars of different models and years are displayed in chronological order. In this room, touching the exhibits, or trespassing the ropes fencing them off is explicitly forbidden. Here and there cards with short stories highlight the uniqueness of the models exhibited, with details such as the number of cars produced, the importance of the past owner, and details of their design or production. One car for example, belonged to Pedro Infante, a famous Mexican actor and singer; another micro-car on display is a prototype designed by NASA and BMW for driving in the city. Some cars are examples of beauty or good design. Several are very old relics, like the black coach transformed by Mexican artisans into a funeral chariot. This collection belongs to a North American entrepreneur, a friend of the Planetarium and a member of its Board of Patrons. The collections so far described are organised in a linear historical approach. Bennett studied the origins, and purposes of the historicity in exhibitions like these (1995). By studying the museums of the eighteenth century, Bennett explained how the historical micro-narratives relate to ways of understanding the broader political and cultural issues of the time (Ibid, 131). Museums in the past helped in the materialisation of ‘the ruling-class cultural authority and their power in general’ (Bennett 1995, 109) with the aid of exhibitions where the superiority of the latest model or the most advanced technology were taken as part of a civilising process. This was in parallel with the evolutionary debates of the time and the organisation of the perceived world upon evolutionary principles. Signage directing which way to walk through the rooms and prevention of people from eating have been ways of educating the visitor, and the Planetarium is no different in that respect. The Planetarium’s schedules, its politics of accessibility and inclusion, its interest in transmitting a message, and in general its practices ‘of showing and telling’ have been organised to ‘embody and communicate specific cultural meanings and values’ (Bennett 1995, 5, 6) as those of any other museum. The assumed civilising power of ‘high culture’ was central in organising the first

3 This display demonstrated how sound is sent, concentrated, received and heard at two focal points, proving the basic physical principle that makes remote communication possible.

35 museums. The exhibitions in the Planetarium show that these ideals are also visible today in contexts outside the Anglo Saxon museographic environment. Bennett discussed how the museums changed in the nineteenth century from public to semi-public institutions, progressively planning to support ‘the instruction and edification of the general public’ fulfilling the state’s new role in the provision of education and morale. Stella Butler further explained that the founders of museums acted both ‘as advocate and teacher’, combining attempts to educate and entertain the public (Butler 1992, 133). Although the aim here is not to interpret the possible meanings of the exhibitions, in the Planetarium it was evident that the rooms were successful at displaying trajectories of ‘progress’ and the exhibitions were not altering historical events with their inclusions and omissions. For example, with the absence of participation by the new international telephone and broadband companies in the Mexican territory, and the presence of only those old and vandalised exhibitions to help public understanding of telecommunications in this region, we can say that the exhibitions are narrating past times and present problems. The Wild West town and the portraits of the inventors in the Planetarium showed that the developments did not take place in Mexico. The narratives started with the representation of a different country and finished with exhibits from the 1980s in the telecommunications rooms, and from the 1960s in the vintage car room. None of the technologies shown were built in Mexico – except for a TV studio camera in the telecommunications room developed by a local engineer while working for a North American company. Bennett’s account of the museum as a ‘backteller’, characterised by the organisation of the visit in terms of the path of evolutionary time, necessarily drives us to ask what happens when the visitor sees that time seems to stop in the museum’s narrative, or when an exhibition seems abandoned. Macdonald (2001; 2002), studying the Science Museum in London, found a similar problem when the new administration wanted to restructure the whole institution, making it a place that would be narrating stories in the spirit of the times. The need to modernise the museum was evident in that it was not exhibiting the latest developments in science and technology, and concentrated only on the English industrial apogee. This situation could be giving the public the impression that Britain was no longer contributing to the advancement of science and technology. Showing the latest developments would necessitate the display of advancements achieved by other countries, not only Britain. Furthermore, demonstrating how Britain had participated in the development of world science would create the need to show a myriad of diverse technologies to explain the plurality of the contributions. The potential costs of

36 modernisation became an obstacle, so an alternative way of realising the grand project had to be found, and permission was granted for the construction of only one new exhibition. Here, Macdonald’s example helps to address the evident signs of stagnation faced by scientific exhibitions. A science centre or museum may be built and furnished with the most advanced technologies of the time, but if it does not keep up to date by regular refurbishment, soon it will be portraying the stagnation that has been attributed to the exhibition of other peoples in anthropological museums (Phillips 1995). This ageing process may have specific consequences for the understanding of science. Bennett may well say that an evolutionary narrative characterises the beginnings of the museographic history but the ageing processes of the objects on display, as well as absences of significant objects, may compromise that narrative of progress. Museums invest in the refurbishment of some rooms, but visitors walk beyond those niches of modernity. Museums today provide evidence of progressive deterioration and the erratic course of industrial development rather than progress only. In consequence Bennett’s historical questions take on a newer meaning today.

The interactive zone in the Planetarium

Many people, especially children and young parents, know the Planetarium from previous school visits. Being acquainted with the Planetarium rooms, they opt to walk from the foyer straight into the recreational physics or the astronomical rooms. Generations of visitors have seen and remember how the hair of volunteers raises up in spikes while touching the Van de Graaff generator’s sphere, an exhibit that has been there since the Planetarium’s opening in 1982.4 Visitors are invited to place one hand on the sphere and while touching someone else’s hand, sending the electrostatic charge around all the bodies holding hands. The resulting laughter and loud cries are heard through the whole building attracting other groups to the same zone. The Van de Graaff, the xylophone and the shadows’ room provoke even more laughter.5 This is a good place to have fun.

4 The generator is an electrostatic device for the generation of low voltage developed by the North American physicist Robert Van de Graaff. The generator consists of ‘a high-voltage terminal in the form of a metal sphere, mounted at the top of an insulating column. A continuous belt of dielectric material such as rubber-impregnated cotton runs from a pulley at the base of the column to a pulley within the sphere’ (Encarta Encyclopedia, Microsoft 2000). 5 In the shadows’ room, the visitors’ shadows are projected over panels treated with phosphor. The visitors are told to close their eyes and adopt amusing positions with their bodies while a reflector flashes a stroboscopic light. After several flashes, the guide asks the people to turn around and see images of their shadows frozen over the 37 The physics room is interesting in many respects. It is obvious that this single area has received most attention from past administrations. For example, the three different styles of furniture evidence the renovations attempted every time a new director has been commissioned. The newest, recently arrived furniture is made from reconstituted wood and clear acrylic that simulates grey space-ship consoles. A second style of furniture is made with tubular metal painted red, green or yellow, combined with textured aluminium panes. A third style is made in wood and clear acrylic held together with golden aluminium. These look more resistant, bigger, older, and heavier.

Figure 2. The Van de Graaff generator (Source: the Planetarium’s archive).

The Planetarium’s periodic administrative shifts have resulted in these differences in style. Every new director has tried to improve the Planetarium by adding new exhibits, refurbishing entire themed rooms or partially re-designing the older, permanent exhibits. In consequence, the various rooms do not appear unified apart from the physical boundaries and thematic demarcations, which give a general sense of order. Although the physics room is divided into

greenish phosphoric panels. Children and adults seem to very much enjoy this experience. They usually say goodbye to their own shadows, while not wanting to leave them behind in oblivion after the door is shut on them.

38 mechanics and optics, a number of displays do not correspond to these disciplines: geometry, volume, viscosity, electromagnetism, numbers, etc. In Philo’s (2000) reading of Foucault’s Archaeology of knowledge (1989), the way objects (or any human or natural, tangible or intangible things) are stacked together – not one on top of one another, but side by side – challenges any historical narrative aiming at the depiction of an intrinsic order. Foucault thought that the way in which things are dispersed in space shows that there is no transcendental logic behind them but spaces and systems of dispersion. This does not mean though that attempts to order do not take place. Behind these clusters of objects in the Planetarium’s rooms are attempts to unify thematically; there one finds explicit historical narratives. But political interests, the passage of time and the evidence of consecutive expenditure cuts have all left their traces. Order has not completely disappeared, but there is no overall sense of order either. As in every museum, there is not one single pedagogical plan, but a series of juxtapositions that may or may not be meaningful to particular observers, and which certainly encourage archaeological elucidations.

The astronomy zone

The astronomy floor is sub-divided in three semi-dark rooms: the exploration room, the universe and the solar system. The three meet in a corridor where photographs of winners of local amateur astronomical contests are exhibited. The exploration room is a gallery of black and white photographs of the first U.S. American and Russian space missions. The most recent, however, are the 1974 explorations. Other images were taken during manned missions such as the Apollo space programme (plants growing experimentally in zero gravity, space ships performing tasks, shuttles, rockets, and other details of the outer space exploration enterprise).

The second room, the universe room, is a semi-dark gallery-like area with translucent images of spiral and elliptic galaxies, nebulae and star clusters. Under each image is a plaque with the object’s name, its distance from the solar system and some relevant information regarding shapes or elements.

The third room is devoted to the solar system, with photographs of the planets, their satellites, asteroids, volcanoes and other relevant features of the stellar bodies. Above, the nine solar planets hang in a row in their sequential order, on independent axes fixed to the dark ceiling. A sun is fixed to a wall and although it flashes, it does not convey the sense of the actual sun in

39 terms of its size and distance away from the planets. A planet can be illuminated and made to spin by pressing a button on a control panel. The favourite room of the young adults who act as guides, giving explanations in the rooms, is the astronomy room. It is there that they get the most attention from groups while giving their explanations. In the astronomy rooms the children often dare to ask questions and are happy to participate in the activities that the guides organise. It is in astronomy and recreational physics where more people are seen reading the information given under the hands-on exhibits or on the cards in front of the old photos. In comparison, in other rooms people leave in less than ten minutes.

Figure 3: The Solar System room (Source: The Planetarium’s archive).

A dear astronomer friend told me once how much it intrigued him that astronomical knowledge held such an attraction over so many people. This has alerted me ever since to the fact that in every science museum shop, the display of astronomical toys, books and images is far more prominent than that of objects sold from other scientific disciplines. During this research I noticed that the most popular talks given by popularisers are those about the universe. The most recurrent public question to astronomers is: ‘What is a black hole?’ But the mathematical and physical answers given to the audiences never seem to suffice. It is as if people expect their science-fictional certainties to be confirmed. Invariably some scientific answer will invite the participation of another person in the audience who will explain how the scientist has just

40 confirmed arguments for the existence of UFOs, angels or wormholes and a new cycle of reinterpretations will begin.6

Once, at a museography congress in Manchester, U.K., a participant said: ‘Show dinosaurs and Egypt, and you will have any museum’s rooms packed.’ The other participants smiled at the suggestion, recognising some truth in his statement. After having visited several science museums, my astrophysicist friend and I would add astronomy to the top two most attractive subjects for exhibition. The strong attraction wielded by black holes over everything is particularly intriguing – from light to children’s curiosity (and also intriguing is what happens to both once in the black hole).

Using Susan Sontag’s term, some of the pictures in the astronomy rooms, like Neil Armstrong’s footprint on the surface of the moon, are what she would call celebrity images. Even behind those images taken by amateur astronomers is an attempt to create local celebrity images. The concept was used by Sontag during the conference Image and Meaning in Massachusetts, 2001. On that occasion, the writer was invited to comment on several famous scientific images like the atomic mushroom cloud over Nagasaki, Watt and Crick posing in front of their DNA model, a foetus inside its mother’s womb and several other well-known scientific images. When her turn came to speak, Sontag said that these were celebrity images too commented on already in the media; they were icons of celebrated chapters of the history of science, far too criticised, and they were no longer interesting to her. She complained to the audience and rather suggested that it would have been more interesting to invite her and the other guests (the mathematician Roger Penrose and the scientist Edward O. Wilson) to observe newer images of science that could defy their imagination and provoke new reactions. Instead, the images shown could not spark their interest or the audience’s any more because they were over-commented already. If the invited scientists worked at the frontier of their fields, why, she asked, did the organisers of the conference not look for new, challenging images?

Here I use the same concept because all the rooms in the Planetarium evidenced the clear attempt to show those celebrated scientific and technological episodes that have legitimated the importance of the sciences today. Sontag reacted to what Ungar has called ‘scientific celebrity facts’ (2000, 301). In Ungar’s terms, the exhibition of celebrity facts and images exemplify how

6 As Hannah Arendt suggested back in 1959, science fiction is important to better explain the human condition and the human need to escape it; it would be useful to attend to the publics’ science fictional concerns to explore what the generations’ illusions and dreams of the future are.

41 those who work in the communication of knowledge sometimes militate unknowingly against the renewal of interest in scientific knowledge (Ibid 297). Although they legitimate the presence of science in society through the exhibition of past and famous triumphs or controversies, these images also become what Macdonald called ‘a kind of intellectual narcotic’ (Macdonald 1996, 168).

The Jurassic world

This Planetarium had its dinosaurs too. Some school groups and families would go to the Planetarium mainly to enter the Jurassic World room advertised outside and inside the building as ‘The most impressive exhibition that you can ever imagine. Dare to know it!’ This exhibition finished soon after this research started. The room’s fame was worn out after its third year of exhibition, but I remember the half kilometre of people standing on a queue back in 1999 outside the Planetarium. By August 2002 the exhibition was shut down to be refurbished and restored to open again by December 2002 with a new and fictional subject; this time UFOs and extraterrestrial life robots. These exhibitions are widely advertised; they are seen more as a spectacle than as science. There is an extra cost for these exhibits. The money is not collected by the institution but by an independent entrepreneur.

The observatory and the telescopes workshop

Outside, among the eucalyptus rows, the Planetarium has its telescope for amateur observers. On Friday evenings, the Amateur Astronomy Association has a workshop in a room at the back of the Planetarium, where some of the members run a course to build telescopes. After the workshop they stay for a conference on astronomy. The observatory opens by noon and anyone interested in observing the night sky is invited. The Association provides coffee and biscuits during the hours of observation every Friday. The amateur society works independently of the Planetarium’s administration and the workshop and observatory are exclusively for their use.

The gardens

For me, the contrasting environments in the Planetarium became a major attraction. After a whole morning spent in an exhibition room walking out of the closed, cold and rather dark exhibition space was invigorating. The sounds of the street, the warm weather, the shadows under 42 the trees, the grass and the children at play in the gardens with their teachers sitting together to eat lunch made a harsh contrast to the silence, or conversely, the excessive noise that the children, exhibits and speakers produced inside the Planetarium. The gardens are the most pleasant area in the Planetarium. They are used daily as playgrounds or for eating lunch and family parties at weekends. Four men and a woman take care of them. For fifteen years, these people have tried to keep the front garden maintained, with its rows of more than two hundred animal-shaped Chinese bush trees, through annual cycles of rain, drought, ants, plagues and children’s games and mischief. To shape them, the gardeners allow the trees to grow naturally to see what they can make out of each branch. Shaped with wire and scissors, the resulting animal can be a donkey or a deer, depending on what the gardener thought the shape of the bush resembled more; it also depends on what animals they know best, I presume. There was no planning beforehand, so you may find two birds kissing next to a lion, which walks behind a gigantic duck. This garden has become a landmark of the urban area. The back garden may be less well-known to the public. The exception is the school groups who know it well, as the children are generally taken there for a break after a visit to the Planetarium. This back garden can be a silent place early in the morning, the quiet is interrupted by the monotonous turning of the sprinklers. The oldest gardener starts work every day at seven in the morning, before anyone else. This eighty-year-old man thinks that around seven is the best time at the Planetarium. Only a little mouse looking around for food or a cricket accompanies him. Nothing seems to vary noticeably in this garden unless a child has been there to change the direction of the sprinklers. The gardener knows that a child has gone past the garden when the irrigation mechanism is not running clockwise. ‘Someone was playing here’, he mumbles. This gardener tries to keep the grass green, but no one has told him that it will never be as green as the front garden because the eucalyptus will never allow it; these trees do not belong there. Once I heard a conversation among biologists who told the Planetarium’s director how the water was wasted in the irrigation of grass under eucalyptus. They said that these trees are originally from Australia; there, the land has the acidity and humidity needed to recycle the fallen leaves. In most of Mexico, these leaves do not decompose, and smother any plant growing under them. It is said that a former Mexican president imported this variety to reforest landscapes and parks in Mexico. But the tree is not suited to the land and climate. Still, Don Benito and the other gardeners keep irrigating the doomed grass under the hundreds of eucalyptus. In the back garden, far beyond the innocent ‘reforestation area’ sign, several metres of wire mesh enclose the boundaries of the Planetarium. Its closest neighbours are a police heliport,

43 the metropolitan zoo, the city fairground and the extensive unused land belonging to the municipality, where the Planetarium may expand one day if the cost of its transformation into a science centre can be met. The other four gardeners arrive at around 8:45am along with the rest of the staff. Two young men and a married couple start their duties after collecting their tools from a small warehouse at the back of the car park. They water the flowers at the front, remove rubbish, prune the ficuses and Chinese bushes at the front, cut the grass and plant new flowers seasonally. The gardens’ peace is daily interrupted by the sound of the police helicopter’s engine and whirling blades.

Figure 4. The engines’ ramp (Source: Planetarium’s archive). Abandoned areas

The Planetarium has many neglected areas. One of these is the empty corridor that connects the telecommunications exhibition with the recreational physics room. This lifeless corridor is known among the personnel as the Life sciences area. Models of human body systems are displayed in

44 window cases (the ear, the reproductive organs, the eye, cells and their organelles), waiting to be dusted. This corridor seems inert and in real need of refurbishment. At the end of this corridor are the staff toilets; to the right, the Planetarium’s general workshop where all the displays are repaired. Outside this workshop are some old and intriguing exhibits, left in oblivion and broken after years of use. At the back of the building, two airplanes and a railway carriage stand alone. This area is seldom open to the public, although the military jet was once famous among the local population. Years ago, the railway carriage hosted a scientific workshop called the Science Wagon. Active Science Wagons are still found in some Mexican cities because they are part of a national programme for the popularisation of science. This programme began in 1994, the same year that the free commerce treaty NAFTA was signed with Canada and the United States. The scientific literacy programme was part of the negotiations between the countries. In 1999 the Science Wagon in the Planetarium was closed to the public. The material once used in there was packed away in the Planetarium’s storehouse: old tan grams, Hanoi towers, pH paper, universe lotteries, marbles, crayons, rulers, books, videos and all the things used once by the guides and the children. During the Science Fair in 2001, a group of geographers from the state’s University renovated the railway carriage for the most successful workshop of that fair. Another example of abandonment can be found inside the astronomy zone. Above the three rooms is a dark second floor. The Amateur Astronomical Society used to take care of it, but for the past two years no one has done anything with this space. The public can go upstairs but would only find emptiness and dust. One can reach the floor by walking down a ramp towards the lower floor at the centre of the building. This ramp is also the passage to the Planetarium’s warehouse and the auditorium. Neglected large aircraft turbines and engines are displayed there. These engines are rarely cleaned and the personnel seem to share a lack of interest towards them. The guides and cleaners avoid this area as much as possible; the guides because they do not know much about these objects, and do not feel able nor interested in explaining how the instruments work; the cleaners because they do not want to clean the objects in this space, so no one does. Although the job of the guides has not yet been presented in full in this chapter, I can say the rooms where tours are never led seem desolate. It is as if all the staff agree that these areas are uninviting. But these perceptions have not always been the same. I had time to hear stories of the good years of some of the old exhibitions and rooms. I was told that much of what goes on inside the Planetarium walls depended on the interest that industrialists or statesmen show in the Planetarium and its activities. For example, the Amateur Astronomical Society lost interest in the

45 space it used to look after when a director interested in Astronomy left the centre. The tequila industrialists stopped funding events and exhibitions at the science fairs in the same year that local confectioners lost interest in funding a temporary exhibition of their industrial processes. Crayola ceased to fund the yearly rally and the Science Wagon was abandoned. Every year, those working in administration have had to find companies or public bodies who will sponsor events in exchange for mentioning the sponsors’ products in activities organised by the Planetarium, or the use of printed t-shirts given away to the visitors. Getting sponsorship depends on contacts made by the director with entrepreneurs, businessmen or civil servants. Between 2001 and 2002, the period of time when I took part in events, Telmex, the Mexican telephony company, financed one event along with other minor confectioners. Parties so far interested in the major transformation project were the Regional Council of Science and Technology and the Spanish Government Tourist Office. The negotiations were promoted by the members of the Planetarium’s Board of Patrons who actively seek donors and sponsors while the Planetarium works as usual. The cyclical reorganisation of the public institution has affected the image the Planetarium offers to its visitors. The collage of styles and themes in the physics area, the general abandonment of some areas in the Planetarium, the feeling of neglect in the telecommunications room, where dust and vandalised items stand as mute witnesses of the passage of better times are all consequences of the discontinuous flow of resources and short-term administrative periods, and also of the changing relationships that the Planetarium as a cultural institution has with other organisations in the city and beyond. In the description given just here, it is evident that the Planetarium is a combination of different institutions: planetarium, auditorium, science museum and science centre. This cultural venue seems to have taken the shape of a hybrid forum whose parts have survived or declined depending on the interest showed by other institutions or firms with the economic resources to maintain the areas and rooms of the Planetarium in its two decades of existence. The accumulated layers of dust and the number of times that a cleaner is seen polishing the objects are a good indication of how important each room is for the present administration. The description of the dust that several zones are collecting is not a critique of cleanliness, however. The employees’ knowledge of the changing interest of sponsors and administrators in the rooms suggests to me that the Planetarium is rather an unexpected ‘fossilising’ environment.

46

The Planetarium’s multiverse

Museums in general have been studied in a semantic context, or rather, as texts, via the implications that the messages created may have for the understanding of science, society and culture.7 The contribution of these sorts of study has been what Hooper-Greenhill identified as the conformation of intended and unintended messages given in a communication system (Hooper- Greenhill 1994a, 3). 8 Every display, seen as a communication system, informs about ‘ideas, concepts, levels, associations and meanings’ (Ibid). What is more interesting to me is what Macdonald and Silverstone considered in 1992 to be missing from the literature, that is, the analysis of ‘the complexities of the relationship between the processes of production of a particular representation and the end-product’ in an exhibition. If in the origins of the museum as a public institution it became more important ‘to carry the improving force of culture to the working classes’ (Bennett 1995, 8), what are we to find in this planetarium today? The uneven maintenance in the Planetarium and the irregular interest in the various rooms have driven me to question any generalisation about the civilising power of museums (Bennett 1995) or the possibility of a museum that effectively promotes ‘scientific’ ‘ways of seeing the world’ (Macdonald 1998a, 9). It is difficult to believe that science is endowed with a strong authority in the Planetarium rooms. The Planetarium spaces are different from one another, echoing the varied interests of every scientific culture. Specific rooms, hence specific disciplines, have been inaugurated or refurbished at different times and then forgotten. A linear trajectory is proposed for visitors to follow but the eclectic display of disciplinary knowledge makes clear that the Planetarium is endorsing specific disciplines – physics and astronomy being the favourites of the various directors in charge so far; dinosaurs and extraterrestrial life being the most profitable. In the Planetarium the real distance that exists

7 See for example Haraway (1989), Pickstone (1994, 2001), Bennett (1995, 1998) and Phillips (1995). 8 The semiology of communication analyses any message in whatever media it is expressed and highlights the signs of objects, images, symbols, places and times as part of systems intended to communicate – or not – certain information.

47 between the disciplines which are taken as ‘science’ in general,9 as well as the importance of sponsorship and industrial relevance in time, is palpable. As Macdonald has written, it can be observed in similar institutions how ‘the democratic ideals, social differences and exclusions, and other contradictions’ are constituted (Macdonald 1998a, 9), purposefully or not, as part and parcel of the promotion of public understanding. What seems most interesting though is the possibility of a museum that does not effectively and forcefully endorse the power of science (Harvey in press). Macdonald has explained that those producing exhibitions concentrate so hard on the ‘aesthetic and practical details’ that they do not consider how their exhibitions fit in wider contexts. Macdonald meant the ‘broader social and political context’ (1998a, 2), but the Planetarium shows that even the contiguity to a neglected exhibition is already a wider context, and this proximity may have unintended communicative consequences. Although as Macdonald said: along with the cleaning equipment, the ‘assumptions, rationales, compromises and accidents that lead to a finished exhibition are generally hidden from public view’ and ‘tidied away’ (Macdonald 1998a, 2), after some time, untidiness and the accumulation of dust re-emerge as meaningful aspects in exhibition. Under these circumstances, the following quote may have an extra meaning: Museums which deal with science are not simply putting science on display; they are also creating particular kinds of science for the public, and are lending to the science that is displayed their own legitimizing imprimatur (Macdonald 1998a, 2).

Sociological and historical studies10 have shown that scientific knowledge is, as Macdonald and Silverstone synthesise, ‘always negotiated into existence’ (1992). The politics involved are not only confined to the scientific communities but to any space where science is represented or appropriated (Macdonald and Silverstone 1992; Neidhart 1993; Ungar 2000; Hayden 2003). Macdonald and Silverstone were careful to clarify that they were not intending to portray these processes of representation as cynical or manipulative, but that there are always ‘unintended consequences of human decision-making, of institutional structure and of social context which require particular attention’ (Macdonald and Silverstone 1992, 70). I interpret dust and abandonment as some of these unintended aspects of exhibition, as are the negotiations that take

9 This environment exemplifies what Knorr-Cetina (1999) concluded from the study of two different scientific disciplines: Science as an entity does not exist; there are rather epistemic cultures with their own processes, questions, methods and beliefs. 10 See for example Latour (1987; 1988; 1999); Latour and Woolgar (1986); Knorr-Cetina (1988); Knorr-Cetina and Mulkay (1983); Rabinow (1996); Hayden (2003).

48 place among curators, sponsors, designers and finally the visitors (Macdonald 1996). What I observed is that in any case, exhibitions are to a certain extent ‘transparent’ to the gaze of the analyst.11 Given the immense amount of details that must be considered, exhibitions and their unintentional consequences are clear cases where the current ideologies and interests of the ruling classes can still be observed. The ideologies that exhibitions portray are deeply problematic since they are guarded in spaces charged with the symbolic authority typically attributed to any museum. Bennett, for example, explained how the nineteenth-century museums were not of the people but for the people, and from the ruling class interested in the provision of cultural lessons through which their power, or at least their ‘cultural authority’, could be materialised. Bennett also explained how contradictory the final result endorsed by museums is; after all, the curators are not exactly devotees of the ruling classes’ ideology (Bennett 1995, 109). Museums have tried to display and simulate the human and natural ‘organisation of the world’. This project to organise museums where the ‘rational’ organisation may mirror the ‘real’ order of things is considered by Bennett to be an unattained dream of museums in general (Ibid). It has been important for this thesis to consider that the unintended is not rational, is almost accidental and has a certain power that cannot be predicted. Haraway has unveiled the way in which a patriarchal ideology informs and is reproduced through the exhibition of hunting trophies that a naturalist expert in gorillas brought back and exhibited. Although the curator did not explicitly intend to invoke a patriarchal ideology, the effects were no less real – although they were unintended (1989). The Planetarium’s multiverse emerges from its incapacity to sustain the post-colonial strength of science; it materialises too in its incapacity to convey the force of a universal science. In this first chapter it is useful to reconsider one significant assumption in the study of science museums: that the science museum and museums in general seem to be regarded (by visitors and studiers alike) as effective environments. However, this study of the Planetarium shows that every study of a museum should critically assess notions, which have been attributed to museums in the past by historians and other museum scholars, of the effectiveness of the civilising process. This is because the power that these institutions wield only seems to serve the interests of the powerful. However, their exhibitionary transparency (intended and unintended)

11 Haraway’s analysis of an exhibition in the Museum of Natural History in New York is a clear example of an exhibition where the curators’ ideologies are transparent (1989). Macdonald by contrast, has produced an ethnography about an exhibition in a science museum in which she shows that there is ‘more than one hand holding the pen’ that creates an exhibition, so it is not extraordinary to perceive meaningful contradictions and silences (1996; 1998b; 2001).

49 may instead be telling a more interesting story, in spite of efforts to produce idealised depictions of progress and other fables. Science museums have rarely been studied (Castillo Álvarez 1988, Gonzalez et al. 2001), rather many ‘histories of success’ (Errington et al. 2001) have been written around them.12 The Planetarium, like any museum, is a key institution in exploring contemporary political and cultural concerns. But before assuming that it has power as a civilising force, archaeological elucidations are essential. As I will argue in the chapters that follow, the exploration of spaces and ways of living and perceiving spaces matter if we share the assumption that ordinary people make sense of places they walk through by way of his or her relational nature (Ingold 2000).13 The feeling of stagnation on those first walks I took around the Planetarium is central to the whole argument of this thesis. I realised that the effectiveness of an evolutionary narrative of progress can be hampered by the unintended. Unintended messages matter because they cannot be rational; on the contrary, they result from rational attempts to organise and order the portrayal of scientific knowledge. Unintended messages are concrete materialisations of failed cultural and rational manipulations. A straightforward critique against the ‘celebrity images’ as an ‘intellectual narcotic’ shows that in some places science as such is not that universally powerful, and those who try to explain it may instead be ‘militating against’ scientific literacy as Ungar has proposed (2000). The chapter that follows describes the people who make sense of the spaces in the Planetarium on a daily basis. As an observer, I do not attempt to semantically read the exhibitions, but focus on the employees as the individuals who make sense of a place where science is definitively available.

12 González et al. (2001) suggested the need for anthropologists to study science museums on the basis of what Gieryn (1998) had highlighted before: ‘the relationship between material culture, conflicting epistemologies, and the politics of display.’ For these authors, the participation of the various stakeholders that express and participate in power struggles over the exhibition in museums provides important information around controlling processes (González et al. 2001, 115). Macdonald (1996, 1998b, 2001, 2002), Barry (1998, 2001) and Harvey (in press) are important examples of this attempt to study the science museum. 13 Ingold explains that the person and the human organism are one and the same thing. The person hence should be thought of as ‘a singular locus of creative growth within a continually unfolding field of relationships.’ He delves into the exploration of the organic being – ‘indissolubly mind and body’ – relating to the environment as an ‘environmentally situated agent’ (Ingold 2000, 4).

50 Chapter two: Three ways to sense space

This chapter introduces the reader to the spaces hidden from public view. By talking and listening to people at the Planetarium I began to better understand these spaces: in the early morning in the garden with the mice; on cold nights guarding the premises; predominantly masculine spaces like the electronic workshop where women were rarely found; the back of the Omnimax screen, which has a special attraction among friends; the main office when closed meetings are held with statesmen; the unsettling, ghostly sounds of the auditorium; and the dark, hidden places where couples engage in secret trysts. This depiction of the Planetarium’s interior is based on the idea that ‘neither body nor place is precultural’ (Casey 1996, 46). As Casey explains, the ‘concrete circumstances of emplacement’ are important to every anthropological study, given the dialectical relationship between experiencing a place and experiencing through it; of living there and making it a place to dwell. Sense of place situates our experiences. Hence, methods of explaining and understanding science in the Planetarium are doubtless situated forms of experience (Lave and Wenger 1991; Keith and Basso 1996). Describing the depths of a space, with all its apparently innocuous corners, may provide a sense of place that only an insider can have. The Planetarium is a place where science should be the daily business, the daily language. Explanations and understandings of scientific knowledge ‘take place’ in these settings just as power, division, trust and distrust do. How does all this come together? Walls, doors, emptiness, distance, dust and hideouts are crucial landmarks for the spatial practices of people working there. As Michel De Certeau showed, borders and bridges become the best metaphors to describe inhabited and meaningful spaces (De Certeau 1996 [1980]). In this chapter, as part of my analysis of the popularisation of science, the Planetarium staff are considered as both insiders and as ordinary people, who share with the public an interest in the scientific displays at the Planetarium. Here, I will clarify how the

51 Planetarium staff perceive, inhabit and use this place. I will examine how they visualise their interactions in these spaces before looking at the institution’s purpose and skills in the popularisation of science.

An ideal space for the understanding of science?

The Planetarium, as a place designed by professionals and technocrats specifically for the understanding of science, is a conceptualised space (Lefebvre 1991 [1974], 38-39). Because the Planetarium’s spaces were conceived by the designers, planners and builders to meet certain objectives, we can agree with Lefebvre’s idea that ideology, power and knowledge are embedded within its spaces (Lefebvre in Merrifield 2000, 174). After its construction and first refurbishment, the place began to be lived, perceived, and enacted not by the conceivers but by the workers, administrators and visitors. In The production of space, Lefebvre explains social space as a relationship between the conceived, perceived and lived. These three characteristics of a space are basic to the spatial practices of the individuals. According to Merrifield, Lefebvre has suggested ‘that the social space of lived experience gets crushed and vanquished by an abstract conceived space’ (Ibid, 175). In the Planetarium, there are competing perceptions of the spaces, and the way in which these spaces should be used. At least three very different maps emerge: a conceptual map, a map of the experience of the staff, and the present one, the map that I am putting together in this thesis, which combines the different ways of living there as I perceived them.

The offices

Imagine the administrative area in the same building but detached from the exhibition floor. Recreational physics, the interactive zone, is the closest section to the administrative quarter. The two most active areas in the building are side by side, but the differing nature of the dynamics of each is only separated by a wall. In the offices, from nine in the morning to three in the afternoon, from Monday to Friday, the activity is constant. Phones ring, people work with their computers, payments are delivered, papers are signed and faxes are received. The administrative staff work to organise the season’s attractions, the publicity for the centre, the special events, the payroll

52 and the Planetarium’s relationships with the municipal culture area, on which the Planetarium’s administration and the library depend. Every day, in the room next to the offices, there are always children or teenagers loudly playing the xylophone, making noises with the displays, or laughing, running, reading or talking. The guides are often seen in this room assisting groups. To enter the offices, two thirds of the physics area must be crossed, through clusters of children listening to an explanation or playing with the interactive displays. This side of the building seems alive and functional. Both the administrative and interactive areas seem to be the Planetarium’s heart and soul. In contrast, the rest of the rooms are often empty. The difference is marked. The offices are enclosed by a long wide corridor, and divided by wooden panels into seven cubicles. Only two of the offices, in both ends of the corridor, have doors. One of these private offices is the director’s. The director – a chemical engineer – has a formal desk, a TV set with VCR, an oval glass table and several cushioned chairs for meetings, a sofa, a small fridge and a private toilet. Painted in a light green colour, the office feels gloomy. The second private office at the other end of the corridor was used by a retired captain, who was in charge of the refurbishment of the aeroplanes at the back yard and the engines by the central ramp. I entered this office just once, on the day after he resigned from his post at the Planetarium. On that day, the administrator commanded a group of women who entered the office to clean it. We could not believe how dirty the place was. We found dead mice, cockroaches, spiders, and above all, a layer of dust that obliged us to wear face masks and gloves while cleaning. The captain used this office as a warehouse instead of an office, but it looked like a waste bin. Each cubicle is open to the front with the desks facing the neighbour’s desk. Not everyone has a computer and the guide at the telecommunications exhibition shares the internet connection with the director (and some staff, but not openly). Every cubicle has a telephone. The guides have a telephone in the information module too, but they cannot use it to call outside the Planetarium, only to receive calls. From three in the afternoon and during the weekends, the offices are closed, and therefore the guides at the information desk take all public calls. The administrative staff use a system of speakers to communicate with staff working on the exhibition floor, or to give information to the public. The guides also use the microphone connected to the speakers from their information module. When this is

53 used, the electronic sound is so loud it prevents anyone from hearing anything else – even the constant roar of the dinosaurs. Approximately forty-five employees run the installations, which are open to visitors from Tuesday to Sunday, 9am to 7:30pm. In an organogram fixed onto a wall next to the clock, staff are divided in groups according to their activities, and each group is in charge of a defined area. Seven guides look after the public. A second group consisting of five gardeners, four women janitors, and eight technicians are in charge of the Planetarium’s maintenance. The administrative group consists of the Planetarium’s director, his secretary, an administrator assisted by a book keeper (and the union’s representative), a public relations manager, a manager of special events, the chief mechanic, a museographer, two storehouse attendants, a general assistant, and several other people with different temporary duties like a scientific technician, an organiser of pedagogic workshops, two librarians and the virtual- library keeper. Two policemen take turns every twenty four hours to watch over the installations. Independent of the Planetarium’s administration, three people take turns during the week to collect entrance fees at the cash desk and to report the income to the city council. All the staff are, strictly speaking, civil servants hired and paid by the municipal government. All of them are members of the state’s workers union. These groups perform their complementary duties in a divided working area and make use of its spaces in a restrictive manner. That is, they prevent each other from freely utilising the sections. This does not mean that they tell each other where to walk, and where not to enter at all times. Telling someone not to enter a room would be rather aggressive, or at least impolite, and I do not remember hearing any member of staff use such explicitly prohibitive terms. However, they share subtle expressions that indicate who is welcome and who is not. In addition, apart from the male and female figures for the toilets, a sign showing the ‘Administration Offices’ and the two signs of ‘Do not touch’ in the vintage car saloon and the Jurassic world, there are no signs at all anywhere. Restrictions about the use of the spaces are tacit, and it is through interaction that people – myself included – have learned those assumed practices. It took time to learn how to interact politely with all the groups, and to adequately use the spaces. It took even longer to realise how important it is to master the degree of closeness and trust. I felt more at ease as my mastery over the space increased.

54 A history of factional and territorial divisions and borderlines is one result of the employees’ interaction and of the institutional definition of their duties in such a spacious area. The continuous reorganisation of their duties according to patterns of hierarchy has had an effect over the place and its environment. Most of the people I talked to expressed a degree of resignation about the circumstances of their job. Generally speaking, it emerged that many kept a mental record of offences used to orient their affections and trust.

Borderlines

Borderline is a helpful term in the description of differentiated spaces. Foucault would say that borderlines set the margins for ‘the geometry of exclusion and inclusion of the inside and the outside’ (in Philo 2000, 224). Borderlines also ‘connect as much as they divide those on either side of a boundary’ (Simmel in Allen 2000, 54). The borders of the Planetarium are demarcated by the fixed and physical features of the architecture, and by those less permanent barriers defined by the temporary position of objects, the styles and colours on display in the collections, and by the doors – those flexible and ‘permeable’ spatial limits that can be opened or closed at will (sometimes with strategic mottoes). The three types of demarcation affect social interaction by hierarchically fixing who belongs to what group and by restricting access to socially bounded areas. (Additionally, time-division in the schedules has effected certain predispositions to the terms and conditions of mutual understanding and interaction among the people). The architectural divides are self-evident: a wire fence marks the Planetarium’s limits, separating it from the surrounding area. Surrounded by gardens, concrete walls enclose the centre, which is divided into public areas, workshops, warehouse and administrative area. At a glance, a visitor can hardly notice the borderlines and markers dividing the entire centre for the distribution of equal investment of time and effort in daily routines. The never-ending task of cleaning, for example, is seasoned by endless discussions about territoriality. Cleaning issues are a major cause of conflict in the Planetarium. Two women janitors, whose ages vary between fifty and sixty-five years, clean the areas in the morning. The schedule of the other two janitors is from three in the afternoon to eight at night. None of them works on Monday when the centre is closed to the public. The physics area, along with the offices and staff toilets, is the responsibility of one janitor. A second janitor

55 is in charge of the rest of the exhibition rooms, and the third cleans the public toilets and the vintage car saloon. If water leaks in the women’s toilets, but the woman in charge is not in the Planetarium at that moment, then none of the janitors will clean voluntarily. If someone complains about the dirty exhibits in any room, all of them hear the complaint. Usually two or the three of them share the responsibility, but all are prone to denying any responsibility to avoid being blamed. It must be said however that a titanic effort is demanded from these women to keep the place clean at every hour. Enormous physical effort is invested in mopping and washing but nobody seems to think that using a mop is tiring. However, after I mopped once, my perceptions about their work changed, as it required a great deal of effort and for how easy it is to get injured. My sense of the space’s size also changes, as I realise it takes at least one hour to mop the foyer just once. It is important to mention here that some janitors work while in poor health. The oldest woman, in charge of the toilets, is visually impaired. Another has severe colitis and a third woman has a permanent back injury, but they still have to mop their areas twice a day. In general, almost all the staff have permanent ailments. To mention a few, the octogenarian gardener has a broken shoulder and needs surgery; the electrician has a hearing impairment after working for the air force; more than three men suffer from alcoholism; one member of staff has been diagnosed with epilepsy, another is diabetic, and a manager has a chronic lumbar ache; two suffer from sinusitis and one guide has a permanent ankle lesion. I will not mention here the diseases running among their families because I assume that these examples adequately demonstrate that this group of people is not very healthy. The health preservation issue is almost as central to their lives as their families are; the organisation of their time and the investment of effort in their jobs depend mostly on these two factors.

The doors

Two glass doors give access to the office area. One of these doors opens straight into the director’s lobby, and the other opens into the administrative cubicles. Inside the area, five doors are kept open during working hours from Monday to Friday. One divides the director’s lobby from the rest of the offices; another one gives way to the kitchen; the third is the director’s entrance to his office. Inside the main office are two doors, one towards the

56 car park and the other for the director’s toilet. The women share the staff toilets and men use the public toilets, both on the main floor. The director frequently mentions that his door is ‘always open’. He means metaphorically that he is open to hear about the problems among the staff, or to see anyone in his office whenever he is free. He explicitly says that his intention is to become a trustworthy person. His office door is closed during meetings. It is also shut if any member of staff enters his office to ask for a private talk with him, or when he asks to speak to someone privately. But even when his door is open, everyone is obliged to greet his secretary and ask her whether the director has time for a chat. She then enters or calls him by the phone if the door happens to be closed. The lobby doors are closed after three in the afternoon and during the weekends to protect the offices, and to prevent the Planetarium’s guides and security staff using the telephones or the fax. Both glass doors are closed after the secretary leaves the Planetarium and at weekends. Only the policeman on duty keeps a set of keys for the administrative doors. The director enters and leaves his office through his own door, which leads straight into the car park. He is seldom seen in the exhibition rooms except when he wants to use the computer in the telecommunications room, or needs to show the place to a journalist or a public servant, or when he wants to check the installation of a new exhibit. Outside the offices, in the exhibition areas, the administrative staff are rarely seen unless there is a special event. The administrator is the only person who often walks around looking for people. The rest of the staff (four women) do almost all their work from their cubicles. A general assistant often goes out to eat with a guide friend of hers. This assistant buys, sells and gossips more than anyone else. As for the non-administrative staff they seldom enter the administrative area. They go to the offices for their payments, to check their entrance and exit times, to talk to the director, to ask for any permission, or to talk to the union representative. The guides and janitors are often seen in the offices whenever they go to heat their food for lunch. As for the gardeners, they are seen on the Planetarium’s floor at the time they arrive or before they leave after checking their attendance cards. They are also seen crossing the foyer going from one garden to the other with their barrows, shears and broomsticks. Although they are well known by the rest of the staff, the gardeners have established closer relationships with the janitors and one of the guides.

57 Whenever there are meetings of the Board of Patrons, all the members enter through the back door from the car park and the back garden. I do not remember seeing any member of the Board walking around the exhibition area, and none of them ever comes without their cars, so they rarely enter through the main entrance. These descriptions are not meant to imply that these people do not work enough. These comments demonstrate that some work from their offices and occasionally peep outside that dividing wall. The wall is like a symbol of the restrictive character of the relationships among the staff. Often, visitors ask to enter the offices. The most frequent motive is when schoolteachers ask for information. Visitors also commonly ask for signatures or the institutional stamp to provide evidence of an educational visit to the Planetarium. Some people ask for receipts. Suppliers and dealers of office equipment and materials, also regularly visit as the peddlers do, whose regular market is the people working in the Planetarium. Among the items sold discretely are food, dairy products, sweets, and underwear for women, jewellery and clothes. Extraordinary events also bring visitors to the offices, like the day when a guide took a girl, bitten by her bored baby brother, to be treated in the cubicle where the first-aid kit is kept. Complaints about a guide’s service or demands for cleanliness in the toilets, corridors or exhibits are seldom heard in the office. When these occur they have a considerable impact on the routines of the staff. Every day, after two o’clock, some of the children of the several mothers working at the Planetarium (two guides, the director’s secretary and the public relations manager) run in and out playing around the entire Planetarium without making any distinction between the offices, the gardens or the exhibition areas. These children, all boys between the age of five and ten, run, play, talk, eat, fight or use their toys throughout the Planetarium, except in the director’s office, where the secretary or their mother will frighten them off. One of these boys eventually became a problem for the staff. Rumours say that he was permanently expelled from school and his mother could not leave him alone at home. This guide began to take her son to the Planetarium every day, where he roamed around freely. This naughty five-year-old began hitting and kicking people and the staff, going wherever he wanted without feeling any of guilt or obligation. His unruly behaviour made evident the frailty of the solidarity that unites the women and especially the mothers

58 working at the centre. He put at risk the tacit permission given to the women to take their children with them after school. This solidarity was broken after the boy’s mother began neglecting her responsibility over her son. Ever since, the rest of the staff have had to discipline the boy on her behalf.

The hideouts

It took a while to understand how the guides divided their duties among themselves, and it was never totally clear. Every new manager had suggested a different division of duties in the divided space. Hence, through the years the guides had developed a strong strategic sense. Their routines allowed them to leave the groups early after explaining the few exhibits that they liked to operate, or while the film was shown. After performing their explanatory repertoires they vanished from the rooms. It is quite hard to describe their organisation without judging their procedures. After some time I noticed they usually gathered for short periods in the kitchen, telecommunications room office, the virtual library office, the auditorium, the Planetarium’s dome, behind the information kiosk or other hidden corners to eat, chat, buy things from the peddlers, or simply to hide from the public, the administrator or the director. The janitors, the guides and others often gathered in pairs at these places which they used as hideaways. They usually stayed for several minutes. The director, always interested in preventing these gatherings, closed one such hidden office. On another day he moved the information kiosk to the most visible place in the foyer. All the guides were obliged to wear a uniform, and the director had their photographs displayed at the entrance so that the public could recognise them and ask for their assistance. All these measures may seem ‘common’, but they occurred little by little, and as contingent measures of control (to the public some measures may have looked like organisational improvement). On the floor of the Planetarium it was common to see the guides walking around a room whenever they were with a scheduled group. However, whenever various groups attended the science centre at the same time, it was always difficult to follow the guides. At first I thought that I am not doing enough to stay close and accompany them to see how they work. While they conducted a tour they accepted my presence, but after they handed the group over to another guide or after the group they guided left the centre I was not so

59 welcome to stay close. After the first weeks I tried to follow the guides and stay ‘awake’ every day. While listening to the same explanations, I realised how difficult it was to be able to answer every question on every area of the Planetarium. The guides were supposed to help the public. Their duty was to stay in the rooms, but there was no drinking water available, nor a place to sit down and relax, and the repetition of sounds in the rooms was extremely annoying. I suppose it is telling that I only saw chairs in the hideaways. The guides could not sit down anywhere else.

Meaningful spaces, spatial practices

Henri Lefebvre would have qualified spaces like the Planetarium as repressive and ‘bureaucratic and political’ (Lefebvre in Merrifield 2000, 49). It was conceived as a family- friendly space where people could go to spend their free time and learn about science and technology. No thought was given to the people who would work and spend half of their life inside it. As insiders, these people had a different perception of this conceived space in which they lived. The hideaways were their retreats, the corners where they could escape the conceived space and routine. Staying with Merrifield’s interpretation of Lefebvre: In our society, in other words, what is lived and perceived is of secondary importance compared to what is conceived. And what is conceived is usually an objective abstraction, an oppressive objective abstraction, which renders less significant both conscious and unconscious levels of lived experience. Conceptions, it seems, rule our lives, sometimes for the good, but more often ‘given the structure of society – to our detriment’ (Merrifield 2000, 175).

The discovery of the practice of retreating for a few minutes was crucial to this investigation. These hideouts turned out to be significant spaces where I could feel less like the observer and more like the person. Until the day I began sharing the normality of the escapades, the Planetarium’s staff ‘opened their doors’ to me. This brings to mind what Georg Simmel found crucial in his early studies of the city, about ‘the cultivation of a social reserve.’ In an interesting analytical manoeuvre Simmel argued how ‘the need for inward retreat’ helped people preserve anonymity to a certain extent, and behind the ‘style’ adopted by people was ‘the concealment of the personal, not its revelation’ (Simmel in Allen 2000, 58). When sharing spaces, chairs, food and breaks with the guides or with the secretaries, and during conversations with the director even behind closed doors, I heard stories of

60 masks and appearances that safeguarded the narrators’ self-belief. At first I thought of the hideouts as something negative, but discovered that these were, in fact, places where people could be what they thought of as ‘themselves’ in relation to the others who shared the space. In the Planetarium – or the conceived space – the staff must become experts on the science and technology exhibited. (This was expected by the public and by me, at least in the beginning). Outside the Planetarium (and inside its innermost interstices) they were not forced to assume the pretence of being experts. In these retreats they found safe areas where they could live away from the eyes of the public, with close acquaintances and friends. In these hideaways they could talk about what they knew, and not maintain the pretence of a knowledge of science. I heard not one conversation about science in these hideaways. Instead, people talked about apparitions, natural remedies, superstition, horoscopes, tragedy, families, ailments, God, the absurdities of religion; anything, especially about what scientists find most absurd and debatable.

The Planetarium’s great divide

Soon after the start of fieldwork, a great divide between people working in the offices and those in the rest of the centre became obvious. This distance was confirmed more than once during conversations with employees who did not have administrative duties. The lack of unity between people working in the exhibition areas and in other areas outside the offices and the administrative employees was notorious, becoming particularly apparent before special events. During a staff meeting I listened to the gardeners referring to themselves as ‘us’, while speaking to staff in administrative posts using the very formal form of the word ‘usted’ (you). They used the word ‘cualquiera’ (anyone) to refer to the rest of the staff – like the guides, mechanics, storehouse keepers and janitors. But the administrative staff denied a divide. On several occasions I heard guides and janitors say, ‘Here we know that the visitors...but there they don’t understand...’ The here was the Planetarium as it was described by those who worked outside there: ‘the offices’, the inside there or the inside here of the administrative area. According to Andy Merrifield, in The Production of Space, Henri Lefebvre already saw the ideological purposes that come with any ‘fragmentation and conceptual dislocation’. ‘Separation ensures consent, perpetuates misunderstanding, and worse: it reproduces the

61 status quo’ (Merrifield 2000, 171). This is what happened in the Planetarium. The wall that divided the offices from the rest of the institution had the effect of further alienating what was already hierarchically separated. This fragmentation grew stronger, as proved by the ensuing distance evident in the control of information. Perhaps the constant sound of active children playing with the scientific concepts in the physics area made the people in the offices feel that the Planetarium was working as it should. Additionally, the continuous organisation of special events and seasonal attractions kept the administrative staff so busy that they did not seem to worry about how the Planetarium, the public Planetarium, worked. To them, the concept of boredom in the Planetarium was extraordinary as, when children told their friend how bored they were, the administrative staff were not there to hear it. In the eyes of the administrative staff, all worked in unison, and they considered themselves part of it. The rest of the staff thought differently. The offices were the place where information was produced but did not come out. People went there to complain, but the guilty ones or those to be blamed were always to be found outside the offices, not in them. One of the guides working in the evening sums up the general feeling in one sentence: ‘We are never asked for our opinion, we never know about their plans and none of them know, ever, what we think.’ An exception should be mentioned here: the director knew that the Planetarium did not work properly. He said once during an interview how he felt he had little power in the management of the institution. If he could, he said, he would have already dismissed a lot of people. But he could not because all his staff were protected by the workers’ union. Even though he acknowledged that the services offered to the public were not optimal, for him, the hypothetical solution was to dismiss people who did not want to learn to work ‘properly’. On one occasion he asked for my opinion. I told him how I perceived a great gap. It looked, I say, as if outside the offices were a pond full of crocodiles, with no bridge, which put people from both sides off crossing over. There seems to exist a major problem in the flow of information and understanding on both sides of the pond. Immediately on hearing this comment he began a communication campaign. He, alone, began to ‘cross the pond’ to talk to the staff outside the offices. He also started trying harder to be seen to be trustworthy as a director. His attempts did not work as he hoped. Outside he found

62 mistrust and rivalry, which made him feel desperate. The prevailing situation could be exemplified in the relationship that he tried to establish with the guides. For more than a month, the director was responsible for the organisation of the guides. He was forced to take on this role after the guides fell out with the new public services manager, who had been transferred from the Metropolitan Children’s Museum. The director himself claimed to have asked for this transfer. Rumour had it that this new employee was sacked from the Children’s Museum owing to his intrusive behaviour towards the woman director. His duties were to organise the guides, the janitors and the museographer to improve services to the public. The new manager worked closely with the guides for two weeks. During this time he tried to realise and normalise a route for the visitors; he also made the guides feel confident about their lack of knowledge of science or technology. He would tell them that they were hostesses, not guides, and that their purpose was only to lead the groups into the spaces, not to provide a detailed explanation of everything in the rooms. This provided some temporary relief to the guides. This lasted only until they went back to their traditional work, however, rehearsing routine explanations of the content and themes in the rooms to groups of visitors. The new manager decided to send the guides on courses to improve their personal presentation, their computing skills and to develop a ‘sense of excellence’. It did not occur to him, however, to hire a physicist or a biologist from a university who could explain to the guides the principles behind the exhibits; and the guides did not ask for this. One of them asked instead for a course on how to behave in front of groups with special needs.1 This man prohibited the guides from entering the offices unless he or the director ordered any of them to do so. This order was communicated in a formal memorandum. For the first time I saw an official communication from the office directed to the guides, although with this memo the distance between office and Planetarium was about to widen. The director supported all the initiatives taken by the new manager. But soon the new manager began to take advantage of the trust the director had in him. In less than a week the manager began treating the staff – the director included – with the authority of a director. The employees began complaining among themselves and began losing respect for

1 Some time later, the Children’s Metropolitan Museum organised three courses on how to organise children in a room, how to include groups of economically disadvantaged people, and how to address children with disabilities. When the guides asked for permission to go on these courses, they were told that they could attend but that the days would be discounted from their salaries. The rest of the courses suggested by the new manager never took place. It was never very clear to me why the guides were so neglected by the administration. Perhaps because they were problematic as a group, whenever the guides tried to make improvements, their attempts were regarded with suspicion. 63 the director who seemed afraid to confront the new manager. Soon new problems were created by his presence. In that time, the new manager discovered a quiet and isolated underground office located in the basement of the Planetarium’s tower. He chose to begin working from this office. He also called in some trusted students to do their community service with him. He instigated a new team consisting of individuals who worked only for him; he included one guide in this new team and forgot about the rest of the group. But this manager did not last long as head of the guides. The director had to take on the management of the guides after they demanded the union protect them against the disrespectful behaviour of the new public services manager. The guides almost succeeded in getting the manager dismissed without giving notice to the director, who learnt about the problematic situation only when the union’s representative knocked at his door. Soon after the director took responsibility for the guides he gave it up. In some desperation, he named the chief librarian as the guides’ new manager. Then he retreated back to his office and ‘lifted the bridge’ after him, indifferent to the situation. Over the course of one year, the guides had four managers. The group quarrelled with all of them. As a result of all this, I got the impression that scientific knowledge was the least relevant issue among these people. The organisation of special events went on unnoticed and the guides, for example, received official notification only one or two days before any event. In contrast, the whole staff immediately knew about problems involving any of them. Renovations or new displays were planned and executed without prior notice to the guides, and people working on the exhibition floor were used to the appearance of unexplained novelties in the rooms; especially in the physics area where the substitution of exhibits for newer ones was frequent. There was never a crisis about a new display because the guides found it easy to ignore the changes. They could ignore new information, science and the visitors interested in the newest displays. This characteristic information flow made me question how the staff communicated news, whether official or personal. Was this by official means or mainly by personal communication? How was it possible that the guides did not have any notice of the organisation of events, or information about new displays? Gossip prevailed and was useful but ran in parallel with any formal organisation or official information management. Formality characterised the institutional relationship with the press or the council offices, whereas internal communication lacked formality. The woman in charge of

64 communication issues, for example, did not interpret her job as inclusive of internal communication. Her duties, as she described them in an interview, were directed towards ‘the outside’ of the Planetarium. She was in charge ‘only of the centre’s relationship with the press and the municipality.’ I perceived how the distance between the groups ensued, and distrust and disunity grew apace. These conflicts are just lived, in Lefebvre’s sense, where the representational space was produced. For Lefebvre, representational space was the concept of a space that is actively produced; it is the space of everyday experience which is lived, not solved (Lefebvre in Merrifield 2000, 171). What I learnt from sharing space with these people was that maps of conceived spaces coexist with the maps of the lived spaces. In truth, representational space is not solved, rather alternative signposts are placed. The hiding places of the Planetarium, those disguised places of retreat, brought out an aspect of the centre that could not be envisioned in advance: the appropriation of meaningless areas where the bureaucratic and repressive environment could be escaped by those same bureaucrats. In these retreats the great communicative distance between the ‘you’ and ‘us,’ the ‘in there’ and the ‘out here’ was not going to be solved but was at least evaded. These hidden corners became crucial to making it through the working day. People needed to escape from the exhibition areas to free themselves from the obliged enactment of routines. The situated practice of science communication took place over a map of power that these people knew well. It has yet to be described how visitors were perceived in this parallel map of power (not only in the conception of the idealised centre). What effect did the spaces filled with children have on the performance of the employees’ duties and routines?

Visitors in the public spaces

One morning, the woman working in the Planetarium as the Communications Manager recounted in a general meeting that ‘some time ago’, in a newspaper article, critical remarks were made about the poor quality of the Planetarium. All the Planetarium’s areas received negative comments, except for the gardens – these were described as memorable and carefully taken care of. To my surprise, the newspaper’s praise for the gardens had not been shared with the staff before that morning, two years or so after its publication. Immediately after the

65 communication manager read out the newspaper’s comments, the chief gardener raised his hand and said that ‘speaking in the name of his compañeros’, they would really appreciate it if someone could ‘please’ communicate with them and share such information. This, he said, would be very welcomed as it was important for them to know when they were doing things right and they deserved recognition. He went on and on complaining about the lack of attention paid to the gardeners by the office, and about the message implied when the office ignored them. He said they felt that they were treated as inferiors. The rest silently agreed. After this intervention, the chief gardener’s wife, also a gardener, raised her hand and asked to address the meeting. She asked the director if he remembered the day when he addressed the workers for the first time after taking the directorship of the Planetarium. The director replied that he remembered the day but that he did not know what exactly she wanted him to remember. She went on: ‘You told us that we were here to serve the public…’ ‘But, we do not agree. The public do not pay us, they do not raise our salaries, they do not know who works here, and they cannot give promotions’. She explained that they wanted him to see how they were working, acknowledge their efforts, and reward them. The director asked her if she could understand what he really meant by saying that they should ‘serve the public’. The chief gardener raised his voice again and silenced his wife without giving her the opportunity to answer. For me, it is obvious that she understood it clearly. She has even discussed the issue with the rest of the gardeners. But the problem was that the director was not expecting such a straightforward interpretation of ‘service to the public’. If the public is not invested with any real power within the institutional organization, then the workers are not serving the public, they are serving the person who can reward them for their efforts and the investment of their time. It was during this same meeting that the director described the troubles he faced after the guides tried to have the newest Public Services manager dismissed. The chief gardener countered that yes, the guides should have talked to him first, but the director should also understand that in the Planetarium only the post of director is assigned by the governor; the rest of the staff got their jobs through the union, and all worked assuming that some would be promoted to higher positions on merit. They could not allow the director to appoint someone from outside to a position to which they were entitled. They felt that they had all worked hard towards promotion, and should have been given the opportunity to apply for the post, but were ignored.

66 The chief gardener also mentioned that the guides were the only ones truly in contact with the public and recognised their worth in that it was they who were responsible for the centre’s public image. He wanted to continue by discussing that they may have been of humble origins but that they were educated and knew how to work, but the meeting was brought to a close by the director at that difficult moment. The director stated again that he was always willing to hear any complaints, saying: ‘Talk to me first, do not let the problems grow.’ The guides were certainly aware that they had a degree of power. This power came – as the gardener said – from their direct and permanent contact with the public. The following two examples show the guides’ attitudes to their contact with the public. One Sunday a woman arrived at the Planetarium showing a page of a newspaper and asking for free entrance for her whole family. She explained where she had got the free entrance tickets, but no-one in the administration had told the guides about the promotion. None of the guides was willing to take responsibility for the free tickets. Despite this, they allowed the family into the centre free of charge. The guide tried not to show her lack of knowledge of the centre’s affairs. The guide who told this story mentioned that although there was a poor relationship between the offices and the rest of the centre, the guides always tried to give visitors a good impression because their pride was at stake. On another occasion, two guides and an administrative secretary received a call from someone interested in the meteor shower which was to occur the following Friday night. All three women said they did not know anything about the event. I did know something about it, and offered to tell the person on the phone. In that moment the administrative assistant said something like: ‘No, don’t tell them anything. Let them realise how appalling this place is.’ The woman meant that she would rather I did not give any information extra to that known by the guides. She wanted the person on the phone to realise how badly the institution was organised and how poorly informed the staff were. She proposed to deny a service in order to make a statement. One of the guides, however, asked me to give the information on the meteor shower to the woman on the phone. With this call it was clear that the administrative assistant did not care about denying a service to the public. But for the guide, public service came first. Often the guides repeated that they were there for the public; they were proud to make it clear that they were the ones in contact with the public and no one else. Both examples made obvious the prevalent non-conformity within the organisation. They also made clear the division of opinions and attitudes towards attention to the public

67 and the strategic importance the service to the public had. Why then did the guides try to avoid the public by hiding? With the description of the guides’ public/private behaviour (hiding but pretending that they knew their job and how to serve the public) we make an advance in understanding ‘the precise manner in which spatial practices mediate between the conceived and the lived’ as Lefebvre tried to understand (Merrifield 2000, 175). Service to the public was the currency for exchange. Here, the concept of currency is a better one than that of duty or pride because contact with the public was used at the staff’s convenience, either to be defended as a privilege or to be avoided with complete indifference. Michel de Certeau conceived the idea of the ruses as tactics, as the art of the weak; common people performing deceitful practices in spaces that belong to others, who are capable of developing strategies for the construction of order. In places where power relationships exist, common individuals do not have any access to power, so they develop tactical behaviour. The tactical is opposed to the strategic because tactics are performed in spaces ordered by others; these are the non-spaces in De Certeau’s imagining. The French author explained how tactical behaviour brings to mind the ‘potlatch’. To Marcel Mauss, in the potlatch (Nootka gift exchange) the destruction of one’s possessions enhanced the givers’ prominence. Waste became a symbol of power. For De Certeau, these tactics of the weak in a society in which the obligation to give is so central becomes a parallel way of exchange to the dominant economic system. Common people still have in these institutional spaces, a chance to convert the predisposed world - the conceived spaces in Lefevbre’s terms - into the purposes of ordinary people (De Certeau 1996 [1980] and Crang 2000, 137). De Certeau explained that two economic systems coexist: in capitalist economies. Any waste is considered a transgression. In this neoliberal economy, centred on gain, excess equals waste; whereas for ordinary people (the guides in this case) any transgressive behaviour could equal fair exchange. The inattention towards the public and the practice of hiding are some of the tactics of the employees in the municipal institution; with these tactics they balanced exchange with the government. And in answer to those who may believe that the director is the strongest party in this relationship I would point to the fact that he had to continually negotiate with the individuals to sustain an ordered administration. The recurrence of the employees’ interest in showing that public service is a

68 merit, and how this argument was time and again contested, in my opinion revealed the coexistence of parallel exchange rationales. With this chapter I intended to show what happens in a place where science is immediately available in the way that a Mexican populariser of science would like to happen everywhere in the country. From my experience in the Planetarium, I understood that although information is available everywhere, this does not mean that all people will use it in the same way or for the same purposes. The language and the information of the sciences may become of current use, but in every space specific dynamics will take place. An example is the configuration of a conflictive working area where certain corners become vital in spaces that were once conceptualised as ideal environments for the understanding of science. The division of spaces created a void in the environment, hampering the communicative competencies and affecting the functionality of the environment to various degrees. This environment belongs, in any place, to the inhabitants, no matter how temporary their period of occupation. Sooner or later it accommodates to the division of their sociocultural interactions. Science may be the topic that brings them together, but the use of scientific knowledge does not make them act differently to how they live their lives and solve their daily businesses, nor how they fit in the maps of power. Most assuredly, any conception of an ideal environment will become repressive when it is enacted. It will continue to be repressive if the ways in which it is lived are further tested against the ideal conception, or if a new conception is planned taking into account – or not – the current ways of living that space. Every kind of knowledge, be it knowledge of the place, knowledge about the dwellers, or scientific knowledge, seems to be used as a currency for cohabitation. The value of each though is contingent, as will be explained in the next chapter, where specific information about the working environment is purposefully ignored.

69 Chapter three: Explaining and understanding science at the Planetarium

Soon after embarking on this thesis, I realised how rich and complex the teaching and learning processes are. Though it began as a thesis on the communication of science, it turned inexorably into an account of people’s participation in the socialisation of knowledge. Through daily interaction with the visitors, especially with the children, the guides consolidated and developed a particular understanding of science and of what their function as communicators meant. In this ethnographic chapter, I start by focusing on the guides’ performance. As well as acting as official communicators for the Planetarium, the guides were, at the same time, learners and teachers (Lave 1993, 4). In describing people’s interaction in the Planetarium, I emphasise the guides’ learning processes and explanations. This group of seven women and one man were participants in a community of science communicators, part of a wider community of forty people administering the Planetarium, and part of an even larger community of bureaucrats who worked in the cultural area of the state’s government. According to Lave and Wenger (1991), every person involved in a community is a practitioner, that is, ‘a newcomer becoming an old-timer, whose changing knowledge, skill, and discourse are part of a developing identity’ within that community of practice (Lave & Wenger 1991, 122). This account is about old-timers in a period of change, when their well- known place of work began to change as it was privatised. Half way through this chapter I describe the privatisation of the Planetarium. It is important to understand here how the process of privatisation affected the community of popularisers. When I first interviewed the guides, the eleventh Annual Science Fair had just finished. I wanted to know more about the organisation of this special event. From the interviews and those first conversations I gathered that the guides were angry and disappointed with their work place. They were tired and unwilling to improve their performance. They told me how years before they used to like their jobs more because they worked with a degree of authority and freedom. During this last science fair, the authority the guides once had to organise things was taken away from them without any explanation.

70 From their point of view this authoritarian move by the current administration implied a lack of communication between them and the administrative staff. For instance, the special-events manager often kept information to herself without sharing it. According to the guides, the manager felt that sharing any information about planning could threaten her authority and absolute control over events. What became evident was that by not disclosing what she knew about the event’s organisation she controlled many things. She gained power in the Planetarium when she was promoted from secretary to manager. This situation was not limited to the organisation of the fair, so I wondered if the guides enjoyed working in the Planetarium under those conditions. What incentives kept them working for so long at the Planetarium? Why did they continue to guide, to explain, to be heard by the students? Were they there only because of the social security provided by the union? When asked why they stayed at the Planetarium, they all agreed in saying that it had nothing to do with money: ‘Money is the least thing that motivates me to work here. What stimulates me is the appreciation of the children when they say thanks, their applause or whenever a teacher congratulates us.’ As another guide said: ‘Yes, the greetings of a child, when he or she recognises you on the street and says ‘good bye “teacher,”’ or whenever a teacher asks for an appointment with you because they like how you guide their groups.’ The guides also enjoyed the unpredictability of dealing with groups with disabilities like blindness, deafness, people with Down syndrome or juvenile delinquents. Over all, they said they enjoyed being heard, congratulated, and feeling that their job was appreciated. Two guides mentioned the great pleasure they got when guiding elderly people. Elderly men and women pay more attention than anyone else, the guides recalled, and ‘instead of explaining, you end up learning a lot from them!’. When the guides first started working, acquisition of knowledge was a major motivation. As one of them said ‘it used to be like a drug.’ They felt the need to know more. Today, as one guide said, ‘there are only a few groups who inspire you to be the guide you really are.’ One day, for example, a group of deaf teenagers visited the museum and this guide took them around the telecommunications room: ‘There are many things I know that I do not mention every time I tour a group in that room, but with the group of the deaf people I found myself remembering the story behind the invention of the telephone!’. This guide explained how she ‘kept somewhere in [her] mind’ the story of Alexander Graham Bell, who had not envisaged a tool for mass communication when he invented the telephone. Instead, she said, he simply wanted to develop a hearing aid for his deaf mother. ‘A simple lesson or a story that you read once seems useless, but there are

71 moments that trigger your memories, and immediately make you go back to the experience and remember useful information at the spot.’ One morning, a primary school teacher asked me to watch the children’s behaviour in the physics area. She said that they do not seem to be learning because they were playing, running and aggressively trying to make the displays work. However, she said, ‘one day, something will make them remember the Planetarium’s exhibits and they will give you a very good answer, seemingly out of the blue. They are learning.’ Like the children, the guides seemed careless of their knowledge, but certain moments triggered their memories and they remembered otherwise insignificant details. As I talked to the public, I learned from those relatively well-informed in various scientific fields that the guides did not seem to be sufficiently prepared to explain the sciences or technologies. The problem was that there was no institutional attempt to help them improve their knowledge on the subjects shown in the rooms. The Planetarium’s administration would not give sufficient attention to the guides to allow them to give a better public service. The administration did not provide the guides with training and learning practices anymore. For example, after the newest collection of exhibits was installed, no one explained to the guides anything about gravity, viscosity, why boats float, magnetism, catenaries,1 or sound waves. Neither did anyone explain if any of these phenomena related in any way to the neighbouring displays and how. Even after the director designed some of the exhibits, or copied others from the museums he had visited, neither he nor the woman in charge of designing the labels to the exhibits ever explained anything about the new exhibits to the guides in order that they could better explain them to the children. This is not to say that the director and the museographers knew why they were placing the new exhibits where they did. They never gave me the impression that they were aware of scientific or theoretical connections either – apart from deciding what to categorise as physics, what as biology and what as astronomy. So it was up to each guide how far they went in researching the new exhibits in the physics rooms, with the few textbooks in the library or the sixty titles at the media centre. I don’t remember hearing anyone discussing why displays were located where they were. As a result, the guides’ explanations were never about connections or relationships, but only a collection of unrelated facts put together with a display of authority. Another example, an engaging exhibit called the Gravitron attracted many young visitors until it was taken out after an accident. One guide used to explain to the public that

1 A catenary is ‘the shape assumed by a cord suspended from its extremities’ (Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia). A catenary shows the shape formed by the force of gravity on string of any material. 72 this instrument was used in the training of astronauts because the Gravitron simulated the feeling of zero gravity. Whether this information was correct or not was not important. What mattered was the potential to thrill children with the experience of what was like to be an astronaut in space – or, alternatively, to become very dizzy and have a good laugh. The day the whole structure collapsed with a student in it, the Gravitron was removed and was stored outside the workshop with the rest of the skeletons of old exhibits, and replaced by a new exhibit that showed why boats float. This new exhibit was built under the instruction of the director and installed by the mechanics team. But he never gave details of how it worked or how the phenomenon could be put in simple words. The new exhibit stood immobile without being used for the first two weeks. No one explained to the guides how to explain why making a person stand on a platform on top of a tall pipe full of water proves why or how boats float. Once I saw some of the women employees using it to compare their weight. The same happened with some of the other new displays that season: they were installed, but the physical principles were never explained to the guides, so they did not invite the public to try them out. Given the inattention they believe they are being ‘paid‘ by the administrative staff, the guides are resourceful in obtaining the information they need for the day-to-day performance of their tours. They have also learnt to show the ‘competent incompetence’ that characterises experts when making mistaken calculations in simple and everyday mathematical operations. Ordinary people are not used to showing this casual but well- learnt reaction (Lave 1988, 98). As one guide said, they usually do not acknowledge their ignorance of a subject in front of the public. But they will generally remember the question and ask another guide if they know the answer. If none of them knows, they keep it in mind until they read it by chance, or hear an explanation from someone else. Meanwhile, children are led through the rooms of an environment designed for the popularisation of science where the guides feel they have to transmit what they know, and the children shall receive this knowledge. It is through this daily contact with the public that the guides update their knowledge, more than through reading or courses or explanations from the director. The questions that children ask are central to the guides’ understandings of science. It is common to hear a child ask about something s/he saw on the Discovery Channel, or answer with what s/he learned on Discovery Kids. Apart from some documentaries produced by the Discovery Channel, which are shown daily in the auditorium, none of the guides ever mentions television documentaries as a source of information. Less often, students mention their text books as a source. Another source of questions and comments

73 is the children’s imagination; questions and comments from this source often make the guides laugh and be reflexive from time to time. So, although not every family in this Mexican city can afford a subscription to paid- TV channels, there are many children who do see the Discovery Channel, the National Geographic Channel or Discovery Kids. They will tell the guides what they have learned about the planets, or the geography of the moon, the exploration of Mars or any other subject. From the exchange of information, children without access to paid-television also benefit after the guides incorporate what they think complements their explanations from other children’s comments. Just as the guides believe, it seems that most people grow up accepting that as children we learn and as adults we will teach. When we think of teaching we tend to think of adults teaching children. When we think about learning, we tend to think that it is only children who learn. The microphysics of power (Foucault 1997 [1975]) that most children and adults have experienced in schooled societies has driven us to think as commonsensical the unidirectionality of the processes of teaching and learning. But the situation described above highlights the circuit of communication where children also teach. This generally remains unacknowledged, and rarely are children told how much they can teach. In this way, the media effectively transmit scientific information to the younger generations. I became an observer of this community of professional science popularisers in order to study the communication of scientific knowledge. My research interest was not to prove how much the children learned after being exposed to quotes, schemes and displays, but to analyse the communication of knowledge more as a socialisation process. Margaret Mead, an outstanding specialist in socialisation, used to think of the faculty of teaching as the most salient characteristic of human conduct (Langness 1976, 15). Langness stressed that although Mead was centrally interested in the study of children, she was very aware that siblings, parents and grandparents also play the role of learners in socialisation processes. Mary Catherine Bateson, like her parents Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead, also became interested in explaining teaching, but she has written mainly about learning from children. In Peripheral Visions she wrote that much of what adults learn has been taught by children, a fact that expresses ‘a reversal of the most visible patterns of education.’ Children, for example, are good guides to the changing environments that surround us all (Bateson 1994, 48). Mead wanted to prove how teaching characterises humankind. Her daughter built on this statement by explaining that although the way that adults teach their children is remarkable, less explored – though no less extraordinary – is how adults learn from children. For instance, how to cope with novelty (Ibid). The guides in the Planetarium bear

74 witness to this reversal. The children they take around the exhibits are a significant source of their current understanding of scientific disciplines. The communication circuits and spaces for participation captured my attention and helped me to better understand the public’s scientific literacy. Claeson et al. (1996) showed that scientific literacy is somehow the ‘indeterminate’ outcome of the conversational activities we engage in (Claeson et al. 1996, 50). In this sense, the interaction with children is central to the exploration of public understandings of scientific knowledge. The learning/teaching circuit described above constituted a community of learners that survived and made progress as part of an everyday practice. The significance of children’s participation in these processes should not be forgotten.

Parallel understandings

This account suggests that the Planetarium is a learning-rich setting. However, the teaching and learning environment in the Planetarium did not seem to provide what the guides demanded from the formal dimension in which they worked. Most of the guides’ learning took place mainly at the beginning of their careers in the Planetarium, when they followed the older guides and learned from them while getting involved in this community of practice. After they gained enough confidence to guide in every room, the formal input of information ceased. By the time I came to work at the Planetarium, and observed the guides’ interaction with the public, they were more concerned with not being bullied, and about being respected and heard. They were learning less from their contact with the children, while performing tactics to control better their audience. Significant ‘childish’ questions I hear, like ‘Who discovered the Sun?’ or ‘Is gravity what keeps the satellites orbiting the Earth?’ were never answered and given little thought by the guides. I saw many children raise their hands to ask questions, but their questions were never answered or were answered incorrectly, with little concern from anyone. The tour would just continue, then lunch time would arrive, followed by another visit and then the working day was over for teachers, pupils, guides and the rest of the workers The guides and the children interacted in a place where people could play and touch the exhibits, but children should nevertheless follow instructions from the guides and their teachers and behave in a more scholarly way. It was obvious that the guides enjoyed the power they had over their audiences. The guides had to lead the groups while at the same time they tried to keep the children’s attention. Some were more successful than others at performing in front of the groups, but all seemed to struggle with childish

75 rebellions. The guides enjoyed silencing the children and making them listen. They did not like teachers who did not show them respect, but appreciated teachers who helped them keeping the groups quiet and attentive, and who supported the authority the guide aspired to have. As I was told by the guides, they classified teachers who visited the Planetarium on school trips. Some teachers brought the children for a visit and forced them to behave. These teachers tried to reinforce what they had taught the children in the school room. To a second type of teacher, the Planetarium represented leisure time for the children, who were allowed to feel free to read, play or touch any exhibit and to go anywhere. For a third type of teacher, the visit to the Planetarium meant a free morning for themselves, free from the children, who they thought could be left in the care of somebody else, in this case the guides. In every case, the children had to obey the guides’ orders and be silent whenever the latter spoke. Certainly the children seemed used to being silenced by their teachers. As they were used to behaving themselves as they would at school, most easily accepted being silenced by the guide. It was not always easy for the guides to silence the children. A big difference between the groups’ teachers and the guides was that the teachers were familiar with the students’ habits. They knew them by name, and had had the time to get to know how best to deal with each child’s character. The guides only had the several hours of the session to work out how best to control each group. The guides could only work and establish order by stereotyping the behaviour of the people in the group. So, for example, they knew soon after starting a tour who was shy or abusive, who was interested and who was defiant, even who was threatening to vandalise the exhibits. The Planetarium’s environment felt somehow like school though it was not quite the same. The scenery was a designed environment, rich with stimuli, but the interaction with the material and the social dimensions were almost as authoritative and rigid as those of any classroom. Since I saw children encountering this semi-oppressive environment, I wondered if they were finding science entertaining and appealing, as claimed in the science centre’s propaganda, or if instead, they were only linking the understanding of science with scholastic activities, so commonly imposed at their age. The visit to the Planetarium may, in general, be out of the ordinary for the children and the teachers, but the interaction that was established was not extraordinary at all for the guides. The guides were full participants in a bureaucratic organisation where scientific and technical knowledge and the goals of popularisation mattered as long as each individual believed in their usefulness, but most of all, as long as the activities empowered them in their daily routines. Children and guides were learning something more than scientific

76 information through their interaction in this setting, which combined leisure opportunities with scholastic work. Assuming that they were the mediators in this environment where science was so available, it might be that a ‘secondary’ or parallel organisational form was in the process of reproduction at the Planetarium. What is this that they were learning? These questions bring to mind the paradox that Paul Willis showed in his ethnography Learning to Labour (1977). By resisting the scholastic discipline, the ‘lads’ were developing the precise attitude they needed to immediately fit in to the role of a worker when they left school and so resisting the acquisition of the skills the school should provide, that is, other professional and intellectual possibilities in their future working lives. Willis’ contribution is that the scholar discipline was based in the omnipresent antagonism to the working class culture. The lads could not live nor think like their family and friends, and they reacted quite naturally against these restrictions and against those who complied with the school’s disciplinary logic. Willis provided us with a better description of what that discipline consisted of. It is difficult, if not impossible, to know how many children decide to become scientists after a visit to a Planetarium. However, I suspect that what happened again and again resembled what Lave and Wenger have described and illustrate with groups of students learning physics in most secondary schools. The teenagers participate in the reproduction of the high school itself, not of the world of the physicists. Hence, assuming that the practice of physics is also being reproduced in some form, there are vast differences between the ways high school physics students participate in and give meaning to their activity and the way professional physicists do (Lave & Wenger 1991, 99). The children at the Planetarium were not learning with, from and about the professional scientists but from schooled adults who worked for a bureaucratic institution – adults with some scientific knowledge shaped through their interaction with children and the mass media. The children temporarily participated in an environment that provided them with some scientific information that was useful in that particular context, a context that very much resembled the one they were used to participating in regularly: school. By resisting the discipline imposed in a science centre they might as well be restraining themselves from showing any interest in science. But the process of understanding will be better described in chapter five.

Possible outcomes and their implications

The anthropologist Sharon Traweek studied a scientific community of particle physicists. From her study she concluded that scientific communities, like many other social groups,

77 ‘do not reproduce themselves biologically’ but by training novices (Traweek 1988, 74). In her ethnography, Traweek explains that young physicists learn the criteria for a successful career in science by participating within the physics community. She does not mention any influence of public understanding or popularisation activities in the scientists’ careers, and I find this fact significant, questioning the real influence of these activities on future scientists’ decisions. The Planetarium belongs to the kind of institution thought to be ideal for the popularisation of science, and specially suited to influencing decisions of young people who may choose to become professional scientists (Butler 1992; Durant 1994). As Traweek stated, knowing that a scientific community does not reproduce by biological means, and that reproduction matters a great deal to its members, the popularisation of science is ostensibly a way to help in the recruitment of novices; a good case of social reproduction. But are any of the children who visit the Planetarium inspired to become a scientist? Or, to become a populariser of science? Or does the bureaucratic environment put children off even learning about science? These questions point to the wide range of possible outcomes in the reproduction of a community in which scientific knowledge is important. Although this research does not pretend to answer any of these questions, it is still important to contemplate what influence, if any, there is. Every year, a large number of secondary school and university students offer to do voluntary work at the institution. Most are women studying pedagogy or being trained to become educators. More than twenty young adults who are completing their first degree or technical higher education ask for a place in the Planetarium every year. Three of the guides I met during this year – one man and two women – entered first as voluntary workers. Once the director considered that they could become ‘good guides’, they were hired. In the same year, two other students – also women – were offered a part-time job after they designed a project for the life sciences area. While visiting museums in other Mexican cities and attending a conference on the popularisation of science, I had the opportunity to interview young people who were studying scientific, engineering and communication careers, professional popularisers, and scientists attracted to popularisation. I learned from these people that popularisation activities all over the country depend on the participation of young people who work on voluntary basis. Nevertheless it seems that over the course of a person’s professional life, the time invested in popularisation inevitably decreases. By the time young adults graduate with a first degree, very few continue to invest time in popularisation. This rough impression needs investigation, but it is well known that in Mexico, before 2001, there was little reward

78 for those who engaged in popularisation activities other than the feeling well-described by the guides: that of a child’s appreciation. Popularisation is deemed as less important than scientific research despite its apparent function in the recruitment of novices and society’s acceptance of scientific products. But it is possible that this widespread idea is used to justify the little – if any at all – economic reward that many popularisers get from their activities. So this is a situation where science is highly valued by scientists but its popularisation does not have much economic reward. The popularisation of science in Mexico has depended for a long time on the altruism of students (and as we will see in chapter six, of scientists too). They do not earn money, but many happily engage in popularisation activities. Popularisation is mostly altruistic, so there are not many people who can afford to devote their professional lives to it – unless they work for a museum or a state office of culture with a secured income. Professionals who like popularising their science say that they do it for the benefit of children and society at large. Young professionals start out enthusiastically popularising, but after working a while free of charge, it stops seeming to be the best professional option. The Planetarium, like many other institutions in the country, may be partially reproducing the community of popularisers together with the norms of their existence. I had the opportunity to confirm that popularisation activities in Mexico carry the stigma of irrelevance and under-specialisation. Gánem Corvera explains that this perception may have been fixed after George Bernard Shaw said ‘Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.’ As Gánem reflects, some would venture to add that those who are totally incompetent popularise (Gánem Corvera 2002, 174). It is a shared but mostly unspoken assumption among some scientists that those who do not become proficient scientists must become teachers, deeming the profession of teaching less valuable than the activity of original research. Those who discover science communication as a third option, and become interested in it, may be seen as failed professional scientists by students and some scientists – although not by all of them. It is not surprising to observe that most popularisers take every advantage to explain that to popularise science is as necessary as being a scientist. Knowing about this prejudiced opinion helps us understand why so many pages are written to discuss what makes a good populariser, how difficult it is to come across one, but also how rewarding the experience is (Chávez Arredondo 2002; García Fernández 2002; Tonda et al. 2002). It is telling, that many young professionals have decided optimistically to work for the Planetarium since its transformation began. There was, for example, a group of ten

79 students who worked on the design of the new image of the Planetarium Park. An architect working with the Board of Patrons invited students to participate in defining the new corporate image. Although he worked as a professor in the state’s public university, he only invited the group he taught design to at a private Jesuit university in the city. These students would graduate with the work they did for the Planetarium, but worked for free. At the end, they received a diploma of participation in the project. Another group of students gathered by an astrophysicist working at the state’s public university, created a twenty-five-minute series of animations that describe the force of gravity and its influence in the universe. To produce this video, the astrophysicist leading the group obtained funding for equipment from the state’s science council. They created a strong university centre for the production of science animation and software development. The group’s first product was a programme about the force of gravity, and they gave it as a gift to the Planetarium and to other schools and scientists. The group has carried on to producing other videos for the Planetarium, but their future as a group depends on earning money. Most of them are still studying their first degree and aim to secure a future for themselves. Their ideal would be to keep working as a group producing scientific animations for the popularisation of science if they could succeed in making some profit from their knowledge.

From public to private (or private understandings?)

The plans to privatise and transform the Planetarium into a science centre made it a most interesting site for the study of the renewal of popularisation objectives. This neo-liberal transformation of a public institution to one administered with private funding would be an opportunity to better understand and update factors that have an effect on the public understanding of science today. From the perspective of an outsider, the transformation promised much planning and conceptualisation efforts to observe. The transformation project progressed in parallel to the public institution’s ongoing activities. It was developed as a concept of a private endeavour that would substitute the activities of the public institution first and it would evolve into a major science centre in a cluster of other disciplinary museums. The lack of communication and dissociation between those who worked in the public institution and those who began planning the private science centre was characteristic and only the director of the Planetarium was involved in the organisation of both institutions. The Board of Patrons of the Planetarium – the group who put forward the initiative to privatise the Planetarium – was formed from a group of university professors,

80 researchers and industrialists who entertained the seminal thought of an organisation that would help to improve the economic situation of the city and this particular Mexican state. These professionals began meeting regularly during the early nineties to decide on long- term actions that would integrate the industrial sector with the local universities of the region. Part of their plan was to popularise science and technology among the general public in order to target novices who would one day get involved in any science or engineering as a career. The group wanted to influence young adults, at the age of choosing a career to study programmes that would provide the local industrial sector with specialised professionals. The group defined a commission within their organisation that became the Planetarium’s Board of Patrons. One of the industrialists – an influential entrepreneur involved in the production of generic medicine with a PhD in sociology from a European University, and a close relative of a statesman leading the privatisation of the national health services – was named Director of the Board. His first task was to consolidate a proposal for the construction of the science centre where local universities and the local industrial companies could display the results of collaboration between the industrial and academic sectors, and thus contribute to the popularisation of science and technology. The Board decided to negotiate with the city’s government to adopt the Planetarium as their forum. By the time the Board’s official status was consolidated, its members were already making plans for the science centre in parallel to the ongoing activities of the Planetarium. The Board of Patrons presented the plans to the newest Planetarium’s director – the chemical engineer recently assigned by the state’s governor. The director was told about the plans of the Board and of the plans to ask for the collaboration of local industrial companies and universities. The Board asked him to consider joining the plans and contributing with the Board. The Planetarium’s director saw in this proposal a great opportunity to carry on as the head of the institution after his official period of three years finished. The Board’s idea was to work independently from the Planetarium’s daily activities while using some of the resources awarded by to the Planetarium by the state. The Board began to plan with these government resources, while the bigger project was promoted with other funds invested by public and private institutions. The director accepted the Board’s suggestion and he began to plan the refurbishment of some of the exhibitions and the planetarium’s dome. He presented his project to the city council’s cultural bureau to ask for an increase in the annual budget, and to the state’s Council for Science and Technology to obtain a one-to-one joint investment with governmental funds. When the project was accepted by the municipal administration,

81 the Board of Patrons began using public funds to propose joint investment with the private sector to support the funding of the science centre project. The director began the refurbishment of the Planetarium’s dome while the Board began paying two marketing specialists to conduct market research among the urban middle class in order to develop the concept of the science centre. That is, the Board began to develop a strategy to attract a section of the public who would pay much more than thirty pence to visit the new science centre. This development should be highlighted because the history of museums shows that each time museums go through transformations, a new public has been defined. Cyclically an ideal type of visitor is decided and invited to walk through the spaces in the same way that the newly defined ideal visitor would (Hooper-Greenhill 1992, 209-211; Bennett 1995; Macdonald 1998a, 1998b). The day the director told the staff about the plans to privatise the Planetarium, he warned them of changes that would transform the whole institution. The Planetarium would continue to be administered by the state’s government for three more years. However, after that period, the Planetarium would be run by the Patrons’ private administration. The staff were asked to think and decide whether they would continue to work for the science centre or not. The director explained that all staff who decided to carry on working for the new science centre would have to leave the union and lose the benefits they had as civil servants working for the state, while those who decided to keep their jobs would be reinstalled in some other governmental institution. It was explained that their decision should be a personal one. They had to choose between a lower salaried job but with the rights and protection of a unionised civil servant and a higher salaried job with no protection or other rights such as a pension, housing, holidays, fixed working hours, job security and medical insurance. The news certainly affected the working environment, but it did not lead to big changes. The director’s news only reinforced the dull working environment that already existed. I got the impression that the director used the announcement to provoke a reaction among staff who might feel that their job was threatened and therefore improve their working habits. However, as I am told by the director, he was not very interested in keeping any of the Planetarium’s employees. The staff, on the contrary, seemed to think that there was no sense in working harder if they preferred to carry on working for the State in a different office or at another government museum. They decided then not to comply with the new competitive regime that they were compelled to participate in. By contrast, the director, during the next three years had to demonstrate to the Board of Patrons that he was the ideal director for the future science centre. Otherwise, he would lose his job after this period. His job at the Planetarium was temporary, and by the

82 time the governor of the state finished his three-year administrative period, the Planetarium’s director would leave too. From the outset of my research, I interpreted all the changes and investments at the Planetarium were part of the plans for the future science centre and that the improvement of the Planetarium would be the first stage of the science centre plans. However, toward the end of my stay I was told by the director of the Board of Patrons that my understanding was mistaken. According to his explanation, I was mixing up two things: the Planetarium and its public plans was one thing, while the plans for the science centre were something different. Confused, I suggested that he might be making this separation for strategic purposes, but in reality the Planetarium was ‘the face’ of his project, especially since the director of the Planetarium also worked for the Board of Patrons. I told him that the Planetarium would ‘speak’ for the Board’s plans and that if the improvements were not reflected in their plans the project might suffer a setback. I began to describe the Planetarium before the changes occurred, but what I have so far written happened during the same year when the Board began working on the Planetarium’s transformation. In the following meeting with the Board of Patrons, the director of the Board mentioned, as a joke, what I had told him. Since then he emphasised that the Planetarium’s director wore ‘two hats’: that of the Planetarium director, and that of the science centre representative. He often said: ‘Now, the director will wear the hat of the Planetarium’; or, ‘the director is speaking with the hat of the science centre on’. What are the social implications when individuals separate projects from realities? When I remembered and looked back at my notes of these events it became clear that the conception of a new institution with new environments was different from the ways in which it had been lived and perceived by its inhabitants. This might seem obvious because we are talking here about changes, but this means more when we talk instead about the reorganisation of the community I have so far described. Although I acknowledge the risk of talking about ‘realities’, the use of this word stands for what I considered ‘real’ at the time. That is, a specific group of more than forty people who worked every day in activities to popularise science at the institution. The visitors were children and teenagers studying in the schools of the city – the great majority came from public schools – from Monday to Friday. During the weekends the Planetarium was mainly visited by low-income families. By conceiving of new environments for a middle class public and by ignoring these visitors and their interactions with the staff, the Board of Patrons was in the process of abandoning the ‘real’ public for a preferred, ideal public not normally associated with the Planetarium. The plan to transform the Planetarium was not intended for the current users of those spaces but for a preferred sort

83 of people, or consumers. The future science centre was conceived as a place for middle class families who would spend more money on the services offered at the centre. The understanding of science was changing its concept of public for the sake of a particular consumption capacity.

The objects take the lead

Because the Planetarium’s director was in charge of promoting the science centre project as well as directing the activities in the institution, he focused his efforts on four grand visible projects: to refurbish the planetarium’s dome; to introduce new displays in the recreational physics room; the inclusion in the life sciences area of new models of organs, biological processes and organisms, and the creation of an orchard outside the building. The director seemed to be more confident about the importance of displays, models, videos, and exhibitions, especially after he saw how the problems, interaction, interests and rights among staff disrupted his initiatives to improve their services. The staff mattered but there was no easy answer to improve their services. The guides’ status as civil servants, for example, was a major problem. They were in many respects untouchable, and instead of improving, their performance seemed to decline every day. On more than one occasion I heard the opinion that the Planetarium should remove its current staff, including the guides, and employ new people without experience in hiding, cheating, gossiping and bureaucratic self defence. The first new employee to worked at the Planetarium under the new administration was a retired primary school teacher who asked for a job soon after the director needed someone with his experience and initiative. He was asked to develop a scientific workshop for teenagers and he therefore began working at the foyer reproducing a classroom, where the students could work in groups on the activities that he designed. Meanwhile the director had to cope with the problems without much authority. He could not dismiss any person from the institution or else he would be called before the union who could request that he resign from his position. The director was mainly an administrator without the means to modify much from within the institution while it was run with public funds. He could only remove staff from their posts, but he had to compensate them with a job elsewhere. He could also exchange staff with other institutions but the power of any new member of staff should not threaten the stability of the existing hierarchy. He soon felt disappointed and began to disregard the importance of the presence of the staff in the exhibition floor by ignoring their work and concentrating more on the exhibits. This lack of attention toward the staff was strongly felt on the exhibition

84 floors. The Planetarium kept its doors open and the guides kept on working as usual. Meanwhile, the director began investing all the institutional funds, his time and effort in the improvement of the material aspects of the Planetarium. The problems faced by the staff were not irrelevant, but if the guides had a significant role in the popularisation of science it was not recognised by the administrative staff. In the offices, the problematic group of guides was generally ignored. One result of this situation was that the guides’ central role, as mediators of knowledge between the exhibits and the public, was overlooked. But more significant is the fact that the guides were seen as irrelevant in the transformation of the institution. The guides had been granted a place in a space and they might not have been indispensable from the administrative staff’s perspective. As the new manager suggested to them, it might be better if they just worked as hostesses, rather than trying to explain astronomy or aeronautics when they did not know much about those subject. But they would still be part of the popularisation environment, even if their sole duty was to help the public to find their way through the space – they were still a significant part of the communicative environment. What seems central is that they were part of a community of practice, ignored by the administration and the Board of Patrons when they began designing the future of the popularisation of science in the state.

An unacknowledged learning community

Instead of supporting a deficit model and using questionnaires to measure how much the public learnt, I was interested, from the outset, in how the guides and visitors interacted with the library, the displays and the rest of the staff. I observed that every group of people was indifferent towards some aspects of social interaction in the Planetarium. The centre’s latest triptych mentioned the objective of ‘providing the necessary media to the visitors so that they have fun and learn in a joyful and interesting way’. By contrast, an experienced guide described her job as a daily attempt ‘to help children to know and learn at the same time about the different sciences; make them think and help them lose the fear to speak their minds’. The two approaches contrast the institutional and official goal with the guide’s unofficial but contingent goals. The institutional objective was to become a provider of the necessary media. A guide, as part of the media ‘provided’, redefines her work, but this redefinition remains unacknowledged by the rest of the community. For example, I remember one meeting with the Board of Patrons where the members asked for my opinion about the situation at the Planetarium. I tried to avoid

85 giving away any information at that stage, and I only mentioned that I was interested in the guides and how they dealt with the prospects of change and the introduction of new staff. One member of the Board, a highly influential businessman (the same local business advisor for one of the largest global electronic companies already mentioned) was critical of my intervention saying that I was only getting information at ‘the corridor level’. Any knowledge about the guides or anyone in the rooms was evidently insignificant and meaningless for the major project envisaged by this businessman. At every meeting this entrepreneur mentioned one of his trips to Europe, and his aim to reproduce ideal science centres. By contrast, the Board’s secretary suggested that what I learnt about the staff at the institution was important and she commented how uncomfortable it was for her to feel like an intruder. On a second occasion when I was asked to give my opinion about what the guides think I declined. I was almost reprimanded by the Board’s director who said that I must understand that no information should be kept private. He said that it would be beneficial to the project to comment on what is going on ‘outside the offices’. Which of the two ‘outsides’ did he mean? I wondered. Facing two projects (the surviving public Planetarium and the forthcoming private science centre), two outside worlds take shape: the spaces outside the offices but within the Planetarium, and the world outside the Planetarium: Europe, the United States, Mexico City and the science museums and their practices in these places. While the Board of Patrons developed strategies to commercialise the popularisation of science, the social interaction of those in the rooms went on unacknowledged and unchallenged. Far from being part of a concept reached by analysis and planning, the popularisation of science in the Planetarium was lived and produced independently from any institutional control – it was peculiar, free or, at least, undefined.

Ignored to conceive

It is challenging to think about the privatisation of an institution that seems so alive in some respects and so dull at the same time. When the interactions taking place in its rooms are so thoroughly ignored for the sake of a new concept, it is essential to stop and think about the word transformation. In this case the transformation would not mean improvement, only re-shaping, substituting, ignoring the real environment and excluding the old workers. One morning, during a meeting at the director’s office, the architect in charge of designing the new image of the science centre organised a poll among those who attended

86 the session. Sitting around the oval glass table were representatives of various public and private universities and research centres, together with the board of patrons’ director, its accountant, the Planetarium’s director, and two businessmen. The architect wanted to know our preferences in terms of naming the institution. We were handed a sheet of paper with about ten different proposals for the logo and possible names for the new science centre. He asked us to choose the logo and the two names that we liked best. We could also suggest others. Among the names was the common one by which the institution has been known for twenty years in the city: ‘The Planetarium’. This name was reconsidered, the architect explained, because it is part of the identity of that specific urban zone, so if the name could already guarantee recognition, it could be useful to use it. The architect then put the five most popular logos and names into a leaflet that was used for a visitors’ poll. We voted first and the public voted several days later. The chosen logo was a replica of a computer brand, and from that day it became the logo for the newly baptised planetarium park. Another aspect of the transformation process concerns the exclusion of the opinion of the current users of the space: This same architect received a considerable amount of money – considerable at least to the director who once lamented how much he could have done for the Planetarium with that same amount. The architect’s job was to produce a visual sample of how he envisaged the new centre’s image. The architect was proud to talk about the creative process he went through. He said the finished product resulted from applying the hypothesis of his recently finished master thesis in applied design. According to him his approach is innovative in that he carried out research to ‘understand his client’s needs’. The final product was built and finished by the group of students he led for the opening day of the eleventh annual science fair at the Planetarium. They polished the floors at the entrance of the building, cleaned the windows, hung panels with images of space from the ceiling, and placed a blue panel structure in the centre of the Planetarium’s foyer on a circular plastic mat made of a resistant plastic common to other science museums. On the mat, an aluminium desk and two plastic chairs were placed beside the three-meter-tall blue panel, which was supported by a second, triangular panel on the right-hand side. This structure was placed in the middle of the area that the guides used to organise large groups on their arrival. The plans for the new centre were presented that morning to the press and the state’s governor. With the new structure in place, I did some research to find out to what extent the architect had truly investigated his client’s – from my perspective, the users of that space –

87 needs in developing the concept. None of the guides mentioned having been interviewed by the architect or anyone else about their needs. On the contrary, they said, if someone had asked, they would have never suggested that structure in that place because it did not allow them to see the children on the other side of the wall. The structure had already proved to be dangerous, with its sharp triangle on one side, and it had also been put in the space they needed to organise the school groups. The architect’s intention was to build a barrier between the entrance and the exit to the Planetarium. The wall should have given a sense of order to the space. He also wanted to have a desk where people immediately knew they could ask for information. He never asked if the space he blocked had any other use, if there was a better place to locate his structure, if it was useful or even convenient for the guides. However, the structure certainly gave the lobby a new look, and it did force the guides to sit facing the entrance. When the director saw the structure, he could barely hide his anger. The architect had not shown a model of his project to the board. He had not told the board how much the structure would cost either. The science centre design was under-covered by the propaganda of a design that satisfied some ‘client’s’ needs, but those needs were not those of anyone in the Planetarium. The basic proposal was to give the spaces a more ‘modern’ look, with the use of blue, red and grey walls and accessories, homogeneous signs using the new logo, and large posters with old images of the solar system, which he had found in the transparencies used a decade or more ago in the planetarium shows. When the astrophysicist commented on the old images during a meeting, the architect replied that he wanted to rescue some of the material that the old planetarium used to project. The astronomer insisted that there were very important new images that were unimaginable fifteen years ago. These were available for free to the public on internet – images taken by the latest telescopes showing not only the solar system but the galaxies beyond ours. The architect changed the subject without making any further comment. As shown in these two examples, the concept of the forthcoming new institution, its image and its exhibition space, originated from what existed already: a well-known computer’s logo, the popular institution’s name (and as we will see in the last chapter, a well-known concept of a science centre). On the other hand, the exhibition environment was designed under the banner of ‘the client’s needs’ although these were actually ignored. Newness does not come from nowhere, but from the reproduction of similar institutions or elements from elsewhere. It may also originate from the use of elements that have proved useful before, while more recent scientific images were not even considered. Significantly, this research can be used to argue that ignoring the previously existing is as important in processes of change as the concept of newness. It emerged from this study

88 that objects and symbols were the aspect that held the attention of the centre developers. Teaching and learning were significant but remained unappreciated. At the beginning of this chapter, the statement that transformation implies ignoring existing realities may have seemed vacuous. I hope I have now given a better meaning to this statement after describing how a community of popularisers, including children, was in the process of being ignored and its existence wiped out, or at the least reduced. Returning to Lefebvre’s ideas about space, the planning of this science centre arose as an assembly of concepts suggested by professionals and technocrats. These people, who periodically met in the director’s office to discuss how the project was progressing, dismissed as irrelevant events in the Planetarium – the only space in the city where scientific knowledge was communicated to the working classes and school children. The transformation was to be a result of the analysis of the middle class consumption ‘needs’. The Planetarium as a precedent, where there was much to learn about the social and educational environments, was not considered significant. The idea behind the privatisation seemed to be the eradication of bureaucratic practices. With the eradication of these practices, the educational environment would also disappear without being understood. If anything was particular to the public understanding of science among the visitors to the Planetarium, this history would fade away under the conceived idea of a better space for a different public. Priority was given, above all, and especially above everyday practices, to the objects. By not acknowledging the relationships established on the exhibitions floor, the nascent concept would be as any other, ideological and therefore abstract. But the definition of a new public of a specific class to be invited clearly defines this project as classist. These examples, I think, show how the lived and perceived experiences in the spaces of the institution were ‘vanquished, crushed’, as they were supposed to be of secondary importance (Lefebvre in Merrifeld 2000). The new concept, then, would be built in parallel with the reality of the rooms and later imposed. These examples may correspond to what Merrifield (2000, 175) demanded from Lefebvre’s ideas: The triad of the space as conceived, lived and perceived needed embodiment ‘with actual flesh and blood and culture, with real life relationships and events’ (Ibid). The most significant conclusion of this chapter is, therefore, that day-to-day interactions were ignored, even when the sociocultural practices of the community were a part of and basis for the reproduction of a community of promoters of science. Although the complexity of the end result of any research ‘only partially reflects’ the plans of those who work behind the scenes (Macdonald and Porto in Bouquet 2001, 11), it is no less relevant to mention that their plans may be in many cases the outcome of ignored current

89 and meaningful practices. As Scott puts it: ‘Designed or planned social order is necessarily schematic; it always ignores essential features of any real, functioning social order’ (Scott 1998, 6). What was most interesting was that the social process of learning from the young is not acknowledged or deemed significant in popularisation activities. As Bateson has suggested: ‘We reach for knowledge as an instrument of power, not as an instrument of delight, yet the preoccupation with power ultimately serves ignorance’ (Bateson 1994, 75). And although the promoters would like to defeat ignorance with the conceived science centre, it seems that, in the future, superficial interest in scientific knowledge might be strengthened if what was happening so close to the planners and managers continued to be purposefully unacknowledged. Although the actions of states and their bureaucracies are characterised by indifference (Herzfeld 1992; Scott 1998), this purposeful misrecognition seems to be the first step in erasing the bureaucratic setting and re-imagining an ‘interactive’ environment where working class children are ignored altogether for the benefit of the middle class youth. What interaction seems to mean in museums is only that one between individuals and objects, and not the communication between individuals as García Ferreiro has pointed out before (2003, 102). Purposeful indifference is implemented for a renovated political and ideological endeavour: the privatisation of the understanding of science.

90 Chapter four: On boredom

The days in the Planetarium went by amid the at times busy and loud rooms, at times empty and still. The corridors were always filled with the monotonous repetitive artificial sounds of the robotic dinosaurs, which were sometimes partly drowned out by the noise of children screaming, the two-meter-tall xylophone being banged, and teachers or guides shouting for pupils’ attention. Two or three times a day, the Planetarium would be filled with the collective yell of those holding hands to feel the energy generated by the Van de Graaff generator; but even this would be drowned out by the even louder reverberation of the speakers calling an employee to the office. In the following minutes, there would be a partial silence, sustained over the repetitive cycle of the dinosaurs’ roars. That steadiness, or emptiness, forecasted the employees’ escape to their hideaways. These contrasting days were the norm; day after day, riot was followed by emptiness in repetitive cycles. The predictable monotony of contrasts made me grow aware of an uncomfortable creeping feeling of exhaustion. The weekly schedule made this hectic routine feel heavier and, I presume, the cycle of a year lived in the Planetarium would be followed by a similar one, leaving the employees with a calendar of repetition synchronised with the school schedule. Were the employees as exhausted as I was feeling? I began researching the staff’s feelings soon after I began seeking real silence. I wondered if the people working inside those walls enjoyed their job and the atmosphere of their working place. Some had worked for the Planetarium for more than fifteen years already and wanted to continue working there. After a time discovering their hiding habits and hiding with them, I woke to a different perspective. If we pay attention to popularisation campaigns, we notice that most, regardless of country or state, are similar in one respect. They all encourage children to find science entertaining. The adjectives most frequently used to advertise the newest exhibitions in any science museum are ‘entertaining’, ‘interesting’, ‘fantastic’, ‘enjoyable’, even ‘magic’. 1 The

1 Nelkin (1994) and Sánchez Vázquez (2000, 2003) have already suggested how the promotional metaphors that scientists use to communicate their science to the public are part of strategies that can mislead the public but most importantly, cause problems for the scientists themselves. In the present context it is important to notice that the museums are taking the position of the mediator and it is they who may be also causing problems for the 91 Planetarium web page, for example, presents the institutional objectives with the following vocabulary: The Planetarium will ‘provide media that helps visitors have fun and learn in a pleasant and interesting way’; the institution was planned to ‘raise the academic level of the students and the general public that visit us, and foster scientific and technological interest’.2 As a researcher of the public understanding of science, one cannot only ask what makes science attractive; instead, an anthropologist asks first who makes it attractive. How do the staff working for museums or science centres succeed in exciting the public with displays of science? The question seems especially salient after spending several months inside a Planetarium that was exhausting me with its repetitive environments. After experiencing these monotonous daily routines, the most pertinent question was not only who makes science attractive, but how any understanding of science is accomplished in a soporific working environment. This chapter is devoted to answering these questions. By the end, the reader should be able to use the answers to retrospectively think about the environments. The objective is to enquire why boredom seems to be feared by museographers. We must consider then if boredom could be significant in the socialisation of the scientific spirit.

Boredom and the Planetarium

The long hours observing hundreds of girls and boys entering and leaving the rooms in the Planetarium were useful for observational purposes. But it was difficult to differentiate those who understood anything at all. Were these young people learning about science? Were they learning anything at all? Were they there to learn or just as a distraction? I remember one morning when I saw an acquaintance visit the Planetarium with her daughter’s school-group. After greeting each other, we arranged to meet later after the visit, outside in the garden. I was interested in finding out her impression of the place. Two hours later, I found her surrounded by seven girls and boys at the parking lot. They were all looking at one of the mothers’ cars. A thief had broken one of the windows to steal the contents (including the stereo system) while the group visited the Planetarium. My acquaintance was upset and began complaining about the whole experience. She said she could not understand why the Planetarium was so neglected: the rooms, the toilets, the exhibits. ‘…The guides! They do not have a clue about science; they cannot answer the children’s questions!’

ways in which scientific activities are perceived by the public. See as well Wynne 1992; Neidhardt 1993; Durant et al. 1996; Macdonald 1996; Kerr et al. 1997. 2 http://www.guadalajara.gob.mx/dependencias/planetario/informacion.html 92 At this point it is relevant to explain who this woman was, given that she is the first person I have mentioned who was from outside the Planetarium. This woman became a very good informant while I was carrying out this research. She was in a particularly good situation to become such an informant as she was herself a populariser of science. To describe her occupation, rather than relating her curriculum vitae, I recall how her six-year-old daughter described her mother to a couple of school-friends. The girls were talking about their mothers’ jobs. One girl asked my acquaintance’s daughter what her mother did. She said: ‘Mi mamá es doctora de murciélagos’ (‘My mum is a doctor of bats’). One of the other girls’ mothers interrupted: ‘Excuse me, a what?’ The girl explained casually to her friends that her mother looked after bats. Near to the group of girls were the girl’s nanny and the rest of the girls’ mothers. The first woman turned around to comment on the girl’s remark to the other women. She said something like: ‘What a liar!’ The nanny, hearing this comment, angrily intervened and explained that the girl was not a liar, her mother was a biologist specialising in bats. From now on I will refer to this woman as ‘the bat doctor’. She was a biologist working for the Mexican National University, devoted to the public understanding of the relationship between bats and the tequila plant – the agave – both in threat of extinction.3 She developed a series of workshops with two other women biologists. They travelled to towns which were home to the bats with the purpose of informing children and their parents (most of them peasants) about the role played by bats in pollinating the agave, the plant on which their families depended. She initiated this campaign because bats are commonly feared for their falsely attributed vampire habits. Her campaign dealt with this misconception, so the bat doctor travelled to explain that most bats are not blood suckers, but eat fruit and flowers and act as pollinators, just like bees and birds. I met the bat doctor at a workshop organised by the local children’s museum for museum employees interested in working with special needs groups like the blind or the deaf. Later on, I visited her at her own bat workshop where she worked with two other biologists, and at a museum in Tequila, the famous Mexican town where most agave is processed. She was convinced that the interest, knowledge and passion that the populariser feels for her subject is what matters most. After visiting the Planetarium, the bat doctor said that the absence of interest that reigned in the centre among staff and the guides’ low level of knowledge was unacceptable.

3 As explained in the introduction, bats are important pollinators of plants. This animal pollinates ‘at least 500 species, including bananas, mangoes, cashews, dates, figs, and agave, from which tequila is produced. Without these helpful night fliers, many bat-pollinated plants — and the many animals that depend on them for food and shelter — would disappear from the earth. Bats also produce a nitrogen-rich fertilizer known as guano’ (Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia, 2000).

93 She said the children very quickly became bored and were disappointed in their city’s Planetarium. She, like many other people, wrote to complain to the administrative secretary. The spaces outside the offices felt dull: it seemed that the employees’ routine tasks were a source of tedium and this was manifested in their lack of interest. The exhibitions, the spaces, and some of the guides’ scripts were boring to the children. Not all and not for all though. This necessitates that a distinction is made between the boredom felt by the employees (or maybe mainly by myself), and the boredom provoked by the dull exhibitions that made up the majority in the Planetarium. One evening, while eating lunch at the tree menagerie with two of the guides, one of them sighed suddenly and said that she loved working at the Planetarium. The other guide sighed as well while eating her hamburger. I could not believe my ears. They were so thrilled about the subject and I could not understand how they felt. I had to ask if they were serious because I thought they might be joking, but they had that special sparkle of someone who experiences an insight. They did not look at me while answering. With their eyes lost among the animal shapes of the trees, they began to talk about the effort they put in making the Planetarium look better than it really was. One of them said how she had to act optimistically in the presence of the adult public whenever she heard a complaint about the poor state of the rooms or the exhibits. ‘We have to do magic’, she said. Their efforts were not enough. By introducing the bat doctor’s comment on boredom I intended to give a description from the visitor’s perspective. The guides’ opinion of the guides was included as a contrast, to present a fuller account and to understand more about the divergent experiences of the Planetarium. It would not be the truth to say that the Planetarium was a special example of a boring place. Nevertheless I often referred to it in my diaries as the ‘Boredome’ because time and again I observed people of all ages, from the inside as well as from the outside, expressing boredom verbally or with their bodies. Maybe boredom was felt more acutely by me because of the sense of expectation generated by the entertainment that was announced in every science campaign. The Planetarium’s ostensible function was to be a centre for leisure with the purpose of motivating people to have an interest in science. But seeing so many people bored and feeling it personally day after day, made it relevant to study boredom in the Planetarium, as well as the consequences of its presence for the understanding of science. If the science centres promote science with the promise of entertainment, it becomes salient to think about how institutions attempt to avoid boredom and why it seems impossible to eradicate. To answer the question of what effect a soporific environment has on the popularisation of science I would first like to quote Reinhard Kuhn by saying that boredom 94 can be seen as an idée force, ideas that are ‘far more than abstract intellectual concepts’. The idea of boredom has ‘contributed to the formation of the human spirit.’ Ideas like this do not ‘merely reflect what already exists’ because they act as ‘creative forces’ that help ‘mould the human mind and shape reality.’ Some other similar idée-forces are ‘love, hate, charity, envy, pride and jealousy’ (Kuhn 1976, 3). Words like these also hide a range of meaningful situations that we can too easily overlook in spite of their implications.

Signs of boredom

I seldom heard the phrase ‘Qué aburrido!’ (How boring!) – not as often as I would have expected. On one occasion I heard a girl from Tijuana, a Northern Mexican city, complain. She told her grandmother that there was nothing to see, and pleaded with her to do something to convince the group to leave sooner and go to the metropolitan zoo instead. But not every member of the group was bored and the woman expected her granddaughter to find something to attract her interest. On another day, a guide called for the attention of the group she was leading after she heard many children complaining about being in the Planetarium when they wanted to go to the zoo instead. The children were told at school that they would visit the zoo, but they were taken to the Planetarium instead. Seeing one or two children bored was the norm. I did not ever see a whole group bored, although whole families could be, especially after the youngest children began complaining and had to be dragged through the rooms. On one occasion I helped the special- events manager treat a girl for a bite inflicted by her baby brother. She said her brother was so fed up that he grabbed her and bit her chest in despair. The Planetarium was not entertaining for the very young; not only because the centre was designed for people who could read but because there was nothing they could safely reach. The centre was not designed for those younger than six years old. There was always a group of bored souls in the larger groups of people old enough to understand and read. I saw many boys, girls and teenagers yawning while sheepishly following the group. I saw others walking from one exhibit to the next with their hands in their pockets and moving quickly on to the next exhibit. The characteristic interaction of the groups with the guides started by following them. Then the children or teenagers would gather in front of the first exhibit or picture. Most of the children would try to get the front places; there was always a struggle to stand at the very front, closer to the guide, in which elbows would be used. The same behaviour would be repeated at the second and some times even at the third exhibit, but thereafter attention 95 seemed to fade and only a few children, generally those who did not fight with their elbows before, stood calmly closer to the guide until the end of the tour. Every minute expectations seemed to fade, and a sort of learned group behaviour would characterise the groups after several minutes of attention to the guide. Very few children held their level of interest throughout the tour. This syndrome is well known among museographers who call it ‘room fatigue’. To prevent it, some museums suggest that those in charge of the school-groups focus on one room per visit. The reason they give is that children seem to lose interest after the first half hour of explanation, so some museums recommend that the school visit lasts for half an hour and the rest of the time is spent playing. In the Planetarium no one suggested this and I believe that even if someone did, the teachers in charge would not pay much attention to it, because they had their own agenda during the visits.4 When groups were not interacting with the guides, different behaviour revealed the boredom of the visitors. Grown-ups crossed their arms over their chests and only followed the rest of the family or group; many visitors quickly walked through the rooms without paying much attention to anything and often with similar, characteristically expressionless faces (not even finding me watching them seemed to matter). As for the guides, they often had to raise the volume of their voice from exhibit to exhibit, until they took the groups to the recreational physics area where all the children were free to play and touch anything, and where the guides could go backstage to relax. Since the normal course of things was to replicate school behaviour, the guide stood in front of the group, which took notes or listens without saying anything. Complaints were not often heard because of the fear children seem to have learned to feel for the authority of the adults. Yet, the tedium was certainly felt. To contrast with the humdrum experienced inside the rooms, the behaviour of the children changed noticeably when they were outside the Planetarium in the gardens, eating lunch, chatting, running and playing. I think not much is said about boredom because people have learned to cope with it since childhood. As Reinhard Kuhn’s (1976) work on ennui suggests, the kind of boredom felt by school children when listening to the teacher is the most common form. This is the expression of apathy most obviously seen at the Planetarium too. Orders are given by the teachers and the guides in an environment which is interesting to a child because of its newness, but soon, after two or three stops on the tour, boredom prevails. This common type of detachment is that illustrated by the student sitting in the classroom who half listens to the

4 Specialists in museums in Mexico mentioned during the conferences I had chance to attend that although many efforts are made to involve teachers in the planning of visits to best suit the children’s behaviour, the teachers interest is almost nil because of the excessive workload they have in school. Attending a museum’s specialist talk is an unpaid activity that is an extra job for teachers. So when a school group visits a museum or the Planetarium most teachers will treat it as spare time to relax their attention over their groups. 96 lecturer; or by the person standing in line, or people sitting in the subway. This type of boredom is a temporary state ‘dependent almost entirely on external circumstances’ (Kuhn 1976). When the conditions that induce this frame of mind cease, as they always do, the forced inactivity of the mind comes to an end as well. The bell that signals the end of the lecture always rings; one’s turn at the checkout always comes; and the train always reaches the station that is home (Kuhn 1976, 6).

The cure for this distress is its termination, ‘which the passage of time inevitably brings’ (Ibid). In similar circumstances, some children in the Planetarium expressed boredom and its effects would be over as soon as a new activity took place. When in large groups many things could call back people’s enthusiasm, although not necessarily for the science. For example, there was one thing that excited children, teenagers, mothers, fathers, nuns and teachers all the same: The Van de Graaff generator. Many visitors had been to the Planetarium more than once. If interviewed with his or her family, a child might say that s/he visited the Planetarium with his school group once or twice before visiting it with his parents, and, invariably, would remember the ‘electric shock machine’.5 Once I walked around with a family of emigrants who had come back from the United States to visit their relatives. The mother was a humorous woman who mentioned to the guide how she convinced her son and daughters to go to the Planetarium. It was only by talking about the effects on the hair and the electric shocks felt when holding hands and touching the instrument that her children agreed to visit the Planetarium with her. She talked to me about what she remembered from her early visits to the Planetarium in the eighties while she was ‘doing chemistry’ by mixing water and powdered baby milk for her youngest child.6 The generator is the major attraction in the physics rooms. If anyone is bored, after watching how it makes hair stand up in spikes, every visitor feels enthusiastic about participating with the guides. It is amusing to see how the generation of electrostatic energy makes people feel enthusiastic again about spending time in the Planetarium. It is the same situation as that recalled by Bachelard (1983) when during the eighteenth century, electricity was a major social attraction. Bachelard concluded how sometimes ‘violent memories’, like electric shocks, are remembered for their significance. These moments constitute memories that are ‘excessive’, over-rated experiences that provoke a fake interest in knowledge,

5 The generator wasn’t just the most outstanding memory among visitors in this Planetarium. In Mexico City, after I interviewed the visitors of the National University’s Science Museum, most children mentioned the ‘machine that raises your hair up in spikes’ or ‘the shocks when holding hands’ as the most memorable event of their visit. 6 From Barry we learn that the importance of the experimental body has been for a long time an interest among those who study science. Foucault wrote about the ‘political anatomy’ of the museum visitor; Simon Shaffer wrote about the essential role played by the audiences who witnessed the natural philosophers’ experiments, the audience used to be ‘part of the experimental apparatus’ (Foucault in Barry 2001, 130-131). See also Bennett 1995, 1998 and Barry 1998, 2001. 97 according Bachelard. This kind of experience satisfies our curiosity, but scientific culture is obstructed instead of favoured; ‘knowledge is substituted by admiration, the images take the place of the ideas.’ And the rest of scientific culture may seem boring thereafter (Bachelard 1983, 34-47). Bachelard’s is a significant argument that contradicts the way science is presented in most science centres for children. A major question is how much do children learn from these experiences, and does interest in science not get substituted for the mere need for a thrill? Whatever the case may be, at the Planetarium in the year 2001 and since 1982, the generation of electrostatic energy was the most memorable experience among the public, and it revived enthusiasm for a little longer in the exploration of the rooms. After feeling the energy from the generator, the group of children always broke the circle of electrostatic current with a renewed interest in play and the objects in the room. Some of the sounds of the environment had a similar effect on the children’s attention, making the Planetarium seem exciting and promising for some time. When they were organised for the first time by the guides in the foyer, the moment the children heard the roars of the dinosaurs, they seemed to experience extraordinary excitement that made them jump or hug their friends. This happened most frequently among the very young who usually had great expectations of the centre. In contrast, many small children felt fear instead. Another sound that captured the children’s attention, or at least helped to sustain a degree of anticipation during the visit, was the scream heard from the people gathered around the Van de Graaff generator in the physics room. Paradoxically, the sounds were both an attraction and an annoyance. For those working at the centre, the repetitive dinosaurs’ recording was discomforting and sometimes even irritating. Some members of staff had suggested to the administration many times that they installed a sensor that distinguished when the Jurassic World was being visited from the long hours when it was empty. By installing this device, the roars would only be heard when visitors walked through the room and not all day long as was the case. The suggestion was never taken up, so the roars continued non-stop. Something similar happened with the xylophone. Whoever designed the instrument never imagined that, from the four tunes available, only ‘La Cucaracha’ would be played again and again because of its proximity to the place the player stands. The designer did not imagine how loud La Cucaracha would sound in the enclosed room without a ceiling. The designer also did not imagine that putting the xylophone so close to the door of the administration office would be a major inconvenience. After several years and several ‘cucarachas’, the last director finally ordered a ceiling to be built to minimise the sound from the xylophone. In the same way that there was a contradictory situation where the same sounds that annoyed the staff attracted the public, the Planetarium’s 98 environment was contradictory because though it was supposed to be a place for leisure, it had an uncomfortable working atmosphere. The Planetarium was controlled by people who behaved like teachers in a school room or like indifferent bureaucrats. Leisure and work cohabited in these spaces.

The stick and the carrot

Gaston Bachelard began his essay on the formation of the scientific spirit by mentioning the geometric representation of space as the foundation of scientific culture (Bachelard 1983 [1948], 7). Sooner or later, he wrote, deeper bonds will be found, deeper than those represented in familiar scenes. Little by little, the researcher finds that s/he needs to work ‘under the space’, at the level of the essential relationships that hold together phenomena and space, and we begin thinking in abstract terms. As Karel Kosik would say, we begin abstracting from the concrete world (Kosik 1967). This move makes us aware of the dialectic relationships we are immersed in as observers, participants and researchers. Bachelard described how as a result ‘the epistemologist’ stops working with basic experience or basic observations, and closes her or his eyes to work with thoughts and abstractions (Ibid, 23). To write this section I had to close my eyes like Bachelard, to break into the invisible but perceivable ‘dimension’ of scientific understanding. A first step was to interrogate how leisure and obligation could work together. A second was to understand that, like the work of the epistemologist, this research was about investigating the socialisation of the scientific spirit, not only scientists’ knowledge. This section broaches the first subject mentioned, that of the cohabitation of leisure and work and so is titled after Csikszentmihalyi’s remark on how people motivate themselves: The management of behaviour, as presently practiced, is based on the tacit belief that people are motivated only by external rewards or by the fear of external punishment. The stick and the carrot are the main tools by which people are made to pull their weight (Csikszentmihalyi 1975, 2).

This seems to also be the case in the public understanding of science. In many centres, the motivation to promote learning is concealed under the promise of fun. Like many similar institutions, this Planetarium was conceived to help educate the population in a zestful environment. We have mentioned before how, from the perspective of science centres, understanding science can be a joyful activity: learning while playing is their motto. But as has been continuously emphasised through Lefebvre’s ideas in the previous chapters, there are differences between conceived spaces and the ways these are lived in and perceived. The Planetarium was a place conceived for the understanding of science and technology through play, when in fact the Planetarium was lived as a place where leisure and obligation shared the 99 same setting. Play, as a motivation for learning, was less visible to the observer than the reinforcement of ordered behaviour as lived in a primary or secondary school. Discipline came first. Although the Planetarium’s publicity said learning science could be entertaining, the initial motivation was transformed into disciplined behaviour in most of the rooms during school visits. The Planetarium may have been presented as an entertaining place to learn science and seen by primary school children as an occasion to have fun. However, while children were in a school group, usually enjoyment came second to the educational objective of standing silent while being told about science and technologies. The guides characteristically behaved like an extension of the teachers in the classroom. Although each guide had her or his style, they all behaved like teachers who knew the information needed for a particular activity (maybe reproducing the patterns they learned at school when their teachers taught them some science). The guides were experienced in controlling the groups, including the punishment involved (maybe also as learnt from school). Respect for the guides or reprimand by the teachers enforced the fear of punishment that the students seemd used to. In contrast, the joy of playing was sustained as the external reward; as the motivational side of learning science. Following Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s arguments on motivation, ‘children are threatened or cajoled into conformity with parental demands’ first, and later in life they are involved in similar environments at school, with grades and symbolic promotions used by teachers as motivation, and a similar system exists even later at their workplaces (Csikszentmihalyi 1975, 2). This objectification of incentives into grades first, money and status later, has been basic to the development of a ‘rational, universal motivational system whereby communities can produce desired behaviours predictably and can allot precisely differentiated rewards to construct a complex social hierarchy’ (Ibid, 2). For Csikszentmihalyi, the ease with which external rewards are used is frightening: When a teacher discovers that children will work for a grade, he or she may become less concerned with whether the work itself is meaningful or rewarding to students. Employers who take for granted the wisdom of external incentives may come to believe that workers’ enjoyment of the task is irrelevant (Csikszentmihalyi 1975, 3).

Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger (1991), described the learning communities we all participate in and wondered what are people really learning? Here is a partial answer from Csikszentmihalyi to support my observations at the Planetarium: As a result, children and workers will learn, in time, that what they have to do is worthless in itself and that its only justification is the grade or paycheck they get at the end. This pattern has become so general in our culture that by now it is self-evident: what one must do cannot be enjoyable. So we have learned to make a distinction between ‘work’ and ‘leisure’: the former is what we have to 100 do most of the time against our desire; the latter is what we like to do, although it is useless. We therefore feel bored and frustrated on our jobs, and guilty when we are at leisure (Csikszentmihalyi 1975, 3).

In the conceptual Planetarium, work and learning were not distinguished from leisure. In the space as it was lived, the understanding of science subsisted in a disciplined environment and as part of a school task, not as a rewarding activity in itself. So, in fact, it was the process of learning that was manipulated in the conceived plan, but in the actual and concrete place, learning was again the ideal outcome of disciplined attention. I will not talk much here about the guilt felt when at leisure; although we can easily accept that as children we do not feel remorse about playing. Play is central to life and it is until adults repress play-time or games that an individual starts hiding and maybe differentiating leisure from work at that early stage in life. I will engage with the reader in the description of boredom as one outcome of this intergenerational learning process.

Learning about boredom

We have already described the spaces and how these are lived and perceived by the people working inside those walls. We have not learnt yet how the information on sciences and technology was perceived by visitors. We do not know either how the scientific is lived in those spaces designated for the zestful promotion of scientific literacy. Kathleen Stewart might have called the Planetarium a ‘space of desire’, somehow similar to the roadside environment she described in Western Virginia, United States: ‘in-filled with texture and the force of imagination and desire’ (Stewart 1996a, 4; 1996b). The institution has been, for several administrations, the space in which to wish for the public to become interested in science. Year after year the same old exhibitions and some newer ones stay in the centre while people come and go. One Mexican specialist in the popularisation of science said during a conference: ‘In a bad science centre a child learns that when he or she presses a button, nothing happens’. I am sure that anyone who has visited a science centre and pressed a button that did not move anything experienced an odd feeling close to frustration. Personally, what came to my adult mind whenever I pressed such a button was that maybe I was not making it work properly. The second feeling was that I could not perceive what I was supposed to. Only later did I realise that it was simply faulty. In the Planetarium, often three or four displays had that kind of buttons. Once I even had to stop the director from pressing a button for the fifth time and from shaking more and more vigorously a white stick that worked as an impermanent screen

101 for the projection of images. ‘It is out of order since two weeks ago’ I said. That optical display broke one month after its installation. Between two extremes – electric shocks or nothing – are many slight or subtle phenomena that result from pressing the buttons that do work. However, we have already become insensitive to the minor and expectant of the obvious. I confirmed this personal impression during my attempts to explore what children and teenagers were learning at other science museums. When I asked them what they had learnt, the most immediate and common answer was: ‘electric shocks’ ‘it was fun’. They only talked about the most memorable and obvious, nothing else. Walking around every room one sees children pressing, pushing or pulling violently any button, crank or handle without waiting to see the outcome. Fun seems to be to pull, push and hit. Fun is less often waiting, watching, trying again, watching again and thinking. Only a few children wait to see what happens, and even fewer think what might be wrong and try to rearrange the exhibit before pressing again or leaving. I remember when I saw one of these few children at the Planetarium. Observing how different people used the Newton’s cradle, I had time to corroborate that children learnt that the exhibit did not work. Most of them walked towards the cradle, held one of the metallic spheres higher and then released it to see how it hit the rest of the spheres. The third ball was tangled up with the fourth, leaving a space that prevented the collision of all the spheres. The third law of Newton: ‘If one body exerts a force on another, there is an equal and opposite force, called a reaction, exerted on the first body by the second’7 could not be properly visualised because of the entanglement. Only one boy tried something else. He was a nine- year-old boy who tried the exhibit and saw it did not work. His friends left to watch something else but he stayed and untangled the spheres until he made it work properly. Indifferent, he did not stay to watch the ‘reaction’ as forecasted by the law, he did not read the poorly-spelled explanatory plaque; he fixed the display and left indifferent. I think he had seen that instrument before; he knew how it was supposed to work, so he fixed it. But, what about the children who had not seen it before? While experiencing an environment with its particularities, the individual perceives and learns from participating in that context, not so much from the conceived concept upon which that functional or dysfunctional environment was once built. If the environment where children and adults are invited to learn about science is a dysfunctional place with old exhibitions, buttons that do not make things work, unprepared staff, a bureaucratic environment and a school-like setting, then one should wonder what learning results? This question presupposes a difficult answer, especially after it is widely acknowledged that children learn even if we think they are ‘only playing’, because they are wholly engaged. I

7 Third law of motion by Isaac Newton in the Oxford Dictionary of Science, 1999, Oxford University Press. 102 would like to present here the idea that we get used to feeling bored, and we learn to devalue the capacity to attend (as suggested by Bateson 1994, 56), to be patient and to contemplate. What we feel when we realise we are not excited by the stimulus seems to be uninteresting, unimportant. So the question remains, what is the ensuing learning in an environment promoted as entertaining but which is not quite?

Boredom in museums

The importance of the social aspects of boredom became apparent to me after noticing its prevalence in the Planetarium. Interestingly enough, in museum studies, the word boredom is not commonly found. Nevertheless it became evident that museums in general provoke a sense of boredom that has hampered attendance at their exhibitions. The words of Paul Valéry make one think about what happens in an exhibition room: A strangely organised disorder opens up before me in silence. I am smitten with a sacred horror. My pace grows reverent. My voice alters, to a pitch slightly higher than in church, to a tone rather less strong than that of everyday. Presently I lose all sense of why I have intruded into this wax- floored solitude, savouring of temple and drawing room, of cemetery and school… Did I come for instruction, for my own beguilement, or simply as a duty and out of convention? Or is it perhaps some exercise peculiar to itself, this stroll I am taking, weirdly beset with beauties, distracted at every moment by masterpieces to the right or left compelling me to walk like a drunk man between counters? Dreariness, boredom, admiration, the fine weather I left outside, my pricks of conscience, and a dreadful sense of how many great artists there are, all walk along with me (Valéry 1960, 203).

A Mexican Museographer called this belittling phenomenon ‘the museum vaccination’ because the behaviour expected in a museum (silent, of respectful contemplation and almost reverent) has vaccinated generations of people against the museum visit, so now museographers must convince people to visit museums by allowing a different behaviour in the rooms – or at least in the workshops – which is still, however, highly controlled. I cannot confirm that boredom is seen as an ‘enemy’ in the same way as it has been perceived in religion,8 but there is certainly a noticeable emphasis on promoting exhibitions as entertaining –the opposite of boredom. Among museographers, one way of describing boredom is fatigue. They fight against the room fatigue by displaying appealing exhibitions designed to secure

8 The subject of ‘boredom as an enemy’ has been dealt with in, at least, a novel and a theological book. In The Journal of a Country Priest (1936), Georges Bernanos wrote about the destructive process of a bored town. Boredom was the fatal illness of the parishioners who suffered from a void that not even God could fill. In Boredom is the enemy by Guy (1964), the writer, an English priest, tells of his experiences in defeating boredom among the parishioners of his church. I acknowledge the relevance of studies of boredom in religion, as in school and the working place, but given the scope of the present thesis, they were not developed. These relationships remain for future studies. 103 interaction by the public with the objects (de Rosnay 1994, 24). Joel de Rosnay coined the phrase intellectual ergonomics to name techniques applied to exhibitions after understanding the behaviour of the public in exhibition rooms. Observing how people of different ages, gender and in different social groupings walk around the displays has informed the designers. The typography of the plaques give the impression of movement; exhibitions should be placed at different levels so children of all ages can reach to see them; differing, non-linear routes should be designed so people, even if they are rushing through a room, may encounter something interesting on the way out; redundant information should be placed everywhere, so that the learning process becomes more efficient (de Rosnay 1994, 23; Brookes 1994; Hooper- Greenhill 1994). The newest science centres of the world have stimulating exhibitions tailored to suit the diverse behaviour of the public in buildings. Nonetheless, boredom is still common in many intellectually designed exhibition centres. It is therefore surprising that boredom is less studied as a fact than it is fought as a problem. The lines quoted above from Paul Valéry were discussed in a group of museum specialists at Manchester. Valéry’s text was used to provoke a discussion about the public’s experience of museums. The people gathered that evening agreed that the essence of the problem was as suggested by one archaeologist. She revealed how she constantly strived to feel surprised again, to the same degree as the first time she felt she had understood something striking. Whenever she faced the challenge of designing a new exhibition, she wanted to reproduce that original emotion of surprise and replicate it for others. This continual search for surprise is shared in England and Mexico, and may be the same in every museum that goes through changes intended to achieve the goals of becoming both sustainable and attractive to new people.9 Exhibition designers strive to create hype, surprise and entertainment in their exhibitions. So for example, in the Planetarium, the director, as an engineer, was determined to make people ‘understand’ the concept of viscosity by reproducing what he once found amazing. He ordered the construction of a set of transparent plastic tubes with different liquids inside (honey, cooking oil, engine oil, and water). By setting the samples on an incline, each would ‘run’ downwards at a different speed related to the angle of the incline. This was intended to make it easy to understand the formula for calculating viscosity. He tried to reproduce exhibits he found at other museums. Exhibits like the one about viscosity captivated him by their amazing simplicity and how successful they were in making him feel that he understood something. From a trip to Arizona and San Francisco, the Planetarium’s director brought mental images of displays that he had liked. For example one in which square

9 I suggest that this explicit fight against boredom must be fairly recent in the museums history. This is another subject that requires further study. 104 wheels ran smoothly over a wavy road, or a plastic tube with water that vibrates with sound, allowing the observer to see the sound waves in the water, or the explanation of how a compass works. All over the world, the museum circuit is trying to counter the so-called museum vaccination by building attractive displays and creating a ‘fourth generation’ of eco museums and hands-on exhibits, compelling the visitor to participate and not just to stare (Padilla 2000, 85; Dufresne-Tasse 2000; Silverstone 1994 [1992]; Miles and Tout 1994 [1992]). Yet the curator’s interest is not only in striving to design attractive exhibitions. Curators are asking how they can transform current practices in science museums and other institutions to improve exhibitions, attract more people, and become sustainable with reduced public funds (Brooks 1994; Durant 1994; De Rosnay 1992). The public understanding of science has been adopted by neo-liberal governments, becoming a primary government interest and a profitable business for entrepreneurs. Educational, industrial, scientific and economic interests are merged together in the public understanding of science. John Pickstone interpreted the public understanding campaign in Britain as a ‘corporate good and a corporate goal’ (2000, 192). In Mexico, science museums are following the same commercial path. Science museums are ‘communicating environments’ (Silverstone 1994, 36) where information tends to be presented to the public as scientific facts: ‘as unequivocal statements rather than as the outcome of particular processes and contexts’ (Macdonald 1998a, 2). Macdonald has explained how, after an exhibition is set in place and tidied, ‘the assumptions, rationales, compromises and accidents’ that lead to the finished exhibition ‘are generally hidden from public view’. Exhibitions emerge as a result of a complex interplay of institutional and individual forces and are consumed in a multitude of different ways by visitors. But they appear as anything but arbitrary. They are structured according to their own rhetoric, a rhetoric which seeks to persuade the visitor that what is being seen and read is important, beautiful, true (Silverstone 1994, 36) and not boring. 10 Hooper-Greenhill (1994b, 3) differentiates the intended from the unintended messages given in a communication system like an exhibition. It appears that the promoted interest and enjoyment become the intended messages in contemporary popularisation of science activities. Boredom, an evident outcome in the Planetarium rooms, is banned from the discourse, although it prevails. But boredom may be interpreted as an unintended message behind the popularisation of science. The unintended message that is communicated may be that learning

10 Because of all these factors, science museums, planetariums and similar institutions are seen by scholars as very rich arenas in which to analyse society through the way in which science and technology are promoted. It appears that museums are defining what science should be for society – they are a sort of interface between the scientific, the social and the productive, which must be explored (González et al. 2001; Macdonald 2001, 1998a, 1998b, 1996; Silverstone 1994; Butler 1992; Haraway 1989). In the science museum, a place where science is not only produced but authorised and legitimised for public consumption, the roles of scientists and museographers have shifted. 105 science should be entertaining. If learning science is not enjoyable and leads to the child feeling bored or indifferent, then something must be going wrong with science, rather than with the object or in the environment that represents it. Because boredom is generally interpreted as a negative outcome and we do not usually blame the objects, science or the individual’s intellectual capacity are accountable. In Boredom [1924](2002), Siegfried Kracauer, analysing the everyday life of his time, wrote that ‘the environment of modernity is made up of commodified forms of communication (adverts, films, radio and so on) that aggressively hail and inculcate their audience’ (Kracauer 2002, 301). Ben Highmore introduced Kracauer’s article, suggesting that ‘the designed environment of the commodity has set its designs on us’ (Highmore 2002, 302). The genuine search for the reproduction of wonder may be interpreted as the design of those commodified forms of communication mentioned by Kracauer. So a first step to understand boredom would be to keep in mind that these environments are the result of some sort of cognitive and behavioural engineering. Barry, as other authors, sees in interactivity a dominant model in which objects ‘can be used to produce subjects’ (Barry 2001, 129).11 Man, as Foucault puts it, “appears in his ambiguous position as an object of knowledge and as a subject that knows; enslaved sovereign, observed spectator” (Foucault 1970: 312). Interactivity promises, in other words, to turn the museum visitor into a more active self (cf. Strathern 1992: 41-43, Macdonald 1993 [sic])’ (Bennett 1995, 7). In this production of subjects, the knowledge acquired regarding the behaviour and habits of the individuals seems binding because their objective has been to increase the efficiency of the learning environment and reduce the time to learn; when these two objectives are achieved, participation is abridged and boredom emerges as unavoidable. In Politics of Display, the authors seem to agree on the impact of the ways in which the creators and promoters of knowledge imagine their visitors to transform their spaces accordingly (Macdonald 1998, 18). Barry explains the centrality of scientific and technical objects that are today everywhere around us: in a science museum the body of the visitor is where scientific experimentation can take place and a street in a city can become a scientific laboratory (Barry 2001, 200). However, the presence of these new environments for experimentation and technological progress does not always allow for negotiation. In such cases, the objects can turn into apolitical machines (Barry 2001, 140-141), closely resembling Ferguson’s developmental apparatus or antipolitics machine (Ferguson 1985, 1994). For Barry and Ferguson, apparatuses can easily carry the closure to any possible negotiation. The intellectual ergonomics implemented in science centres and museums stand for a contemporary learning model, leisure, and a method to keep the individual scientifically

11 See for example Hooper-Greenhill 1992; Bennett 1998, 30; Macdonald 1998, 16. 106 informed and entertained. Museographic interactivity is based upon the idea that we can understand scientific information by participating and using our body to learn as opposed to sitting on a bench, listening to the explanation of a teacher; activity, mind and body involvement versus passive reception. But entertainment cannot be eternal; sooner or later the individual will leave that engineered environment. We are conditioned to thrive for excitement at the same time that our periods of attention are reduced, and we get too susceptible about boredom.

Boredom as a social issue

Mary Catherine Bateson suggested in her book Peripheral Visions (1994) that we, as individuals, grow conditioned to feel bored: Sometimes when I talk with friends who spend hours in formal meditation it strikes me that they are seeking therapy for a wounded capacity to attend. As a society, we have become so addicted to entertainment that we have buried the capacity for awed experience of the ordinary. Perhaps the sense of the sacred is more threatened by learned patterns of boredom than it is by blasphemies (Bateson 1994, 56, emphasis added).

Modernity is characterised by an overwhelming input of information that has conditioned recent generations to always feel the need for more of everything. Bateson illustrates her argument with the daily problems that teachers at schools face: children grow up watching scientific programmes on television and these contemporary forms of communicating science set new challenges to those interested in educating children, especially when children become used to learning mostly through over-stimulation by sounds, music, fiction, suspense, colour, action, animation and/or three-dimensional information that teachers at school find impossible to reproduce. It is then understandable that children seem less and less able to concentrate in compulsory school-like environments where the same teacher, and not a film or pop star, lectures them day after day without music or special effects. In the same tone, Bachelard (1983 [1948]) thought that scientific culture gets buried under the thrill of excitement. It seems as if when science does not look entertaining, colourful and interesting, it is not worth the experience. Entertaining children at schools grows expensive and requires multiple skills that teachers have to learn. By adding chocolate flavour to milk – writes M.C. Bateson – we raise chocolate-eaters instead of milk-drinkers.12 Reinterpreting the metaphor, instead of encouraging children’s interest in science, their interest in hyperaction is nurtured, and the educational system appears to reinforce the child’s need for fun after hours

12 The problems of worldwide compulsory and legally enforced education are not the subject here. Nevertheless it should be mentioned that in Mexico as everywhere else, formal compulsory education faces serious problems, and its reform is a major government issue (Esteve 2003). 107 of tedium. As children we are obliged to stay inside the room and listen to the teacher, so we grow used to coping with tedious days. In other words, there seems to be a modern race against boredom everywhere but in the school. This very productive race has given birth to new markets like the massive popularisation of science in television and the fourth generation of museums with its rhetoric. Boredom is perceived as a problem to solve, so the imposition of new rhythms sets enormous challenges to the educational systems of the world. Paradoxically, this old ‘enemy’ gets attention after several generations of children have grown accustomed to living part of their lives in environments in which their natural disposition to play is repressed. While at school, playful interaction is seen as negative for the educational purpose of the institution, hence boring instruction is the major outcome. Boredom is not seen as a reality that might be central to behaviour and human agency in environments like school, where play and leisure are scheduled separately from the hours of learning. Although not all museums are boring and not all the time spent at school is dull, environments of inexpressive children are assumed to be negative for education, even after play is mostly forbidden.

Thinking about the invisible

Were the aim here to be critical about the institution that fails to improve the working conditions of its employees, or the mediating elements that should make a visit to the rooms exciting for everyone, the result would be a mere critique using the same contemporary popularisation ideals as a frame of reference. A second option, and the one preferred here, is to focus on the description of the environment, as perceived, to feel boredom and analyse what provokes it, what makes us conscious of it, and how and when we stop feeling bored. Sharon Macdonald (2001) wrote about the possibility of paying attention to those things that do not happen. She distinguished scientific experiments that fail from successful ones that determine the paths later followed by scientists. Failure, like the never-realised efforts described in Macdonald’s study of a recent exhibition at the Science Museum in London, are as socially constructed and as culturally interesting, as is success […] [An] anthropological-ethnographic exploration behind the scenes can take us into the world of such ‘almosts’, where they struggle with what may become ‘successes’, and into the classificatory battles of which finished exhibitions are an, albeit important and visible, after-effect (Macdonald 2001, 118).

In the case of the Planetarium and social communication of science in Mexico, those failures that were apparently left behind but kept in the memory of the individuals are visible in the stagnation that characterises its rooms. Failed attempts to represent science are also 108 noticeable in the guides’ limited scripts, and the typical and rhetorical answer to the question: Why does understanding science matter? ‘Well, for the progress of the country’. The Planetarium is what it is: the temporary final outcome of many attempts to keep it alive and appealing for the public. Considering the prominent presence of boredom, these attempts will always be partial because on one hand there is a powerful mediatic culture that depends on making everything for sale look exciting and perfect to satisfy created needs and on the other there is a schooling system that still trusts in the separation of play from duty and the merging of discipline and learning. Boredom will not be defeated under these circumstances. Ennui, that introspective condition, nevertheless has existed and may happen to all from time to time, always moulding the human mind and helping us make sense of reality (Kuhn 1976). When I first began writing I could not help but feel a degree of resentment that the Planetarium was so dull when it should not be. Why not? Why should I analyse it through the same lens of desire as when it was conceived? The analysis of boredom has to do with what is not supposed to happen albeit it does. Boredom is a key word, an idée-force, as Kuhn compels us to think, that is not often mentioned but is part of contemporary human life.

Boredom, the eternal enemy?

M. C. Bateson (1994) wrote about being habituated to the ‘hype’ of daily modern life, whereas Kracauer wrote about being ‘pushed deeper and deeper into the hustle and bustle’ until individuals no longer find that extraordinary and radical boredom that will ‘reunite them with their heads’, and with their own existence (Kracauer 2002). For Kracauer, letting oneself feel boredom would allow a person to ‘do nothing more than to be with oneself, without knowing what one actually should be doing’ (2002, 303, emphasis added). Kracauer concluded his brief article by saying that boredom becomes the only proper occupation as it provides a ‘kind of a guarantee’ that one is ‘in control of one’s own existence.’ In a very similar tone, Kuhn concludes his research on boredom by highlighting how the psycho-literary term ennui has not been seen by every author as a malady; instead, by some authors ennui has meant a source of inspiration: As a negative force, ennui, if it does not engulf its victim, can and often does induce efforts to fill the void that it hollows out. It is the state that, if it does not render sterile, precedes and makes possible creation in the realms of the practical, the spiritual, and the aesthetic (Kuhn 1976, 378).

For the authors mentioned in this chapter, if one were never bored, the individual could never be with her or his self, being subject to the artificial, the ongoing increase of

109 consumption of unfulfilment. By sharing an ideology where boredom is seen as an enemy to the human spirit, the individual would always be – in Althusser’s interpretation – subjected to that ideology that prevents him or her from exploring life; preventing the subject from being an individual (Althusser 1976, 133 -138; Fortes & Lomnitz 1991, 73). On reading Reinhard Kuhn’s descriptions of ennui, and recalling M.C. Bateson’s remarks, I wondered what are those ‘patterns of boredom’, mentioned by Bateson, that we have learned? What stops us from reaching the realms of our subjectivity when thinking is induced by our ennui? There is one reason, at least, behind the apparent individual inability to voluntarily stop feeling bored, and it is related to coercion. Kuhn explains how ennui, under the name of acedia, assumed some of its negative force with the inception of Christianity: ennui began to occupy a central position in man’s intellectual and spiritual concerns. […] In the religious anguish resulting from what Thomas Aquinas was to castigate as an abhorrence of all spiritual good, the romantics were to see a primitive version of their own malady (Kuhn 1976, 376).

But still in the early days of Christianity, some thinkers saw in acedia ‘a condition that could lead to salvation’ and later as a source of inspiration (Ibid). Yet the vulgar boredom of daily drudgery is not actually what is at issue here, since it neither kills people nor awakens them to new life, but merely expresses a dissatisfaction that would immediately disappear if an occupation more pleasant than the morally sanctioned one became available (Kracauer 2002, 302).

The kind of boredom that everyone has felt during any routine or meaningless task cannot be learned nor prevented. In the words of a young female astrophysicist: ‘It is natural to withdraw for some time when paying attention.’ The answer to when it is that we withdraw seems more psychological, neural even, but not social. This naturalness about withdrawing for some time from paying attention makes a social explanation difficult. That state of mind that stops as soon as the bell chimes is learned; but it is brief, it is felt and passes. So, are these brief patterns enough to distract us from introspection? People feel bored ‘until the bell rings’ because of the power-relationships that determine our behaviour in the given context, for example the microphysics of power set in action by the school bell (Foucault 1976). The power of the ringing or whatever distracts us again might divert our attention from our independent thought; but when we are immersed for longer in monotony, in ennui, then we spare the time to attend to our self. It may be that in this ‘monumental struggle against the power of nothingness’ (Kuhn 1976, 378) we define our self and affirm our humanity. Becoming conscious of ourselves in the middle of our lassitude can allow the individual to be attentive to space, to her existence and maybe even to

110 abstract ourselves from the concrete world, as any scientist – social ‘or’ natural – wishes to do. This ennui, as distinguished by Kuhn from mere tiredness, may certainly be considered the relevant social side of boredom, for it is in that state of mind that individuals think about themselves and life. But how can we feel at ease when we need to be allowed to feel it, or have to hide away just to be who we are. These are reasons why boredom matters to anthropology. Kuhn wrote about it calling it ennui. Kracauer also wrote about it calling it a bliss and completed his analysis in this way: ‘If, however, one has the patience, the sort of patience specific to legitimate boredom, then one experiences a kind of bliss that is almost unearthly. […] then boredom would come to an end, and everything that exists would be…’ (Kracauer 2002, 304) – the recuperation of the lost capacity to attend; the defiance of indifference. The idea of boredom has been put to the test here because of its prevalence in the environments described.13 It would be easy to convince the reader and myself of the powerful ideas that boredom may provoke in all of us, and to call this a human need. The predictable notion of boredom as an undesirable human state of mind attracted my attention, and provoked further exploration. Perhaps, because I became so physically tired and because I became accustomed to feeling bored, I began to think as an anthropologist. The proposition then is to think of boredom as part of the significant act of desiring to understand, and consider if its presence among the visitors to planetariums or other sites really eliminates reasoning or interest. If science popularisation environments are not constantly interesting, it is not because science is not interesting, although this may be the unintentional message. Paul Willis explained that children at school, rather than gaining the qualifications to work as something ‘better’ than shop-floor workers, learn instead what they need to become able shop-floor workers. By resisting the school’s antagonism to working class culture they learn the habitus, or the cultural dispositions (Bourdieu 1977) that facilitate their immersion in the hard life of the shop floor. Influenced by the beauty of Paul Willis’ explanation, I suggest that something similar was happening at the Planetarium. Through being taken by school buses to the Planetarium and by interpreting the Planetarium and its contents as part of a school activity, most children would believe that science is as boring as learning in school is. As this interpretation is not consistent with my interest in portraying boredom as a fruitful state, I formulated a second interpretation: if we are to see boredom as problematic for the popularisation of science, then we should explain that the problem is not finding oneself bored while learning about science, the problem is in seeing boredom as a negative state and that hype and action are more important than a contemplative state of mind. If contemplation can be seen as natural and

13 I cannot deny that there is a search for the explanation of consciousness. But such research is for the future. 111 even necessary for the human mind to make sense of the world and our selves in it, then the greatest problem to be solved in promoting the understanding of science as exciting is the belief that boredom results from a lack of understanding, when the truth may be quite the reverse, that in fact the process of understanding has just begun. As M.C. Bateson wrote: ‘It takes adult effort to turn bright, open children into a sullen underclass or into compliant factory workers, to keep life in shades of black and white and avoid new learning’ (Bateson 1994, 57). By imposing fun as the significant social behaviour, but banning play, there is a widely shared ‘imposition of particular kinds of societal blindness’ (Ibid), and a learning and understanding external behaviour that may not be that useful in the long term. It may be then, that in the same way as ‘participation precedes learning’ (Bateson 1994, 41), and participation will necessarily imply learning (Lave and Wenger 1991), ennui may precede consciousness and understanding. Where may this combination of consciousness and withdrawal take the person? Kuhn suggests that ennui can help to explain the creative act (1976, 378). I presume that boredom is a consequence of the cultural restriction of play during childhood, and as we become habituated to this limitation, we do not allow ourselves to feel calm and observant. Allowing oneself to feel boredom can be the step prior to understanding anything that interests the individual (including social restrictions or science). The problem is that after so much habituation to patterned school-like behaviour, the subject might let ennui pass. The fight against boredom is like keeping a state of unstable equilibrium. This equilibrium might be lost and the individual could enter the realm of introspection, or else the individual could stop feeling any interest in introspection, becoming subject again to the option of hyper action. Museums may be leading their visitors in one of these directions. If institutions could stop preferring immediate learning, then time and space for contemplation should be provided. Time for understanding is the subject of the following chapter.

112

Figure 5. The ‘electro-shocks machine’ (The Van der Graaf generator) (Source: Planetarium’s archive).

113 Chapter five: Time, trust and understanding

In this chapter, popularisation of science is explored in terms of the time dedicated to explanation and understanding. I will illustrate this by describing three events where the processes of understanding were ‘visible’. I analyse what it takes to understand science using the media and the activities provided in a public institution. These three cases (a child’s reaction to robots, a Knowledge Race and a session of hypnosis with teenagers) were chosen because it was possible to see how the process of understanding could be manipulated. The need for a ‘time to understand’ in settings where immediacy is the norm becomes evident as the chapter progresses. The goal is to explain a paradox that emerges from the contradictory need of museums and science centres to fix timings for learning with the aim of being effective against the importance of acknowledging the time it takes to understand anything. An individual who seeks to understand must not only be present, but also participate. I depart from the premise that individuals need time to understand science, because trust must develop as a precondition.

Fear and life-long understanding

The groups of students visiting the Planetarium are treated as single entities: they are driven in and out of the rooms, ordered in a way that makes it is easier for teachers and guides to control them without much effort and without needing to interact with each child individually. One morning, two groups of fifteen nursery-school children enter the centre. The children leave their lunch boxes at the reception desk and the guides organise these very young people into paired lines with each pair holding hands. The infants are obviously excited as they wait to leave for the Jurassic world rooms. I do not know whether it is their very first school visit to a museum or not, but it is somehow pleasing to see them in such agitation and suspense. When they are ready, the groups are taken by one of the guides and the teachers to the entrance of the Jurassic section. I lose sight of them and decide not to follow because I prefer to stay with the guides. They and the new public services manager are planning how to organise future public visits.

114 Within five minutes, the guide who has accompanied the children comes back holding the hand of a little boy. The boy looks pale, his eyes wide open. He is not being dragged but neither is he paying attention to where he is being taken. There is something in his eyes I have not expected children to feel in the rooms: intense fear. The guide says that the boy did not want to go into the Jurassic room with his class-mates because he is afraid of the dinosaurs. The boy looks at us occasionally, but he is not paying attention to what we say. He seems anxious trying to make sense of the roars he hears in the background. One sound effect, which simulates a violent fight between two dinosaurs, makes him look particularly agitated. I can ‘see’ how he is trying to get a grip on his imagination. The manager tells the guides: ‘Look at me, pay attention, I will show you how to talk to children’. He kneels down, puts one hand on the boy’s shoulder, and turns toward the guides saying in a very patronising tone – especially for the guides who have children of their own: ‘See? You have to look at them from their height, not from above because they will feel threatened.’ Ignoring the persona of the child and using him as a dummy for a lesson on ‘how to deal with children’, the manager asks the boy if he is afraid. The boy immediately nods and swallows hard. ‘If I come with you, will you go in the room?’ the manager asks. The boy shakes his head, half looking at him, half paying attention to the roars. ‘Come, I will take you there with your friends and you will see that the dinosaurs will not do any harm to you.’ The manager lifts the boy up and takes him to the Jurassic world. Soon after, both come back walking, the boy wiping tears from his face. I volunteer to take care of the child while they continue with their meeting, so we all sit at the table and I sit close to him. Ismael will be his name. I begin asking him why he is afraid, but he does not speak. Then I suggest maybe he would like to see how tall he is compared with the robots. He nods in agreement and I draw this:

He looks at the drawing without saying anything. I realise how simplistic my approach is; how difficult it is even to attempt to modify whatever images he has in his mind. After chatting to him for a while, he begins to give monosyllabic yes or no answers. After around ten minutes, when I am explaining the difference between the real and the unreal, communication becomes more fluid. I want to explain to him that robots, although 115 they move, are not alive. I tell him that they can be unplugged and will stop moving. (At this point, talking about extinction is simply out of the question, but funnily it did pass through my mind). I convince him to come with me to the door of the first room to peep in from the outside and get a safe glimpse of the dinosaurs. I make the promise that I will not leave him alone and that we will leave the Jurassic area whenever he wants to. He accepts. I take his hand and feel with surprise how cold it is. It is not until I touch him that I realise how truly frightened he is. Nevertheless he acquiesces to walking with me. We arrive at the edge of the first dark room. The roars are louder there and no sounds of children are coming from inside. (!) I try to explain how a living animal moves and how it is different from the artificial electronic movements of a robot. This attempt proves more effective. I mimic the expected movements of the first dinosaur in the room, moving my head from one side to the other, rehearsing a predictable and sloppy systematic cycle. At that point, a mechanic walks by. I involve him in the conversation, explaining why we can not enter the room. Kindly, the man repeats that the dinosaurs are not alive and gives the best explanation ever: ‘They will stop moving if I unplug them’. He asks Ismael if he has a bike. Ismael says ‘Yes’ so the man goes on to tell him that the dinosaurs would stand still just like his bike when he is not using it. Finally the boy asks a question that shows me how difficult it is for him to distinguish real from fiction: ‘But, do they eat sandwiches?’ ‘Oh no, does your bike eat anything?’ the man replies. ‘No’ is Ismael’s sweet answer. Perhaps the child had been told by a teacher or a guide or another child that they should leave their lunch at the foyer or else the dinosaurs would eat it. (This possible explanation occurred to me at the moment I wrote this paragraph, not before). Ismael allows us to walk in to the first room. I successfully make him stay with me while I try to touch a mother and baby triceratops to make him see that they can not harm me. At that moment I see the ‘do not touch’ sign. I transgress the rule, rationalising that in the situation it is better to use a hands-on approach. I stand there until Ismael notices that the robot is moving awkwardly and predictably. I feel assured that the boy is not so frightened anymore, so I continue, suggesting that he walk on to the next room. We again peek in from the threshold, and he asks me to run with him towards the exit. So we do, but there are more dinosaurs ‘waiting for us’ in the next room, so we run back and leave the room. He has had enough. I take him back to his teacher who is already looking for him, along with a guide. His classmates are already sitting in the back garden and have started eating lunch. Ismael’s hand is still cold and the turn comes for the teacher to hold it and acknowledge that his resistance to follow the group has not been just a childish tantrum.

116 Although I had walked through those rooms several times before, that day I noticed that the first dinosaur in the entrance room was a baby triceratops, while in the following room the robots were bigger and looked more threatening. The size of the robots, the violence of the imagery and the volume of the roars progressively increased up to a room where a bloody fight between a T-Rex and a third triceratops was repeatedly simulated. Perhaps other children had dreaded entering the rooms in the past, confirming for the designer that his strategy to provoke expectation and curiosity was successful. Looking first at a baby animal should ease the worries of children as young as Ismael. It was easy to notice that the rooms were planned with an introductory stage which was designed to produce expectation but to reduce possible fears that may have put children off walking through the rest of the exhibition. The walk was designed so that you could hear the roars but could not see the dinosaurs until you turned a corner and found yourself already looking at them in that artificial, dark, enclosed atmosphere. Ismael had had a fixed idea in his mind. He had pictured fierce, threatening dinosaurs who ate like real animals in a zoo. My aim was to help him overcome that fear because his imagination prevented him from interacting with the staged environment like every other child in his class did. The real display of darkness, threat and ferocity caused Ismael the fear expected by the designer of that exhibition, so there was a paradox in explaining to him why he should not be afraid in that environment. I grew aware of the personal need for understanding. It was necessary, I thought, for Ismael to understand what a robot is in order to be safe from his imaginary fear. What does this episode show? First, there are many things to be understood depending on the connections that the person makes. Second, that learning in some cases will mean the understanding of something totally taken for granted by most of the visitors and to a certain degree, by the designers. It surprises me still how I ended up that day trying to explain the difference between real life and artificial simulacra to a five-year-old. And third, that the resistance in understanding should be analysed beyond the premise that it is a matter of personal choice or capacity; understanding is a personal need; it implies the acknowledgment of the person’s individuality and the time needed to overcome resistance via the participation of the individual. Ismael would have resisted entering the room were it not for the time he was given to see for himself, experience the environment, and be allowed to experience the changes to the situation. Briggs would explain this episode as a set of dramas in which the child was allowed to participate and observe how his persona modified the setting. The opportunity he had to feel confident with the adults and the safety of the situation experienced more than once allowed him to cope better with his imaginary fear (Briggs 1998). 117 Lee and Brown (2002) discuss the tension between the individual’s agency and the structuring power of institutions with the example of a frightened child in a similar situation. A child, Morris, was scared by a performance of Peter Pan in a London theatre. Morris’ parents decided to sue the theatre company for showing a harmful play and allowing young children to attend. As was the case with the Jurassic scenery, the play was designed to provoke fear and suspense. In both cases, ‘fear was generated’. It was ‘set up’ to be ‘disposed of’ by every child old enough to discriminate successfully between an imaginary frightening situation and a real one. But children like Ismael or Morris, who do not distinguish, at a particular moment of their lives what is real from what is not, break ‘the stage/audience boundary’, ‘opening the events onstage to a regime of accountability’ (Lee and Brown 2002, 275-276). For these authors, the emotion that a setting provokes becomes part of sociocultural networks. So, more than just an emotion, fear is a force circulating through the networks of interaction. Fear acts as a force ‘set in play’ in that network of discourses, objects, relational selves and practices (Ibid 277). Lee and Brown were interested in explaining fear and its disposal as part of that network of acting elements that necessarily decentre our attention from the individual as the proprietor of anything. Their aim was to convey the theoretical need to understand the individual as a ‘relational self’, as Lyotard suggested, and the emotion as a force circulating in communication circuits (Ibid 259). They say that ‘if there is no bounded subject, then fear would seem to have no proper place’ and could be understood as not being a possession of some individual but something that ‘patrols’ the communication circuits, a term also suggested by Lyotard in his book The postmodern condition. The point to be made here is that the perception of any emotion is social as much as internal from the individual’s perspective. Fear could be staged for visitors capable of disposing of it successfully. It is taken for granted that people, or most people, learn that it is normal to feel fear in such situations and then understand that it is fictional and forget about it. As adults we may even accept the good in staging fear for the education of children while also taking care of them (Briggs 1998). A ‘line of normal development’ is implicated (Lee and Brown 2002, 269), but for some children, and adults, the disposal of fear is not so trouble-free. We are used to the classification of exhibitions, TV programming and screenings with regard to the age of the authorised viewers but there will always be people who will not be able to dispose of the emotion as the average individual may.1 Given that childhood is seen in many cultures as a

1 The transcendence of nightmares in our personal lives, or the times when we experience fear while being alone are interesting aspects that can provide interesting insights for the exploration of understanding as an individual action or a social process. The scope of this research though is necessarily limited. 118 period of ‘special vulnerability to trauma, fear, and external influence’ – a period that may mark the individual permanently – care, education and protection are provided (Lee and Brown 2002, 263; Briggs 1998). ‘Dramas, in Briggs’ terms, or staged fear, in Lee and Brown’s, are, nevertheless, still provoked. Fear is a pedagogical resource provided that the child is given the opportunity to understand for him or herself; to participate in the drama (Briggs 1998). Looking again at my intention in convincing Ismael that a living robot was a fantasy, I understand why he did not immediately understand my explanations. The time it took to make him speak was the time it took him to trust me. But if the boy went into the rooms to see the dinosaurs it was because he dared to, not because he understood what I wanted him to realise. For me, the proof was that his hand remained cold until the end. All that time he was afraid in his own terms, and he became confident in his terms too – albeit with the aid of an adult he could trust and the chance to witness the truth himself. It is the individual’s choice to explore and understand in such a normative context. In the process, children start reflecting and developing their sense of trust. The child learns that any adult in any environment may make a false statement and s/he should be ready to discriminate between fake and real and between what to trust and what not to. Toren has explained ethnographically how when children take on the adult point of view they are compelled to deny their ‘initial, empirically sound understanding’ (Toren 1993, 473). Briggs has shown that it is through the child’s participation in repetitive dramas that the child understands what the adults want her/him to learn at the same time as s/he overcomes fear. This example of the attempts of four adults to take a child into a room he was afraid of shows how unprepared the institution was to deal with a child in his own terms. It shows as well how these four adults, myself included, think of childhood as a stage where children should be directed in our own grown-up terms and in accordance with our understandings. We compel children to understand what we do; not at the same time, but as part of the same cycle (Briggs 1998). The majority of people working in institutions, on the other hand, rely in the normalised perceptions of the ideal visitor. As for the representation of the dinosaurs, new electronic technologies are allowing the visualisation of theoretical scientific ideas to the general public. Simulations and robots are now present at most exhibitions and TV science programmes, facilitating the understanding of disappeared worlds such as the prehistory of the Earth, or macrocosmic processes in time and space that are difficult to grasp. These new representations of theoretical thinking are marking this age of public understanding in ways that are still unfathomable. Science is less visible in synthesised visualisations; on the other hand, concepts and theories may be comprehended more easily but as facts and not as theories. 119 Confusion may also be arising. In a similar way to how Ismael thought he was looking at a real dinosaur, many others in wider audiences may be thinking that they are seeing real images of the big bang or black holes. Hence the need to challenge representations when these are not explicitly recognised as theoretical recreations (Steffen and Sánchez-Vázquez 2003). If the exhibition was made with robots wouldn’t it be adequate to see the internal mechanism of one of them? It would have made it easier for Ismael to see that the dinosaur was in a way like his bicycle. An interesting visualisation of mechanics was lost.

Timing, competition and the communication of scientific knowledge

As on every day, I arrive at the Planetarium at nine in the morning after a dreadful hour- and-a-half-long bus journey. A dozen old school and tourist buses are parked in the main car park. I walk along, counting the buses and avoiding the red ants that plague the pavements of the Planetarium. The ants and the buses make me think about probability and the chances of survival, and I thank whoever should be thanked that I did not have an accident on that bus. The gardeners are already chopping the grass and the smell of wet soil reaches me. It is a sunny day, already warm and bright. It is a special February morning because the annual Planetarium Rally starts at nine. The foyer is packed with children. I have never before seen so many interested children gathered at the place. They are eager to start the Race for Knowledge but they are not allowed to go into the rooms and have to wait until instructions are given. There is a different feeling in the atmosphere. I have worked in the Planetarium for five months and it is the first time I perceive this degree of excitement and expectation in such a large number of children. The special events and public communications managers had begun preparing for the rally two months before. They started their campaign by inviting several primary schools to participate in the Rally, and in the science fair later in November. I accompanied them one morning as they visited the nearby primary schools to make their invitations. The communications manager warned me to be ready for rejection. She said: ‘These people are difficult. Some will treat us as if we want to kidnap the children, others will treat us as peddlers. Very few will find this invitation attractive. You will see that it is not easy to invite schools to the Planetarium.’ Why would any teacher or school director reject an invitation to have children participate in an enjoyable activity involving the understanding of science? Sure enough, that was the response. The two managers knew that although the main visitors to the Planetarium are school groups, only a small number 120 of schools are interested in the Planetarium’s special events. There are various reasons – distance from the school, difficulties in organising school visits to fit in with the school’s activities, and the extra money parents have to pay for these kinds of visits. At the schools we visited, the first thing I noticed was the difference in investment in the security gates. Most of the guards allowed us through the school doors, but we could not enter some. Sometimes we were told that the director was busy. At other schools we were received with interest because those schools had participated before and knew how much the children had enjoyed the challenge. In one school we were told that they loved competition because it was very useful for the children’s education. At the schools we managed to enter, the communications manager talked emphatically about the prizes to be won. First prize was a thousand pesos (the equivalent of one hundred euros at the time), second prize five hundred pesos and third prize the equivalent of thirty euros. Only the 5th and 6th grades could participate. Each team was to have four members, they should give their team a name, and they should be accompanied by an adult. We invited around twenty schools personally and I invited around fifty over the telephone.2 I realised that each school, the Planetarium’s organisation and each person’s disposition to scientific knowledge can act as filters of information. The children are in groups assigned to X or Y teacher and it depends on the director, the assistant, the secretary, the coordinator and the teacher whether the information reaches the people being invited – namely, the children. If we consider how many obstacles there were to be overcome before attending the rally, it is evident that it was not open to everyone, even though the invitation was made to every child, limited only by age. Participation in the rally was therefore restricted to children who were: the correct age, registered at a primary school near to the Planetarium, had the best grades in the group and had parents willing to give them permission to go to the Planetarium. It was also restricted to children whose schools had an interested director, a responsible secretary who would pass the message on to the teacher and an interested teacher willing to devote some time to organising the teams. These filters limited the

2 Not all the schools had a fax machine and even fewer had an internet connection; altogether, I sent around twenty faxes and one e-mail with the registration form and the information. Some of the answers, from the least to the most interested, are transcribed here: ‘No, we can’t go, it is too far from the school’, ‘We are now working under a different system and do not have day trips’, ‘Please call us another day, we are very busy’, ‘I already knew about the event, thanks’, ‘How much will it cost?’, ‘I’ll tell the director’, ‘I will tell the teachers’, ‘If the teachers are interested, they will call you’, ‘We will tell the groups’, ‘We will subscribe one group’, ‘I am very interested’, ‘This is very interesting!’. Only two said they would tell the children and ask them if they wanted to participate; and only one of these two said that he would encourage the students’ participation. He even began making plans about how to select the four children who would represent the groups. As for the rest of the directors, teachers and assistants that received the information, their interest in the event varied similarly. Many - the majority - were not inclined even to pass the information on to the groups’ teachers. 121 popularisation activities to an extent. Even so, every year at least thirty teams (one hundred and twenty children) took part in the rally at the Planetarium. With those filters operating, thirty teams subscribed that year. I confirmed later that most of the groups were formed by the students with the best grades in their school groups. The children gave their groups names like The Dolphins, The Stars, Universe, The Little Rabbits or The Galactics. At 10am on the day of the event, the staff begin guiding the children downstairs into the auditorium when the special events manager’s voice comes over the speakers. She asks the teams to choose a captain, who should stand at the front of the auditorium. The teams have to sit down and listen carefully for the instructions: each captain will receive a T-shirt for each member of the team and an envelope with the quiz questions. The teams have to leave the auditorium before the rest of the public and wait for the signal to start answering the questions. They may run and go wherever they need to in the rooms and gardens, but are not allowed to talk to adults. If they talk to teachers, parents or friends they will be punished. The Planetarium guides will be vigilant in watching over them. If any child is found to be receiving any help, the team will be disqualified from the race. The teams may start by answering any question and have to answer all the questions as fast as they can. When they finish, they have to take their answers to the judges in the foyer. The winning team will be the one that has the most correct answers. In the event of a draw, the winner will be the team who took their answers to the judges’ table the fastest. The quiz questions were planned by the two women managers of communication and special events. The questions, which were a version of the ones from the year before, were kept a secret. Their reluctance to share the contents of the quiz with me reached the point of rudeness. Later I was told that the previous year they had had many problems because the quiz questions were not kept secret, and some of the participants had read them in advance. These were, I suspected, children related to centre staff who had taken part in the rally the year before. This year, the participation of the sons of the manager and the director had been also kept a secret until the day of the competition. I only found out about their participation on the very day of the rally. The final reason the managers gave for not allowing me to see the quiz questions was that I could read them on the day of the rally. I thought I was missing a great part of the event but as I will describe later, I instead witnessed a different, very telling side of the process: They invited me to act as one of the four judges. With the start signal the Planetarium goes bananas. The children begin running around and yelling at each other. Some jump nervously, others decide to sit on the floor to read the questions first and answer them later, others begin fighting to decide who reads 122 the questions and who writes down the answers. All of a sudden they all start running towards the same area of the Planetarium: the life sciences corridor. It is difficult to walk among them as they try to get closer to the walls or displays where the information that they need is located. Some begin thinking tactically and remember that they can start answering any question and so avoid being crushed with the masses of children at the spot where the answers to the first questions are. Others divide their teams up and begin looking for answers independently. After about two hours, the first team finishes the quiz and gives their answer sheets to me. At last I can read the secret quiz. To mark the answers I receive a sample, or ‘master’ questionnaire, with the answers and points for each correct answer. Soon after I begin marking I realise that some of the questions are ambiguous and problematic. For example, one question says something like: ‘What are the elements that form the universe?’ The official answer is: ‘The elements of the universe are planets, stars, galaxies, dust and gas.’ The answer given by the team who finishes first is: ‘The universe was formed by dust and gas that got together to give shape to stars, planets and galaxies.’ I marked this first answer as correct, although it was not identical to the official answer, as I knew it was not incorrect from a scientific perspective.3 As I mark the quiz, I start to become worried. What marking criteria will the other judges use? Half an hour later, the rest of the answer sheets begin arriving in their envelopes. The other four judges take their seats and begin marking. They all receive copies of the master questionnaire. We are given thick markers in different colours. After I have finished marking the last answer sheets in the pile, I take all the ones that have already been marked to see which teams have got the highest scores. My marks are all over 110, 119 being the highest possible score. The lowest marks are given by the

3 I have learnt to be cautious when talking about the scientific explanation of the formation of the universe. This is because I have faced the most difficult moments in my life during conversations with dear friends who do not believe in the Big Bang explanation. During this research I realised how careless I have been about my straightforward belief in the Big Bang theory and the evolution of human kind. I had to apologise three times to friends and their families who think that the Big Bang and evolutionary theories are incredible fantasies. For many people believing such things puts into doubt their belief in God, in Biblical explanations about the creation of the universe and in Adam and Eve. Who am I to change those beliefs? Why would I attempt it? For me, discussing about creationist hypotheses implies talking about authoritarian powers and their social history. The problem I faced with these friends of mine was that as soon as they began questioning if I really believed in the Big Bang, our conversation turned into a debate about power and authority. Although I believe that the understanding of scientific knowledge is necessary because there are better explanations than others, I understood that the proposal of understanding scientific claims really affects people’s most cherished beliefs and certainties. The most difficult is when parents decide to inculcate creationist ideas in their children and you are then intruding on their privacy by questioning their authority as parents. 123 chief mechanic who marked with black ink, scribbling crosses all over the sheets. The answer sheets he marked received at most 40 points. It becomes obvious that at least the chief mechanic and I have marked under different criteria and we are at opposite extremes. Something is not working. I approach the special events manager, who is in charge of the event, to tell her about the situation. She takes the answers sheets and says that it is a shame, but nothing will be changed because there is not enough time to double check. I dispute her decision and convince her to at least compare the lowest and the highest marks of all the judges to unify the marking criteria. My marks do not vary much, except for one point or two in two answer sheets, whereas the lowest marks given by the chief mechanic all varied by 20 points or more. From his attitude in general I gather that he was not interested in marking and does not feel any responsibility, whereas I think it important to get it right. Subjectivity is released in this marking episode. Some of the judges did not read the questions, and instead looked only for perfect, identical answers. By carefully reading the answer sheets, anyone could see that many answers were correct, but that the children did not use the same words as those used by the manager when she designed the quiz. It also became clear that many teams used various resources available in the Planetarium to solve the quiz and not just the specific sources suggested in the quiz. We began a discussion, which became progressively more intense. The worst argument arose when I mentioned the criteria used to mark two questions about animals. According to the official clues in the quiz, one question had to be answered with the information provided on a CD and the other, about the size and eating habits of a boa constrictor, should have been found at the Jurassic world. All the teams except one gave the right answer, but it came in two versions. Half the teams answered: ‘Boas eat small mammals and birds, and are about 8 to 14 metres long.’ The other half wrote: ‘A boa eats mice, birds, and other small animals, and can reach up to 15 metres in length.’ When I review the quiz answers, I realise that the judges have only marked the first one correct, even when both say essentially the same thing. It is obvious that a child would not give such an answer from the top of his or her head, and that they must have read the information somewhere in the Planetarium. I begin an ‘investigation’ to find the source of both versions of the answer. I approach the robotic boa constrictor in the Jurassic World. I check and confirm that some teams have written the answer as it is printed on that plaque – this is the official answer. I am about to leave the Jurassic rooms to look for the second version, when I find children from one of the teams, who are roaming the Jurassic rooms while waiting for the 124 results of the rally. I ask them where they had found the answer to the boa constrictor question. Feeling visibly secure about the source of their answer, they lead me out of the Jurassic World towards the media library. While we are walking, they ask me if I am a teacher (they may be suspicious that I am helping another team, suspecting a trap, so they have to be polite and clever to find out). I tell them that I am a judge and that I want to know where to find the answer. Then they ask if they have a chance of winning. I ask them what the name of their team is. They say: ‘Universe!’ I reply that yes, they have got good marks but it is not yet clear who has won the race. (In fact, they have been the ones to finish first). They get so excited that I feel guilty for leaking information from the judges’ table and giving hope to a team that may or may not win. When we get to the media library, the boy sits in front of a computer and begins clicking the icons on the advice of one of the three girls in the team. ‘There!’ she says. They look up the name boa constrictor on the screen, click on its icon, and read what its habits are. This is the source of the second, unofficial, version of the answer. I return to the table and explain to the manager that both answers are correct, and that both could be found in the Planetarium. I insist that mice are small mammals, and ‘8 to 14 metres’ is less than 15 metres, the longest boa ever found! No, and no, she repeats. She becomes visibly annoyed and says that the second version is wrong, no matter what. She says all the children should have looked for the answer in the Jurassic World because that is where the quiz had hinted that the answer could be found. This divides opinion among the judges. I say that it is extreme to mark the answer wrong when it is in fact right, just found from somewhere other than expected. The judges agree with me, so half the questionnaires get four extra points. The manager would not accept that the answers are just correct. She wants the answers to be exactly as quoted on the master answer sheet. But she has not counted on the children’s ability to look for answers elsewhere, or to improve on her answers. Regarding the answer to the ‘elements’ of the universe, the special events manager simply would not accept that the question has not been formulated correctly and so many children had tried to answer as best as they could, given the question’s deficient syntax. To those who re-interpreted the question according to what they knew, but also included what was written on the room’s plaque, the correct answer was that the universe’s elements are dust and gas, not planets. The manager says that this is also incorrect! They should have included planets, satellites and asteroids like the managers have. The children may have thought that planets, stars and satellites are objects or stellar bodies, but not ‘elements’ and they might have even interpreted this as a trick question, included on purpose to test their competence further. I try to explain the difference between the concepts element and object, 125 i.e. that planets, galaxies and asteroids are objects formed by gas and dust, as one group answered correctly, and gas and dust are formed by the chemical elements. The special events manager’s basic argument was that the information exhibited in the Planetarium was correct and that the children should have used it accurately. She also insisted that the answers written on the master answer sheet were the right ones. My argument was that the questions were badly written, were not either/or questions, that the judges did not read the answers carefully but only looked for identical quotes, and that the marking criteria was not uniform. Later in the day the manager shifted towards a different marking criterion. It was surprising how stubborn we both were, and how punctilious and antagonistic our visions were about what a correct or wrong answer was. In the end, it was not particularly important to the manager whether the information in the Planetarium was correct or not. What mattered to her was to establish that she was not mistaken. To me, that meant that she was not being fair to the children. Overall the logic that was desired was the criterion to judge what was best. Not correct only, but best to decide who should win. At first I regretted confronting the special events manager because I had not paid proper attention to the opinions of the rest of the judges. On the other hand, I cannot be entirely apologetic as, through the confrontation, hidden assumptions behind the design of the quiz and the marking criteria were revealed. On that day I felt responsible for preventing the children’s disappointment and I wanted to be respectful of the effort and joy that I witnessed that singular morning. I recognise that I felt I had to properly fulfil a strong sense of a moral duty. I acknowledge that the researcher’s ethical frame of mind is fundamental to and inescapable in the ethnographic experience. But what does morality, duty or propriety mean here? The relevance of these attitudes towards doing ethnographic research might be called the ethnographer’s personal disposition towards participating and acknowledging understandings. In this context I am reminded of Bourdieu and his concept of habitus (always in italics as De Certeau acutely remarks). Our habitus, people’s patterns of thought and dispositions that lead them to live their culture in distinctive manners, were markedly different on that judging table. Small – insignificant to some perhaps – behavioural details revealed to me that morning different attitudes that each of us had towards the competition. An example of these details were the large marks, ticks and crosses, scrawled with a black marker over the answers of some of the children’s answers. Those marks made a very bad impression on me; it was as if they had been carved with a knife. They looked violent, or at least aggressive, laid over the careful handwriting of the children. It seemed even more 126 aggressive to me once I realised that the man who wrote them had not read the questions, and the marking criterion he had decided upon was to spend only the time needed to cross check the answers with the master answer sheet. There was no other criterion shown with his marks. He was not interested in reading and he marked as incorrect what was not written exactly as in the sample. It seemed as if he just wanted to finish the task, which was part of a job that he did not enjoy. Another example of the different dispositions towards the event was the passivity of the other judges (the administrative assistant, an electronic engineer and the director’s secretary). From my perspective, the rally was a significant event for the Planetarium. I dare to say that the rally was the only official event with a high potential for success in the social communication of scientific knowledge. But again, this idea seemed to be the product of my habitus, and it was certainly not a communal disposition. By the end I had to recognise that the competition was about giving the exact answers only. What this episode tells us straight away is how bureaucratic timing may fit only partially with visitors’ timing. A few details of the event suffice to support this point. It took eight weeks to organise the rally, but it was designed to be finished in four hours. I was told that there was not enough time to double check the results of the quiz, it did not matter that the children were eager to know the results, but that the employees wanted to leave earlier. When a person outside their organisation questioned their attitude towards the marking criteria, all the employees involved in the marking tried to ignore the problem and resisted getting involved in the dispute because it would mean being caught up for longer in the work place. Only the first three winning teams received feedback. Many of the children approached the judges and the guides after the event to ask for their marked quizzes. They wanted to see their results but the manager would not show them to any of them. So, when the children showed an interest in seeing what they had got wrong, they were denied because the managers wanted to leave earlier. If the understanding of science had been increased at all by the competition, it was not important any more because the employees wanted to leave early, or perhaps just because the same quiz would be used again the next year. Although in the event dialogue was established among some of the parties involved, the opinion of those being judged was not included in their defence. Those judging could not have cared less about the learning outcome. The issue that arises from my interpretation of this event is related to the collaborative essence of science as suggested by Welbourne (2001). Groups of children participated and played the game as imposed by the adults in the institution. In the end, winners were named and the event was over. Some of 127 the children approached the adults to ask for feedback but got nothing and left the Planetarium. First, communication was broken – if ever any was established with the children. Second, due to time constraints, any further exchange of information was denied, so by resisting any communication with the participants, collaboration did not ensue. Institutions may hijack participation in the events they organise. This is possible firstly because there are opening and closing times. Something so simple may not be considered relevant, but it is when the climax of the event approached that dialogue was needed. If dialogue could not ensue, the communication of the essence of scientific knowledge was also prevented. The sciences’ collaborative nature is based in reciprocal trust, as Welbourne (2001, 1985) and Hardwig (1991) explain. But let us examine this issue of trust in the third and final case before we explain how all this fits together.

Participation, belief and trust

It is the Day of the Sun in the Planetarium, a major event with the sun and light as its theme. It is the 28th of May, the day that the sun passes through the zenith of the city in the year 2002. The management team decided to dress in white to host this small yearly science fair, all light and energy related. Some of the city’s high schools have been invited to attend the day’s main event, which is a hypnotism session. Many things are happening at the same time. For example, the special events manager is placing tomato chunks and slices of fish on a tray and mixing chicken stock cubes into warm water in a bowl. The food is being prepared for an engineer who will use it to explain how solar energy can be used to cook. While he prepares the sun-driers and his solar instruments, the manager carries on to announcing over the microphone that the students will soon witness ‘the magic of transforming the Sun’s energy into food’. The engineer will bring the chicken soup to boil, sun-dry the tomatoes and cook the raw fish for the children and their teachers. New age music floats in the background while most of us are expectantly waiting to see the precise moment when the Sun will be exactly at its zenith. For this purpose, the amateur astronomers of the city are proudly securing a vertical, three-metre-tall white tube with ropes. As soon as it is fixed in place, an expectant group of guest Aztec dancers take over the astronomers’ instrument and begin dancing and praying around it to honour the Sun. They wear feathered penachos and friar seeds around their ankles to dance to the rhythm of their tambourines. They announce their main ritual ceremony by sounding a conch. The eldest woman dancer purifies the air with copal, and they continue to dance. I am delighted with such an extravagant and unexpected mixture of expressions of worship 128 and understanding. Each person is really involved with his or her activities: teachers learning; children asking, playing and observing; dancers believing in and feeling the divinity of the Sun; physics students trying out their displays for the diffraction of light or the use of shadows for time measuring; engineers showing how well Sun-based technology worked; and this anthropologist observing how many approaches there are to the understanding and application of knowledge of the Sun on display this sunny morning. Eleven in the morning, the guides take three groups of teenagers to the auditorium while the rest of the visitors stay in the green areas where the Sun festival would continue. I am invited more than once to see the hypnotist’s performance but I think it is unworthy to leave the science fair and all the dancers and physics students explaining scientific knowledge to watch a man stage a hoax. Hypnotism is for charlatans, I think, so I am determined to take a look and return to the science fair soon after. ‘The solstice will take place in an hour’ announces someone. ‘That long?’ asks a child also interested in the exact moment when every shadow will disappear. ‘Well, yes, go do something else in the meantime’ says a teacher. The dancers do not much care about the announcement – they have more time to perform. The children have many things to look at, and a friend of mine and some guides keep on insisting that I should go and see the hypnotist because he is very famous in the city. I hesitate, but I am somewhat interested, so I walk towards the auditorium. The show has started a while ago. I sit on a seat at the back, so that I can leave as soon as it is finished. The auditorium is full of teenagers and their teachers. I think I will never forget what I saw that morning in the dampness of that auditorium. First the contrast with the sunny weather I left outside to sit in the cold, humid and artificially illuminated auditorium ignited my sense of discomfort. I cannot remember much about the hypnotist, except for his brown suit and his rapid movement. He had already begun his ‘show’, and had chosen seven teenagers who were sitting on chairs at the front. As I was told later by those who saw the show from the beginning, the hypnotist had managed to make some of the people in the theatre fall asleep, and chose from the audience those who were soundly sleeping. The ones who stayed awake recalled afterwards feeling tired but remained sitting in their places to watch the show. When I enter, the hypnotist is talking to the audience. At one point, one of the youngsters begins shaking his foot nervously and moving his body impatiently. The hypnotist goes up to him and touches his forehead. The boy calms instantly. The man announces that although the show is about to finish, it is not over yet, so he speaks to the hypnotised teenagers: ‘You will stand up when I tell you and you will do it vigorously. Before you rise, you will forget every trauma… You should respect your parents because 129 they gave you your life and thanks to them you are alive today. You should never disappoint your parents ever… Every person that works will always get a good job and it will be enough to support a family, so you should work hard. You will show respect for your teachers because they spend more time at school with their students than they do with their own families. They deserve admiration.’ When he finishes instructing the hypnotised he orders them to stand up. So they do and the hypnotist raises his voice to say: ‘Now, it’s time to daaaaance sexy!’ Pop music comes on and the teenagers begin dancing. Their classmates sitting in the theatre start laughing. The hypnotist tells the young women to stay dancing on the stage and orders the men to go down the stairs to dance erotically to the rest of the women in the theatre. The volume and the excitement increase to a degree I cannot quite enjoy. The teenagers in the audience begin screaming as if the hypnotised boys were pop stars and the boys themselves have started feeling like idols. Ignited by the screams, the applause and the music, the boys take their shirts off and throw them to the audience. Meanwhile, the hypnotised girls are kneeling down, caressing their bodies to the rhythm of the music while the boys dance, touching their own bodies too. One of them kneels down and begins moving his pelvis in a sensual manner, touching himself and then stands up to start dancing towards a girl from the audience. He begins dancing in front of her, like in a striptease show. She pushes him back, feeling embarrassed but also laughing nervously. He continues in front of a group of girls who are screaming and trying to touch his body. An overweight boy is also dancing and begins unbuttoning his trousers and showing part of his underwear to the people in the audience who are close to him to the rhythm of the music. The girls do not stop dancing on the stage and the audience does not stop screaming, laughing and clapping. Some girls ask for autographs from the boys. They approach them and scribble something in the notebooks; some girls touch the boys’ bodies, others just turn around ashamed. The teenagers are dancing as seductively as they can, caressing themselves, offering their bodies to the women to be touched and approaching the young women sitting in the front rows. I do not know what to think of this display, having never seen anything like it. I am frightened, ashamed and shocked. I am afraid that the teenagers could walk towards me but I do not dare to stop the ‘show’, although that is all I want to happen. I think that it is a serious abuse to the integrity of those people who are dancing sensuously but senselessly in front of their friends. The guides are laughing excitedly, saying how good the hypnotist is. The teachers are also clapping. One of the guides, who is recording a video for the Planetarium, captures the moment when one of the teenagers begins a ‘dirty dance’ in front of the camera. All of a sudden, the hypnotist tells them to stop. The music also stops and the man orders them to wake up. 130 The teenagers turn around and immediately walk towards the stage, now aware that they are half naked. They look disconcerted. The teenager who was showing his underwear asks in a loud voice: ‘What did you do to me?’ The hypnotist laughs and answers that no one has done anything to him, but that he was showing ‘everything’ to the women. The young man half smiles, but I cannot describe his reaction very well. I feel distressed. The hypnotist’s assistant writes down the names of those who participated and then lets them go. Their friends are already looking forward to talking to them. They begin asking if they really do not remember what they have done, and then describe what has just happened. The hypnotised do not seem to believe anything, or are afraid to believe it. None of them looks excited, only receptive, like listening to news about someone else. Their faces showed attentiveness, disbelief and concern. The hypnotised teenagers had to understand why they had danced erotically in that auditorium even if they could not believe it at first. They had to deny their initial understanding of themselves. As they trusted their peers they had to believe in what they were told had happened in that auditorium. After the show finished, I talked to one of the hypnotised young men. He said that he had to believe in what he had been told despite knowing that he was not ‘like that’. He saw himself as a shy person, incapable of showing himself off like his peers suggested he did. As all his friends – and his teacher too – had described the same extraordinary behaviour, he had to accept it and admit that he had been hypnotised. Along with everybody else, I asked him if he felt odd at all or remembered what had happened, but he only said that whenever he was about to swear, he felt a strange itchiness in his throat. He laughed as his friend described how he would swear in front of everyone. This friend explained that the boy used to curse a lot and had many problems at school and with his parents as a result. His teacher later told me the same thing. She recalled the boy swearing on stage and the moment when the hypnotist told him not to swear again. Another teacher I talked to said that her hypnotised students were the kind of people who were shy but intelligent. At first, she could not believe they were dancing the way they did, but by the end she thought that what had happened was a good thing. She thought that it would help them become more ‘sociable’. In this case, as much as in that of Ismael and the dinosaurs, it became clear that in order to understand, the teenagers also had to trust and believe that what they were told could be true. Trust in this sense did not mean that they understood or took on the explanations in the terms of those who explained but that it helped them to understand in their own terms what had happened, always leaving a space for a doubt. Participation and confusion seemed central to this performance. Trust and belief were key to understanding 131 what had happened. Henceforth, participation, trust and belief are implied when someone tries to understand something. The difference with the drama between Ismael and the dinosaurs is that, unlike the teenagers, he could witness the whole event. Ismael understood something; the teenagers were left to believe it. All of them participated in some way. As I write this chapter I still do not know what to think of the event. Sometimes I think it was a hoax and the teenagers on stage knew the hypnotist previously. I do not fully believe in what happened that day and therefore I cannot understand how it could happen. If they were hypnotised, I condemn such an abusive manipulation of the mind and bodies of those youngsters for public amusement. Reading about hypnosis I learned that the practice of stage hypnosis has been a common feature of human history over past centuries. To be successful, a stage act must take place in certain conditions: those who go up on to the stage are already prepared to listen to the hypnotist, and with a test the hypnotist eliminates those who are not so susceptible; ‘nervous expectation heightens suggestibility’; ‘advance publicity has stressed the hypnotist’s powers and made people more inclined to be hypnotised by him’; ‘seeing one person go under increases the chances that the next will and so on by the domino effect’; ‘there may well be an element of peer pressure, if one has friends in the audience’ (Waterfield 2002, 10). Waterfield explains that is popularly believed that those subjected to hypnosis are completely unconscious of what they are told to do, but this is not the case. He says that ‘you cannot compel someone, under hypnosis, to do what she would not otherwise have done’ (Ibid). Not every person can be hypnotised, and the effects of hypnosis, whether for therapy or for an onstage performance, depend upon the person’s compliance and the hypnotist’s authority (Forrest 1999, xii). Waterfield explains that during a hypnosis session, our ‘generalised reality orientation’ (a term used by psychologists) fades ‘in favour of a special, temporary orientation’ and this fading involves a reduction in the individual’s critical faculties. The individual begins to take part in the hypnotic process, and himself recalls feeling the following. On the one hand, you are certain that if you chose to you would not go along with the hypnotist’s suggestions, and you can easily see through his ways of getting you to do something; on the other hand you think to yourself: ‘I might as well go along with it for the sake of the experiment.’ So the feeling is ‘Shall I or shan’t I?’, and this feeling persists throughout (Waterfield 2002, 26).

This confusion, termed ‘parallel awareness’, is what is necessary ‘to seed powerful therapeutic ideas’ (Ibid); ideas like those of being well-behaved with parents and teachers, or not swearing. Waterfield continues: 132 From the outside, the behaviour of a hypnotised person may be no different from that of a person in a normal state. From the inside, though, interesting things are going on. The most usual feelings are: relaxation; diminished awareness of outer events and increased immersion in an inner world; a general feeling that one’s psychic processes have somehow been extended, despite a narrowing of focus; boredom (a decrease in associative activity), leading to increased vividness or forcefulness or interest of certain systems of ideas, particularly those introduced by the hypnotist; relative immobilisation and fixation on a single sensory experience […]; time-distortion and partial amnesia, so that a half hour passes like five seconds; a dream-like effortless flux of experience; a dream-like illogicality (‘trance logic’), so that anomalous situations are taken for granted (Ibid, 26).

I transcribed this paragraph to give an explanation of what the teenagers were going through, but also to highlight the association between human experience, time and understanding. Although understanding happens in the individual’s own terms, s/he is never isolated from the materiality of her or his existence, culture, the spaces, a moment relative to his or her life, and the surrounding discourses (Ingold 2001; Briggs 2001). Understanding and believing, as Michael Welbourne suggests (2001), requires that we trust in what we are told by others, so the teenagers had to trust their friends to ultimately believe in what happened. This process of trusting and believing is reminiscent of the way in which scientists go about finding out what they know: by doubting and testing (Chalmers 1999; Shapin 1996; Shapin and Schafer 1995; Pickstone 2001; Harvey 2004). What is rather surprising is the possibility of witnessing three ways in which an institution is unintentionally encouraging mistrust. As Harvey has pointed out, ‘expertise in an era of powerful information technologies becomes increasingly untrustworthy’ (Harvey 2004, 16). As these examples have shown, it is not just ‘the educated non-experts’ who are ‘increasingly frustrated by the impossibility of controlling science’ (Ibid), but any person who becomes involved in a popularisation activity. Any of these may develop a sense of mistrust. Nevertheless, this is certainly an unintended outcome from the popularisers’ perspective. In all the cases described, even the description of my initial scepticism of witnessing a possible hoax, show that this centre boosted parallel understandings, namely, the centrality of mistrust in the scientific activity. During the Sun festival, different sorts of beliefs were exhibited all in one day without the explicit intention of illustrating that expressions of knowledge and belief are varied, and that the scientific version is not the only one we have to embrace. We may trust in the effects of practicing Yoga Kundalini, in the possibility of communication with the deity of the Sun, or in the amateur astronomers who seem to know what they are doing. Then the Sun reaches its zenith at the predicted hour and we all understand that there is a

133 zenith, that the Earth travels around the Sun and spins on its sloped axis, and that astronomers know some things. All these traditions are based on the search for trance-like states of mind. If distortion of time and critical awareness are involved in all these practices, then the question to ask is why the understanding of science is popularised without the explicit acknowledgement that, as in any other discipline, understanding science requires a particular long-term motivation, a particular state of mind and of critical awareness? Not a trance-like manipulation, but a life-long discipline that involves individuals in the wider scientific community (Latour 1987; Zabusky 1995; Rabinow 1996; Hayden 2001, 2003). It is the ‘temporal elaboration of the act’ (Foucault in Munn 1992, 111) that remains unacknowledged in the popularisation of science. Science centres take away this discipline, as well as the long-term disposition required to understand and to continue searching for understanding. They substitute this disposition with ready-made experiences in environments that accidentally show more of how scientists work. This happens because the empirical disposition to mistrust is not particular to the scientists only, it is human and unintentionally motivated in these kind of centres.

Under the light of time

In terms of time and timings, what emerges from the events described is not the alternative approach of a cultural group to time, but the dissonant perceptions of time and the embodiment of developmental timings set against or differing from the linear institutional usage of time. Nancy D. Munn (1992) has detailed how theoretical understandings of temporality have so far highlighted that time is ‘an inescapable dimension of all aspects of social experience and practice’, and studies that highlight its relevance have been in fields like political structure, descent, ritual, work, narrative, history, cosmology and anthropological discourse. Munn concentrated her own efforts on the proposal of a theoretical examination of the ‘sociocultural process through which temporality is constructed’ (Munn 1992, 93). By highlighting the presence of the future in the perceptions of the past and the present, she became interested in a symbolic process through which individuals continually produce a temporalisation in their everyday practices, but specially while giving shape to their projects (Munn 1992, 116; Gell 1992). Munn’s thesis is compatible with Lefebvre’s theoretical work and his conception of the conceived, lived and perceived spaces. Influenced by these authors, I have tried to show how institutional and bureaucratic perception and imposition of time limit the understanding of science while enhancing the generalisation of linear perceptions of time. I also tried to show how others’ 134 timings and perceptions of the temporal dimension are ignored for the sake of the project of quickening the activities designed for the learning of science. This ignoring and consequential miscommunication is, I suggest, essential for normalising ideas within institutions and through the institutions. Nevertheless, a simplistic idea of time cannot encompass how individuals perceive what is meaningful to them, in their lives of interaction. So, for example, although developmental notions of linear progression may indicate the stage an individual is at, s/he will eventually flow at his or her own rhythm, syncopated by linear normalities, always an individual but also subject to the norms as Althusser proposed (1976). The need that conceivers feel for the display of effective communicative media is understandable, especially when planning for a public expected to visit a science centre or museum only once or twice in a lifetime. The visitor should learn or understand something in those sporadic two-hour visits, over and above feeling interested in returning another time. A contradiction arises nevertheless, given that by engineering all these intellectual ergonomics, ready-made science may be preventing a deeper understanding of the sciences’ milieu. Science centres try to impress the visitor, make her/him believe in what s/he is told. Meanwhile these centres are stimulating unintentionally an apparently negative reaction, a more basic scientific (and intrinsically human) reaction: mistrust. Scientific research requires sufficient time for testing, trying out and even doubting; but lengthy processes do not seem to be as interesting as becoming acquainted succinctly and speedily with the most relevant facts.4 As Latour reminds us, if any lay person decided to put to the test any scientific article or statement, the lay person would need to invest a lifetime in reproducing the experiments and tracking back the extended networks of technoscience, and then test what s/he had been told. Any deeper understanding of science becomes even more improbable when we realise that our dispositions have acquired the rhythm of the immediate (and in isolation as it will be explained in chapter six). There was such a distinct lack of trust, in this centre at least, that the communicative practices for the enhancement of understanding may be rather deploying the scarce communicative circuits so necessary to the reproduction of scientific communities. This idea introduces discussion on the collaborative nature of knowing, communicating and understanding science as illustrated by the second case study (the Knowledge Race).

4 The mention of the U.S. National Science Foundation’s project to promote the public understanding of scientific research, and not only of scientific facts (Field and Powell 2001), may serve to exemplify the awareness that has driven lately the design of science centres on this planet of influence. Economies, on the other hand, require that the public participate as consumers at the frenetic pace imposed by the marketing of new technoscientific products. 135 The obvious pressure of work or school schedules further enlightens these explorations. Because of deadlines, individuals’ knowledge and understandings can be jeopardised. The winning team in the rally finished answering first, got most answers right and received feedback on their efforts by being told that they had won. At the same time, without knowing it, the team taught the special events manager a lesson, and defied the manipulation of the answers by other people (in this case the judges). Only the three winning teams received positive feedback; the rest of the participants did not benefit from any sort of information (apart from knowing that they had lost the competition). Time constraints settled the argument, but the discussion behind the scenes happened because of the impossibility of sharing an infallible frame of reference that could be trusted by all parties. Dealing with others’ claims of knowledge becomes a political struggle; in Barry’s terms ‘a space of contestation and dissensus’ (Barry, 2001, 7); in terms of this chapter, a time for contestation and dissensus. As Herzfeld (1992) has explained before, manipulation of the client’s time is in the hands of the bureaucrat. This manipulation shows how much power the institutions have. In the third case, it was helpful to know that in psychology, the perception of time is thought of as flexible (Waterfield 2002, 26). There is not one single rhythm of perception. Perception apparently changes so much as to allow individuals to concentrate only on the voice of a hypnotist. Time passed as those teenagers danced erotically – they had to be told later about what they had done on stage. People’s perceptions of time can be abused. Following this abusive interaction, comprehension and belief were a conflict of trust and mistrust. From the three cases described in this chapter, it emerges that when individuals interact with others involuntarily, communication might or might not develop. In many cases communication is not established but this does not deny either learning or understanding. What does an anthropologist think when s/he finds that the outcome of the public communication of science ends in the answer ‘Nothing scientific is communicated’? S/he must resist it on evidence to the contrary, but also accept miscommunication as a source of parallel messages. A room may be full of scientific information and different kinds of intellectual ergonomics. It may have been designed to be a proficient communicative space, but if interaction between the participants of the communicative experiences being performed in that space leads to nothing, then the room becomes the setting for a learning of a different sort. Whether the Planetarium is empty or full of information ceases to be as relevant as interaction is.

136 The omnipresence of miscommunication and a regulatory time line has given me a different insight into what is implied by the public understanding of science. At first sight it emerges that there is a highly regulatory timeline prevalent in children-adult interactions. The dominant understanding of human ontogenesis seems to be used, imposed and even abused for institutional purposes. So a child is unable to understand that a robot will not harm him, and he is also unable to understand that adults earn money from provoking fear; that an adult can harm him by saying that dinosaurs eat sandwiches; or by taking him against his will to learn about something that he is not ready to confront. On the other hand, as Briggs has shown, there is no totality and no permanence to the meaning- structures that we build day after day while learning, understanding, interacting, living (Briggs 1998, 210). The regulatory time-line becomes so normalised that any adult can take on the task of explaining anything to a child without pausing to properly understand what the child is conceiving, living and perceiving. Children understand in their own terms, and are driven to trust in others’ testimonies because they are social beings. Adults on the other hand can ignore what a child thinks for the sake of what she ought to think in adult terms. Among humans, ignoring others becomes central to planning, standardising and ruling. When trying to understand, a person does not ignore what s/he is told, although she might mistrust the testimony given (Welbourne 2001). Acknowledging others’ testimonies as truthful begins a political process of choosing what to trust from childhood. The development of trust, as a basic human skill that goes against the natural disposition to mistrust, is also the basis for the growth of the network of scientific knowledge. Scientists have developed a system where trust is dispersed in a network; they have developed a sharing system – an epistemic dependence (Hardwig 1985) – based on reference and refereeing (Latour 1981). Welbourne has suggested that by means of linguistic communication, we learn to trust each other, but also to benefit from observations and discoveries made by others. We share information to our mutual advantage and hence we have developed ways to exploit one another’s work (Welbourne 2001, 94; Roth and Lee 2002). Interest in understanding arises from the political act of trusting – not only as a learning act – which involves the questioning of the individual’s previous understandings and beliefs. But most of all it includes the opening of the Pandora’s Box, as Latour suggested while following scientists in action through society (1987; 1999). I proposed the subject of understanding science in public spaces in Mexico because of my interest in the dialogue that is established between those who desire to communicate their knowledge to those who are assumed interested. Therefore, the prevalence of miscommunication and the emergence of parallel understandings is a provocative outcome. 137 In general I have been arguing in favour of the notion of parallel understandings when there has been evidence of the possibility of learning the unspoken in these contexts.

P.S. The winning team was Universe.

Figure 7. The auditorium on a typical day (Source: The Planetarium’s archive).

138 Chapter six: The unintended understanding of power

This ethnographic account so far has brought to the fore unforeseen aspects of the popularisation of science: the multiverse of exhibition practices, the role children play in the communication of science, the indifference towards a learning community, boredom, and the limited time invested in the explanation of science. The Planetarium seems to be an institution that is falling apart, though it is not. Its permanence in the landscape of the city shows us that it is powerful still. It would be easy to say that the Planetarium has not been effective as a project, but the fact that it has stayed open and money is invested yearly in its administration complicates that simplistic judgement. Even the interest shown by the Board of Patrons in keeping the name Planetarium for the new Science Centre shows the importance of the institution’s presence. In this chapter I will describe some of the moments when I saw a glimpse of the probable future of the institution and discuss finally how the planners of the science centre started to define its new profile. All this happened at the same time as the daily activities in the Planetarium that have been described in the five previous chapters. Overall, this chapter is about power. It is meant to explain how the public character of the popularisation of science is abandoned while the advancement of the entrepreneurialism that lies behind the advancement of science is depoliticised. The three structuring issues around which the new science centre was planned also give structure to this last chapter: the decisions regarding the use of interactive displays, the scientists’ participation and the redefinition of the ideal visitor.

The first transformation attempts

Once I had got to know the institution’s hidden corners, where old exhibits were hidden out of sight, I realised that there was no-one at the Planetarium who designed new exhibits. The staff in the workshops built and repaired the exhibitions and the museographer only decided where to put or relocate what was available. Over a period of five months I heard about, and saw installed by the museographer, at least ten new exhibits, which had been copied from other museums and commissioned by the director.

139 At that time the director was not able to develop innovative or original displays. He was interested, however, in improving the physics and biology areas, and began to search for appropriate displays in other museums. After a trip to the United States, the director embarked upon reproducing the interactive displays he had seen in Arizona, California, Boston and New York. The ones he finally chose to replicate were the ones that struck him as most simple from two angles: they looked easy to reproduce, and the scientific explanation was straightforward, visually simple and easy to understand. He was excited by the idea that visitors would understand the basic science behind the display just as he had. He returned from his trips inspired after talking to the other centres’ directors. The director commissioned staff in the Planetarium’s workshop to build reproductions of some of the interactive displays, while the rest went to a local company with expertise in building exhibitions for fairs and expos. The design of the explanatory texts for the plaques was the job of the museographer. During my visits to other centres I realised that science centres often copied displays. I also noticed that there was an economic dimension to the interactive displays that was important to the administrators. This made me wonder why the director chose to the reproduce the displays instead of forming a team of artists, advisors and builders to design and build original displays. It may be that he saw no sense in trying to ‘reinvent the wheel’ when he had already seen how other displays could explain things. If scientific displays had already been created, they could be bought or, when possible, reproduced. One significant reason for this is the costs of testing and potential failure when putting together a scientific display. One example is a display in the National University’s Science Museum in Mexico City, which clarifies Pythagoras’ theorem (for a right-angled triangle, the area of the square on the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the areas of the squares drawn on the other two sides). The display consisted of two round sheets of plexiglas with diameters of around one meter, put together in a frame. Between the two plexiglas sheets was an empty space. In the middle of the circles was a right-angled triangle with a square on each of its sides. Imagine that the edges of each square were joined. The two smaller squares were full of coloured liquid. When the visitor turned the whole structure upside down, the blue liquid moved through the area of the triangle and filled the area of the third square on the triangle’s hypotenuse. The visitor saw that the liquid from square a and square b combined to exactly fill the area of square c. If turned upside down again, the liquid in square c water flowed again to exactly fill square a and square b. This proved that the areas of the squares on the two short sides of a triangle add up to the area of the square on its hypotenuse.

140 This neat, simple display of a mathematical formula at the museum Universum in Mexico City was reproduced for the Planetarium by a local engineer working at the state’s University.1 The reproduced display worked for one week until the liquid began making so many bubbles that it was only possible to see that bubbles could fill the areas of all the squares and the triangle together. The dye in the liquid began staining the plexiglas sheets, so after two weeks of exhibition, the ruined display had to be removed from the physics room. No more trials were attempted, so the Pythagoras exhibit was discarded due to the difficulties with the unstable coloured liquid. The expertise needed to design interactive displays in museums is expensive. Science centres like the Exploratorium in San Francisco, the Science Museum in London, La Villete in Paris or the Universum in Mexico City, carry out research into developing new exhibitions.2 This situation splits the world of popularisers into producers and consumers. Bought-in displays or exhibits that have already been tested eliminate the need to try other solutions, but limit the science that can be exhibited. What is interesting is that in the science centre’s milieu the limits on choice are transformed into profitable projects; culture is ‘enterprised up’ (Strathern in Helmereich 2003, 252) in order to ‘provide’ differences in centres that reproduce the same explanatory technologies. Perhaps because of the evident reproduction of almost identical environments, in the environments of the science and children’s museums there is a degree of interest in cultural adequacy. For example, the leading private children’s museum in Mexico offers a consultancy service. They say they cover every aspect of the development of a museum project. On their webpage they highlight the need they know that exists to work on each project individually ‘in close relationship with the client’ in order to ‘provide’ each centre with its own ‘personality’ in harmony with the culture, traditions, technology, art and society of each region or community.3 This museum’s influence is noticeable all through the country. This children’s museum has given advice on the design, construction and administration of several private and public museums in different Mexican states. Its influence has also spread into other countries in Latin America, and although the proposal is to build centres with a particular personality, the names, displays, colours, materials, subjects and areas of knowledge seem to be nearly identical. Visitors to this type of centre can easily see how alike they all look. Emulation practices, or for that matter, emulation politics, have become so central to the popularisation of science in Mexico and many other countries that they are

1I do not know though if Universum had previously reproduced it from another centre before. 2 Some of these museums produce books so that anyone interested can learn the principles and practicalities of building interactive displays. The Exploratorium’s cookbook, for example, is sold for $125.00. 3 http://www.papalote.org.mx/ 141 impossible to ignore. As Barry has argued, today interactivity links so many diverse contexts, all related to the public display of science and technology, that an ‘international technological zone’ has been formed (Barry 2001, 130). Barry calls these exchanges the ‘historical geography of interactivity’. In this way, ‘interactivity circulates across different museums’ (Barry 2001, 129). In these politics of emulation what matters is not only what aspects the science centres choose to reproduce from other centres, but how, why and to what extent their administrators decide to exclude the development of knowledge and degrees of technical creativity and understanding. As Barry suggests, here the term politics is appropriate because we are looking at a space for option and opinion which is ‘not fixed, but potentially contestable, multi-dimensional and irreducible’ (2001, 7).

The limits of interactivity

Although the sale of successful exhibits helps museums be more profitable (Hein 1990; Barry 2001, 137-139), some members of the Board of Patrons were not particularly interested in plans to gather a design team for the new science centre. The architect and the biologist working for the Board suggested a workshop where scientists could be invited to develop new exhibits. They proposed creating a space visible from outside where the public could see scientists working on the design of displays. They reminded the rest of the members about the laboratory that the city’s Palaeontology museum had recently included in their exhibition rooms. Through a window, visitors could see students cleaning and putting together fossils found in the dry lakes of the region. The suggestion would not, however, be considered at that early stage.4 Although these centres foster the idea of disseminating knowledge through hands- on interactive activities, if there is no investment in development and research, the centre limits the acquisition of skills and know-how. Most importantly, there is no development of know-why. The participation of other professionals in the field is also limited, as is the inclusion of the institution and professionals in the networks of technoscience and popularisation of science. Conversely, museums that produce interactive displays can

4 Because of budget restrictions, the director of the Planetarium had to try to build replica exhibits in the Planetarium’s workshop or to make a good deal with an outside company. The director of the Board had to be prevented from just buying displays here and there by the twin project’s director. Both directors were summoned and told about the consequences that the director of one of the newest children’s museums would soon be facing. She had been buying displays everywhere in order to ‘fill’ the exhibition area of the huge museum, which had just recently been finished. She would soon realise how expensive it was to maintain, repair and buy spare parts and the specific tools for the nuts and bolts of so many different manufacturers.

142 afford further research and development because their productions are lucrative. Are there implications? Is it not the case that, as in science and technology, popularisation requires know-how to further develop expertise? What appears to be happening in regions where science museums do not develop any expertise is that the projected environments are only designed for big audiences. There is a firm belief in the idea that in the numbers of people who partially understand a collection of scattered facts, rather than considering the possibility of allowing interested people to develop expertise that could be shown in the museum. This brings to mind the problems with the guides. Unlike the objects in the exhibitions, they were treated as irrelevant by both administrations, with the result that whenever they interacted with the public little interest evolved among the guides for the public or from the public for the centre. Interactive technologies displace the creativity of the individual (Barry 2001, 140) at various levels. Interactives hence are in two respects objects that fit into the category of interpassivity proposed by Zizek (Ibid) in two ways. Firstly, at the level of the visitor, who is allowed to touch but limited to just pushing a button or pulling a lever and then seeing what happens. Secondly, at the level of an organisation, which puts each display together according to a manual without developing the expertise required to choose suitable materials, to apply the knowledge developed in local universities, or to foster the participation of artists, engineers and scientists in the creation and fabrication of interactive displays. Interpassivity prevents the establishment of communication skills and communication circuits with scientists through ready-made displays that have already been tested and are taken as self-explanatory objects. From a technical point of view, influential museums become only partially efficient authorisers of science. It is obvious that interactive exhibits are limited instruments that cannot be taken as providers of understanding, awareness and scientific literacy all at the same time to every single user. The problem arises when an institution grows indifferent to the presence of guides or explainers, even to interaction with scientists. Interactive displays are thought of as the explanation and the explainer. Hemmings et al. dispute this notion by describing the findings of two science centres in England, namely that displays, texts and single artefacts cannot successfully produce a specific educational outcome in a science centre: ‘it is the timely and appropriate intervention of the educators that produces a redefinition of the outcome’ (Hemmings et al. 2001, 110).

143 The scientists’ participation

In 2001, the new project of turning the old Planetarium into a modern science centre was announced in a video produced by the Board for the media, the local government, potential sponsors and local universities. The premise was that the project belonged to a Mexican state with a history of important scientific and technological successes and an environment where science can be found all around, even in traditional food. To communicate this idea, the video showed a mixture of local traditional features with images of scientists working in laboratories, and technological innovations. The first sequence was a ‘normal’ day in the life of a middle class family. It opened with a woman cooking, and two bored teenagers waiting for the meal to be ready. The father enters the house, gets rid of his jacket, tie and briefcase, sits down in front of the TV set and begins changing the channels. He is about to start watching a football match when his son spots something interesting and asks his father to change the channels back: it is an advertisement for the new science centre. The mother carries on cooking while father, daughter and son watch the new planetarium advertisement.5 The video was presented to various small gatherings of different groups of people. At the screening it is explained that the objective of the Board of Patrons is to refurbish the Planetarium first, where only the physics and astronomy exhibitions will be housed, and to build six smaller buildings to accommodate other exhibitions dedicated to the disciplines of transport, life sciences, natural resources, telecommunications and informatics, social sciences, chemistry, and maybe an ethnobotanical garden. The project managers were already working to gather a group of private organisations that might be interested in funding the museum’s park. The Board members were also trying to gather a group of scientists from the various universities in the city who might agreed to participate voluntarily but formally, without any explicit promise of participation in the administration of the future centre. These scientists were invited to further define content for the thematic areas decided by the Board and to give shape to a preliminary museographic proposal, in exchange for the satisfaction of contributing to the popularisation of their area of expertise in the city where they live. Meanwhile, as with every historical transformation of the museum, a new public was being defined (Macdonald 1998a, 1998b; Bennett 1995).

5 Every aspect of the Project seemed to be based around fathers and boys. Whenever a woman appeared in the images of the plans it was because the woman had a beautiful face, was giving birth, dancing the typical dances of the region or was a guide inviting the public to the centre. Women appeared as accessories whereas men represented those interested in knowing. Gender issues have not been extensively addressed in this thesis, but would clearly make an interesting and important focus for future research in this field. 144 Once this first design phase with the scientists was concluded, the proposals were to be analysed and some suggestions given priority depending on their viability in terms of costs, space and engineering. The executives of the project explained in the meetings with the scientists that it was the executives’ prerogative to make the final decision on what to include in the rooms from the scientists’ proposals. In the document for internal regulations it was also explicit that ‘other specialists’ would design the museographic aspects, although a team of scientists would supervise and give advice on the production of the content previously defined by them.6 A fluctuating network started to take shape, on paper at least, granting the power of decision-making to different people at different stages according to their expertise (and according to their power within the nascent organisation). It is important to notice that the internal regulations were not written before the meetings with the scientists but after. The Board presented the project to the groups of scientists; the latter discussed it in their institutions, and a week later they came back with their first inquiries regarding the benefits from such participation. Confronted by the scientists’ questions, the Board of Patrons decided to call for one of their common cloistered sessions to write down the rules and specifications. This document was distributed in the following open meeting. It seemed carefully written, so that the Board of Patrons held the prerogative of deciding, but nowhere did it mention any kind of recompense for the highly regulated participation of the scientists. Both the biologist on of the Board of Patrons and the leading scientists who were first contacted became crucial in conveying and strengthening a sense of duty among the rest of the scientists. The invited scientists – people already interested in the popularisation of science – were encouraged to participate on the understanding that their cooperation would be for the benefit of the local public. I heard many times that it was the scientist’s moral duty to communicate his or her knowledge to the community. On the other hand, I also heard many times that the Board should not ask too much from the scientists because they were used to working their own hours at their own pace. If participation was to be voluntary, then the degree of the scientists’ involvement would be up to the scientist. In the Board meetings the scientists’ participation did not seem to be considered of lasting importance to the project. But their participation was no doubt essential. They were the ones who could put together a proposal that contained the subjects relevant today in the fields of expertise that the Board wanted to build museums for. Their knowledge was necessary but the final decisions would not be made by a scientist but by the professional

6Source: Patronato del Centro de Ciencias y Tecnología, Reglamento Interno, Proyecto Parque Planetario de Guadalajara, Etapa: Planeación, Februrary 28, 2002, Articules XIII to XVIII. 145 and entrepreneurial members of the Board, and the entrepreneurial and governmental bodies that would provide the funding.

Dealing with the first volunteers

The first project to be proposed by one of the scientists was the ethnobotanical garden. An agronomist who specialised in the agave plant and worked for the state university presented her project to build an ethnobotanical garden that would connect all the museum buildings. Her project was ambitious and interesting; it showed effort and serious research. The presentation of the ethnobotanical project was of a very high quality compared with the projects presented by those working at the Jesuit university, which were often just vague plans and proposals. In contrast, the ethnobotanical garden had a clear scientific purpose, as did the project proposed by an astrophysicist also worked for the state university, who independently began the production of a film about the force of the gravity. Both were passionate projects from two scientists deeply involved in their field of expertise. But the group of professionals working for the Jesuit university continually disparaged the value or importance of the others’ projects. I did not witness an open conflict, but with their all too frequent objections they made clear that in that office only the glass table was transparent; alliances and secrecy, and consolidating a position in the new community of planners were the major currency of exchange. Perhaps I have not explicitly established how much power the planners had; especially those who worked for the Jesuit university. They were the ones who decided on the inclusion and the exclusion of people or their ideas. Two examples follow. In one of the Patrons’ meetings, the group of students who worked with the architect (who designed the foyer’s triangular reception area) asked for a letter to establish that the students’ work could be considered as professional practices. Proving that their work had been useful for a private organisation was a requirement of finishing their first degree studies at the Jesuit university. When the situation was explained to the Board by the architect, the members felt at first that a private organisation should sign that letter. Some members said jokingly that, as a matter of fact, the members of the Board had the official power to sign that letter because they were entrepreneurs administering a public venue. So the people involved in the Board’s businesses, themselves employees of the Jesuit university, signed the documents that would go to the university where they also worked. On a second occasion, the agave expert who presented the ethnobotanical project mentioned that she intended to ask for funding for the garden from the state council of 146 science and technology. A woman member of the Planetarium’s Board of Patrons, who worked for the Jesuit university’s vice-chancellor, and who always insisted on being invited to every event or gathering, vigorously opposed the agronomist’s suggestion. She said that the Board had to agree on what they, as a group, would ask and to whom. The ethnobotanical garden was not something they all wanted to include in the project, so the Board should not agree with the agronomist asking for funding from the office she had suggested. Although in principle this woman was right about the funding, one week later, everyone was talking about the inadequacy of the ethnobotanical garden. The strategy turned to dismissing the garden proposal instead of discussing its relevance to the whole popularisation endeavour. A new group of biologists began planning a different garden project. The agronomist got to know about the decision two weeks later. Shortly after, I heard that the woman who opposed the ethnobotanical garden was not only working for the Board of Patrons and the Jesuit university, but was also a member of the committee who decides how much money the state council for science and technology grants every year and to whom it grants it. When the ethnobotanical garden was rejected by this powerful woman first and by the rest of the board members later, none of them discussed the implications of ignoring the explanation that the agronomist gave to justify her project’s importance. She had discussed her ethnobotanical project with other scientists in Europe and the United States and had come back certain that the project was of the utmost importance to the scientific community in that Mexican state. The main objective of the project was to study the uses of the region’s flora and to create a ‘bank’ to house a collection of the wild agave species that can be found in the region today. Collecting these wild specimens would help protect agave species that are close to extinction. As agave producers are only interested in one particular species, many others have been cleared from the agricultural zone, leading the wild species to extinction. A few are still scattered around the region. Specimens of these remaining varieties could be rescued, studied and protected in the ethnobotanical garden. The agronomist said that her project was not so much oriented to the public but to the scientific community. Still, the garden would be organised to allow the wider public to visit and would depend partly on these visits. Her project would not involve the purchase of interactive displays but proposed the interaction of scientists with the public. The reasons given for rejecting the garden were that it would be more interesting to have a wider collection of flora and not just an agave-related one. The political reasons for denying the participation of this particular scientist were never disclosed. The project was

147 not discussed again nor was her involvement with the substitute project for a more varied botanical garden. Neither of the first two science popularising projects – the astronomical and ethnobiological – received the support of the Board. The astronomer got partial backing only after he clarified in a meeting that he was not asking for money from the Board, and that he intended to offer the film as a gift to the Planetarium. One of the Board members, the entrepreneur who worked as an advisor on the expansion of a powerful multinational company in the city, said that the firm could be interested in supporting the astronomer’s project with paper, and the printing of posters to publicise the screenings. After the Patrons realised that there was no need to invest money, they welcomed the project, but without much interest. I realised that the astronomical project succeeded because it did not depend on either the Board or the Planetarium to realise it, but on the personal strivings of the astrophysicist and his explicit and personal interest in the popularisation of astronomical knowledge. As Macdonald has explained, it is important to note that behind every exhibition there is not just one hand holding the pen of authorship (Macdonald 2002, 86-87). It should also be noted that most people with the power to ‘hold a pen’ hold it because of their various affiliations and some times in the name of those connections.

Negotiating the power of Science

In the situations just described, the scientists were playing the role of the savant alone. If their affiliations do not go further than their research institutes their participation in the popularisation of science is somewhat discouraged. Other professionals participate as ‘authorisers’ (Macdonald 1996), who bring the power of their multiple connections to the discussion table. The problem, therefore, seems to be that apparent division, already described by Irwin and Wynne, between contexts of dissemination and contexts of validation (1996). As the authors have suggested, the problems of miscommunication are not only to be found when science meets the public but when the mediators serving the means and ends of more than one single institution meet the scientists. In all these meetings I realised that the ‘double rhetoric of success and concern’ discussed by Kerr and collaborators (1997) was not just used by the scientists when I interviewed them in their institutions. This same rhetoric was used by the promoters of the science centre when trying to convince the scientists to participate. The difference is that the scientist sees him or herself as capable and responsible for communicating her or his knowledge, whereas the members of the Board remind the scientists of their social debt to 148 society and use the scientists’ knowledge for their own purposes. The planners compelled the scientists to give back the knowledge that they have acquired, and to participate in the private science centre project without any economic recompense. Latour (1987) explained how scientists and engineers establish alliances at different times and places in order to do science. These alliances and connections come before any scientific idea is made public. It is with these connections that the universality of science is strengthened. Latour wrote against the diffusion model sustaining his opinion on the study of scientists at work, where work does not mean only analysing over microscopes in an enclosed laboratory while scientific ideas and ideals fly independently from one place to another. Doing science means lobbying, presenting papers, negotiating, looking for donors, refereeing, convincing and enrolling people who may become supporters in the future for the research in question; in other words, extending and consolidating networks. By adding actors (individuals, objects, animals and instruments) to the picture of science, scientists make alliances that in due time give strength to their scientific claims and generally set up the networks characteristic of technoscience (Latour 1987, 142). But Latour was considering scientists as the central figures in promoting science and enrolment. He did not mention the importance of popularisers or of popularisation goals and the public’s understandings of science. Wynne (1993) wrote about the public understanding of science departing from a critique of Latour’s account. He explained how, through the notion of enrolment, whatever those who are ‘enrolled’ perceive is taken for granted and left unexplored (Ibid 332). He proposed that it is in the exploration of the understandings of specific people that the observer will discover ‘more fundamental attempts to renegotiate the very idea of universality,’ and not only the idealised discourses of ‘scientific modernism’ so widely diffused (Wynne 1993, 334). The interesting aspect for me in the renegotiation of scientific universality among the lay public is the parallel reinforcement of ‘the necessary fabric of interdependency’ between the lay public and scientists (Wynne 1993, 39-40). In Wynne’s example the universality of science is undermined by the search for trustworthy scientific knowledge. In the Planetarium, it is the promoters’ use of that ‘dual rhetoric’ ‘against’ the scientists that helps consolidate scientists’ enrolment. These professionals and entrepreneurs are trying to establish and secure their professional power in the popularisation field, protecting their newly acquired authority while negotiating the non- retribution to the scientists they enrol or those who resist the enrolment but contribute independently. As Hayden has found among the scientists bioprospecting in Mexico, the actors who enrol not only decide on whom to include or exclude but also decide who 149 should be remunerated (Hayden 2003). Compensation, the idea that leads Hayden’s steps to follow the scientists working in Mexico for the pharmaceutical market, seems to be evaded at the point when entrepreneurs and certain scientists meet other scientists in the market of the popularisation of science. The sense of duty and philanthropy is somehow forced upon scientists interested in popularising.7 This is how, in a different thread of the webs of technoscience, the social fabric of interdependency is set between different scientists and between the various scientists and entrepreneurs. The members of the Board could ignore the current public and the communication of science circuits in the rooms; they could decide to privatise the understanding of science for those who could afford a visit to the new centre; all these actions, in my opinion, could destabilise the power of the scientist but reinforce, in ways to be discussed, the persistent universality of science and its networks. To say that due to the scientists’ own ‘ignorance’ about society or their own epistemological limits (Irwin and Wynne 1996, 8) they are ‘their own backlash’ (Wynne 1992) seems to be only a partial account. Those stakeholders working for the popularisation of science share the responsibility for the ways in which science and technology are understood and misunderstood today. Especially when they represent a myriad of interests more or less related to the interests of the scientists and the understanding of their practices. In popularisation environments too, knowledge and power are deeply intertwined. A contribution to the social studies of science, especially those influenced by the notion of networks as proposed by Latour, could be that those working for the popularisation of science perform as nodes of the technoscientific networks. The added factor of the inclusion of interactive learning technologies as actors in the networks means that these instruments provide the necessary interface for the self-regulatory behaviour of the users and the expansion of the acceptance of the network. Scientific ‘inscriptions’ are reproduced in interactive displays and are used to influence the understanding of the individuals, to mark them with memorable inscriptions of science. In this way, interactive technologies reproduce the contemporary forms of governance once suggested by Foucault (Foucault in Barry 2001).8

7 It is interesting though to comment that famous scientists might be paid but that it is non-famous ones who are coerced into popularising their discipline for the ‘glory’ alone. See for example Feynman (1985, 256). 8 To further explore the use of objects in the production of subjects see Macdonald 1998a, 16; Hooper- Greenhill 1992; Barry 2001, 127-131; Bennett 1995, 6; Moore 2004, 85. 150 The redefinition of the public

As mentioned earlier, at the same time as arrangements with the local scientists were organised, the type of visitor was redefined in different meetings. The following are some of the conversations that this subject provoked. During a board meeting, the Board’s director mentioned the advice he had received from the director of the most influential private children’s museum in Mexico. This lady, a member of one of Mexico’s richest families, told the Board’s director that every interactive museum should be built close to the rich areas of the city. Otherwise, she said, the project would be doomed to failure. When she was told where the Planetarium was located, she alleged that a replica of her museum would not work there. In disagreement, a retired military engineer member of the Board told another story: a couple of years before, an entrepreneur in the city was unsure whether to build a commercial plaza in the same deprived area that the Planetarium is in. The entrepreneur’s argument was similar to the one given by the woman directing the children’s museum: a commercial enterprise like a shopping centre would never work in such a deprived setting. The inhabitants would not have the money to spend in the plaza and people from better off areas in the city would think twice before shopping in this poor area. The same fear of commercial failure was felt on the suggestion of building a McDonald’s restaurant in that same plaza. ‘Well,’ the retired engineer said, ‘today, that restaurant is more successful than any other McDonald’s in the city!’ (The plaza is not).9 After some conversation around the restaurant’s success and the scepticism of the children’s museum director, the members of the board decided that they were facing a ‘window of opportunity’, a chance to succeed just as the restaurant had. No one had ever tried before to promote scientific knowledge among such public in that region, so they thought that the centre had a big chance of being successful even in the old Planetarium’s location. Although the site provoked much debate, there was nowhere else for the group to build anything similar without losing their privileged place as promoters. They argued that the Planetarium was already a popular venue for the understanding of science. Besides, two years had already been spent negotiating with other statesmen and entrepreneurs over the land to be appropriated by the new science centre’s administration. The last time I heard the location discussed two significant events happened. Firstly, a Board member whom I had never seen before suggested that the rest of the group consider building the science centre in the neighbouring municipality within the same

9 For me this engineer’s contribution did not solve the dilemma. It is debatable whether the success of McDonald’s restaurants is because of the low prices of the food or whether it is because it is a fashionable venue with aggressive advertisement campaigns, or a combination of the two. 151 metropolitan area. An entrepreneur who worked as an advisor for transnational companies in the city turned around and fiercely told the first man to forget the idea. I had never seen anyone so angry during fieldwork and did not see anything similar again. The discussion around the location of the science centre was finally silenced when someone mentioned that the richest areas in the city were built over the most dangerous geographical zones, whereas the Planetarium was built on land not threatened by earthquakes, making it one of the safest and therefore one of the most valuable terrains in the city. The problem of location arises partly because science centres are expensive and their first objective must be to guarantee that they will receive an adequate income to maintain the centre after it has been built (Bradburne 1998). It makes sense from a business perspective that the endeavour you have invested in is placed where it can be profitable. But building science centres in middle-class or richer areas may have implications for the public nature of the goal of providing scientific literacy. If at some point in the region’s history the objective was to build accessible and family-friendly environments with public funds, today the central aim is to keep the centre going by creating consumer-friendly environments with private funds, where people spend money on admission charges, shops, food, special events and souvenirs. Today, science centres are places where donors in search of publicity and reduced taxes pay to invite groups of disadvantaged school children to enjoy the spaces, and where every person entering pays a considerable amount of money for a day of leisure.10 While listening to the planners discussing the ideal science centre, I understood that the stakeholders were facing a dilemma over the public nature of the understanding of science. What surprised me was that I saw no sense of concern about abandoning the idea of a service to the public by turning the institution into a private venue. At the same time as the meetings with scientists, the Board of Patrons hired a media researcher to find out what the middle class in the city thought about the ‘old’ Planetarium and what sort of entertainment this ‘type’ of family was looking for. They also sought the advice of other science museums’ directors both in Mexico and in the United States. There was somehow a sense of righteousness in the Board’s decisions and their indifference towards the formerly public and bureaucratic nature of the centre. The longing for not dealing with bureaucrats, the justified need for resources to have better equipment and better exhibitions, the

10 Even where science centres invite children to participate in lucrative events, children’s ideas may be sold to advertising agents, as with the children’s museum in Mexico city and their project Antenna Consulting. As explained on the webpage, in these settings in the museum, brain storming sessions are organised with children so that their ideas help in the creation and positioning of marketable goods and new commercial products: the children ‘are the creative agents; they say what they expect from a product and at the end of the session the agent has a ‘wall full with ideas’ www.antennaconsulting.com 152 idealisation of a strong bond between the universities and the industrial sector, all these justifications were aiding in the depoliticisation of the advancement of the entrepreneurialism that the stake holders represented. Their dissociation with the public venue consolidated day by day. As I explained in chapter three, the project was developing separately from the daily activity of the centre. When the plans for the future of the science centre were made public, the development of the rationale behind them was kept confidential. Keeping this information secret to all but the small group indicated also the dissociation from the professionals who did not work at the Jesuit university. This secrecy, along with some of the arguments and negative comments I heard, showed me that there was a degree of antagonism against people who worked at the state university and tried to participate in the project. This divisionism could also be interpreted as the antagonism between private versus public interests. As Gupta and Ferguson have written, given the control over the plans, one could hardly speak of a ‘public sphere’ anymore (Gupta and Ferguson 1992, 19). Such was the case in the Board meetings. All these factors lead me to believe that the popularisers of science are not just promoting science and the learning of meaningless and isolated information; they also promote the situated development of a production and consumption network. Macdonald directly addresses the question of the transformation that has led to visitors being increasingly perceived as consumers. The consumer exercises a political power through choice (Macdonald 1998b; García Canclini 2001) but as Macdonald reminds us, it is problematic to uncritically celebrate consumerism as a democratic tool (Macdonald 1998b, 134) and the producer’s role in determining what is to be chosen, and the accompanying rhetoric. Moreover, the post-Fordist legitimization of available choices in terms of being ‘what people want’ conflates desire and democracy in such a way as to ‘deproblematize’ democracy, and deny connections between pleasure and power: ‘fun is fun, and has nothing to do with power’ (Berland 1992: 47). As such, ‘the popular’ and the choices on offer are positioned beyond critique (Macdonald 1998b, 134).

In defining the new science centre for a new type of public, only capable consumers were considered; hence only some individuals would be ‘authorised to make choices and have pleasure’ (Macdonald 1998b, 134). Once inside the centres, every member of the public is denied ‘the choice not to choose,’ and this is one way in which ‘personhood is being defined in enterprise culture’ (Strathern in Macdonald 1998b, 134). Considering the knowledge-ignorance paradox proposed by Ungar (2000), in which the growth of knowledge and expertise is directly related to the growth of ignorance, we

153 understand that in fact there are political struggles defining in which segments of the public the growth of both, ignorance or knowledge will take place. It is in the political struggles of the individuals involved that we can better understand the factors that affect and effect scientific literacy. Although those who aim for the solution to the knowledge-ignorance paradox have asked ‘what is relevant expertise?’, ‘who has it?’ or who is in a position to make a valuable contribution to knowledge? (Roth et al. 2004), these examples show that one should also aim to explain how some people reach the position of being able to define who will have access to what sort of explanations. At least in the realm of the popularisation of science, whenever competing rationalities are observed, followed and questioned, scientists partly lose their agency as the main powerful agents that consolidate the ‘universalism’ of scientific knowledge. The popularisers’ discourses appeal to voluntary participation (Sánchez Mora 2002, 306) but it seems that interest in embedding the scientific experience into a culture as a whole implies an involuntary but active role of the public as a consumer, not only as a voluntary and passive receptor of an ideological monologue. As Barry has written, today ‘the liberal conception of culture as a means of individual improvement’ runs alongside the ‘neo-liberal notions of culture as a consumer product’ (Barry 2001, 133). The pervasive power gap that, according to Lévy-Leblond ‘puts scientific and technical developments outside of democratic control’ (1992, 20) is reproduced in these settings. But the gap grows more subtly as reality is ignored along with the abandoning of the public character of the institution. The discourses around the popularisation of science are only the beacon in the study of a field where, for the moral good of the population, many other projects are disguised. The rhetoric of popularisation is mainly the entry point for the exploration of the real impact that these networks of popularisers have in particular contexts. As Ferguson understood in 1985, every discourse, as any social practice ‘does something, it has real effects on the world’ although it should not be regarded as a ‘master practice’ (Ferguson 1985, 423).11

11 A playful possibility: What if one day it was made clear to every scientist that the State was no longer responsible for funding research, development and education? What would happen to the rhetoric around the advancement of science for the social good? What would the scientists do in that case? What could justify all their efforts? These questions show the importance of studying the history of scientific sponsorship in the country and the changes in the rhetoric around the popularisation of science. 154 The implications for a nation-state

As Barry has described from three representative museums he has studied, interactivity is used differently according to context. In the French museography at La Villete, Barry discovered an interest in connecting ‘the body of the individual visitor with a fantastic vision of a technological nation’; the Exploratorium in the United States used interactive displays to disseminate ‘a sense of scientific experimentation to the wider public’; whereas in the British Science Museum, the categories of science and technology are seen and exhibited as ambiguous categories, as ‘complex political and cultural objects’ marked by ‘contestation, uncertainty and undecidability’ (Barry 1998, 112). I find it quite difficult to produce a phrase that may condense how interactivity is used in the context of the Planetarium; let alone to make that phrase describe the complexity of the country’s museological environments and make it representative of a ‘Mexican perspective’. I can explain though that in wider terms, most science communicators are convinced of the economic importance of the popularisation of science, but they write and popularise with the ideal of science for the general public good. For example, from the perspective of two influential popularisers in Mexico, science should be divulged first, in order to make science ‘part of the contemporary culture’ (Estrada 1981, 57-58, translation mine), by providing the population with a good scientific education (Fierro Gossman 2002). Cereijido wrote that, ‘for the future of Mexico’, what the popularisers do is more important than what the economists do (Cereijido 2002, 75 translation mine). In their written or spoken discourse, popularisers seem to think of science as a desired and attainable neutral good, and that is the way their ideas are published and exhibited in museums and science centres. Awareness about the disadvantages carried with the ‘underdevelopment’ tag floats in the air, and comparison with the US suffices for most popularisers to justify the increment of their efforts in popularising science; but the arguments do not go much further, as Isita Tornel has explained (2002). Science communicators, like scientists did in the past, have managed to naturalise the notion that science is for the human good and that its popularisation is needed. These arguments necessarily fit in the wider picture of the history of science in the country. The problem is that from reading accounts of those interested in understanding the development of the sciences in Mexico I realised that it would not be a straightforward task to draw on historians’ accounts to contextualise this anthropological research. At the root of this problem of interpretation seems to be the dilemma between opting for an explanation that elevates the importance of the scientists as promoters of the benefits of progress against accounts where political and economical interests are exposed and the 155 image of the pioneering scientists is somehow tainted. As I have tried to show, the description of scientists and their popularisation interests are not a matter of either/or. Many unexpected actors join the advancement of the technoscientific networks and the relationships with the state change via political negotiations. 12 I have opted then for one area under discussion around which historians, scientists and economists alike seem to agree: the problem of the endogenous development of a ‘national’ science. All the authors that are introduced in the next lines have explored the difficulties of developing bonds between the local sciences and the industrialists as central consumers of technology. 13 Significantly enough, their accounts apparently contradict Latour’s ideas of the inescapable interdependence between scientific and technological developments. This apparent contradiction is in fact adding an explanation to what Latour does not consider when he describes the advancement of science via the creation of technology: although the concept of the network is not compatible with the existence of peripheries, some scientific institutions are enrolled to provide resources, but these are not enrolled as central developers of innovations. Latour does not explain very clearly how in technoscientific networks the marginal participation of non-Western scientists endures, although he clearly describes the differences of scale between the networks at both sides of the Great Divide (Latour 1987, 212). The integration of the networks of European technoscience goes back to the years of exploration of the new colonial territories. According to Latour’s explanation, anything that could ‘enhance either the mobility or the stability, or the combinability of the elements [of technoscience]’ would be ‘welcomed and selected’ if it accelerated ‘the accumulation cycle’ on which the European economic expansion was based (Latour 1987, 227-228). So, for example, every piece of information that could help in putting together the map of the world for further explorations and commercial routes was highly valued. Since the beginning of its integration into the technoscientific networks, traced back to the arrival of the first Spaniards with the scholastic culture, the opportunity of the Mexican nation-state to participate in the world market was forced towards the exploitation of its resources. The nascent country subsequently became an exporter of raw materials (Fortes and Lomnitz 1991, 17; Ruiz de Esparza 2003, 139). Scientific disciplines related to the exploitation of natural resources were strongly developed; whereas development of disciplines related to production, industrial manufacture, and especially the theoretical

12 See for example Trabulse 1984, 1994, 1997; De Gortari 1973; Herrera 1981. 13 Subtly but clearly, the subject of an endogenous development via the integration of science and technology somehow echoes the description of the privatisation of the public Planetarium.

156 understanding of nature, like physics, were held back (Ramos Lara and Saldaña 2000, 114- 116). Among some historians, the division forced locally between basic and applied sciences and between scientific research and its application in industry is seen as the internal condition that endorsed the marginalisation of the country’s economy and its scientific production. An outcome has been the inefficient process of incorporation of know-how and the consequential halt in the technical progress of the productive sector (León 1998, 243; Leite Lopes 1978; Herrera 1981 [1971], 72-74). It is significant to mention that not just Trabulse (1994, 1997) has suggested that in the case of Mexico, science and technology were not bound together as Latour implied in terms of centres of technoscience. Other authors who discuss the social aspects of contemporary science in Latin America, like Marcelino Cereijido, have tried to address the issue of the technoscientific lag, and they have concluded similarly. With the question that gives title to his book ‘Why do we not have science?’ (¿Por qué no tenemos ciencia?, 1997), Cereijido answers that although Latin American researchers publish articles in refereed international journals, work at international prominent institutions, and win distinctions and prizes, the industrial sector in Latin American countries has not ‘assumed its responsibility’ by promoting and funding research for innovation. Instead this sector has invested only in manufacture and the import of international ready-made engineering. If only Latin American industries produced innovations to compete with Mercedes-Benz, Boeing, Xerox and Nikon (quoting the examples Cereijido gave), scientists could further develop the sciences in Latin American countries. This does not mean that the sciences in the South of the American continent have not developed at all, or that they have developed independently of the use and application of technologies (Santos Corral 2000; Sánchez Vázquez 2000). On the contrary, the ideas of disconnectedness arise because these countries’ scientific sectors in general do not provide the countries’ industry. Local industries buy global technoscientific advances only. It is widely acknowledged that in Mexico investment in research and development of technology is limited; many local scientific traditions have not developed much. Most of those who have advanced are closely connected to North American and European institutions, publish in international journals and develop subjects of research that are relevant to the international scientific communities. Other scientific communities, as Hayden (2003) has shown, grow with the resources that they receive from powerful transnational companies who buy ‘raw’ information to further develop and patent it in North American universities and corporations.

157 In general, scientists working for national universities contribute to the advancement of global technoscience, not to the local integration of the industries and the sciences. There have been very limited commercial relationships between science and technology in Mexico, and no military relationships with local sciences. Nevertheless the state does not stop funding national universities. An outcome has been the inefficient process of incorporation of know-how and the consequent halt in the technical progress of the productive sector (León 1998, 243; Leite Lopes 1978; Herrera 1981 [1971], 72-74). It seems that as long as Mexican industries continue buying foreign technologies, there will be no local technoscientific development, and dependency will ensue. Prevalent political and budgetary solutions have resulted in deeper dependency schemes, more than an endogenous development of science and technology. What would signal an endogenous scientific development? For Herrera it would be the development of new technologies for the exploitation of national natural resources and the exploitation of resources needed internally and not just those for exportation. This author concludes that Latin America’s scientific communities are forced to work for a ‘supra-national system’ that has nothing to do with the region: ‘It is said that whatever the original reason behind the selection of a research subject, the results will always be useful for everyone, because they will contribute to the general progress of science’ (Herrera 1981 [1971], 96). Herrera continues by saying that this is certainly true but that it is also true that there is an almost infinite number of possible research subjects, all of them as interesting as any other for the advancement of science, but not so much for all the countries which get involved in them. As an example, Herrera mentions that it is no less important to do research on new materials resistant to the conditions of outer space, than to determine the aspects that favour the physiological adaptation to life on high plateaus. The difference is that in the first case, the results interest the spatial and defence plans of the world powers, whereas in the second, the results are needed to help promote the well being of millions of dwellers of the Latin American region (Ibid). Priority has been given to the exploitation of natural resources, the growth of the internal market, competitively low salaries and accelerated entry into the international economy (León 1998, 160). As Latour reminds us, ‘half of technoscience is a [U.S.] American business’ together with manpower, money and journals, so countries with resources like the United States, Japan or Western Europe will ‘enrol’ and other countries will be ‘enrolled’ (Latour 1987, 166). In short, there have been only weak links between local science and local technology in Mexico. Their strong bonds pass through the more distant scientific centres of the technoscientific networks. Hence, to think that local sciences and local industries in Mexico have developed independently of each other is one reasonable explanation for the 158 conditions that favour the local scientific dependency on the growth of main-stream technoscience.14 The history of mutual dependency has been decreasing since Northern countries began investing considerable resources in the research and development of new materials to substitute the natural materials for synthetic ones. The substitution, triggered by the tendency of primary resources to increase in cost, may result in considerable savings to those who have the technology to produce synthetic materials. By substituting materials, Western countries have reduced their dependency on the countries that export these primary materials (Herrera 1981, 77). With the simple menace of a possible substitution, producers of raw materials have been obliged to lower their prices, weakening their own economies. As a result, for the last five decades many threatened producers further reduced the prices of the raw materials they exported in order to keep their products in the international market (Herrera 1981, 78). The central problem is that materials needed by developed countries, methods of exploitation and the form in which the product is sold has not changed much in the last century. Herrera has explained that this problem demonstrates that economic dependency continues not only because of the exclusive reliance on exploitative industry, but due to a lack of creativity in one of the most vital economic fields (Herrera 1981, 81). There is ‘some form of neo-colonial legacy’ explained Gaillard and collaborators (1997, 20). This legacy is described as the post-colonial condition by Akhil Gupta (1998). From this post-colonial perspective, every scientific innovation becomes ‘a testing ground for experimenting with the methods and tempos of a new imperial policy’ (Lafuente and Pimentel 2000, 101). Every time an innovation takes place, the old scheme of dependency is repeated, and the result is the same again and again: so-called ‘peripheral countries’ provide the ‘external proletariat’ to the techno-scientifically advanced countries. This international work-division only accentuates the dependency which becomes less and less mutual (Herrera 1981, 85-86; Hayden 2003). León has called the ideal incorporation of sciences and technologies as the ‘technologic utopia’ (1998, 165), and for him it is interesting to see how it has been pursued generation after generation.

14 This account also illustrates the dilemma faced in cycles every time innovations are introduced in this dependency market. A new cycle of exploitation of peripheral knowledge began at the end of the twentieth century for example. So, while Latin American countries struggled to ‘translate the national economic policies within the [science and technology] system, the 1980s saw the countries of the South confront new challenges in their responses to new technologies such as micro-electronics, computers, telecommunications, new materials and biotechnologies’ (Gaillard et al. 1997, 12).

159 Borrowing the term allochronism from Johannes Fabian, Gupta explains that representations of time in development narratives position the Third World nation-states ‘behind’ in the temporality and the space of the dominant nations. He explains that the word ‘underdevelopment’ implies that development has taken place; the marginal is perceived ‘as inhabiting a period that lay in the dim recesses of the history of the “developed” world’ (Gupta 1998, 10-42; 2002).15 The basic assumption behind the quest for the endogenous development of science, as explained by Herrera, is that scientists look for a conscious and rational way to predict. As a result, science offers a way to adapt to the future. The easiest way to predict the future is not in imagining it, but in producing it. One problem faced in Latin America is that these countries are obliged to live the future produced by those countries with stronger technoscientific structures. The worst, wrote the author, is that it is not the future, one which remains constant, but one that is predefined by interests alien to most countries; and this ‘ideal’ future changes drastically all the time, leaving entire populations ‘behind’. The most relevant idea is the apparently inescapable direction towards which every country ‘should’ direct its policies. For Herrera though, this well-known dependency relationship cannot be explained only by the unequal commercial relationships in the world. Scientific communities are ‘governed and influenced’ by global, external pressures, but also by national, that is internal, socio-economic goals. For this author, there has been an internal structure, complementary to the external dependency characterised by the economic and political dominion of land- owners and merchants who benefit from the exports and imports of the country. For these dominant groups, wrote Herrera, external dependency is necessary for the maintenance of their privileges (Herrera 1981, 10-11). The various authors presented here, in general, coincide in highlighting that the challenge for the Mexican state, or any Latin American country, is the endogenous definition of the goals of development based on the knowledge of internal ‘needs, resources and aspirations’ (Cetto 1998, 172), (Cereijido 1997; 2000; Leite Lopes 1978; Herrera 1981). What is this internal structure that enhances dependency? What has been proposed to advance the endogenous development of science within this internal setting of power? Some authors move away from any explanation that involves possible investors – land- owners, merchants or entrepreneurs – to look for answers at the rather diffuse social level.

15 From the analysis of notions of memory and past lives in a paper on reincarnation, Gupta (2002) considers how Western ideas around childhood have influenced the diffusion and normalisation of notions of maturity in relation to economic development, and the ways we understand the world in broader political terms. Certain cultures are seen as underdeveloped in the same way as children are seen as maturing beings. Ideas of the ‘childhood of culture’ permeate our understandings of life cycles and also the political economy of the nations, and so forth. 160 For these authors the problem seems to be ‘cultural’ (Fortes and Lomnitz 1991; Cereijido 1997; Cetto 1998). Cetto (1998), for example, wrote that the scientific culture should become part of the general culture of the country through the education of the population. Cereijido on the other hand has written that what scientists ask for is not ‘support’, as that sounds as if in Latin America people did not know what exactly to do with science; like saying that we do not need bread and do not know what to do with screws, but even so we ‘should buy some’ in order to give ‘support’ to bakers and blacksmiths (Cereijido 1997, 15). Science should be regarded as culturally indispensable. That cultural change claimed as necessary among many intellectuals is usually envisioned as part of the modernisation of public education and the compulsory curricula.16 The rewriting of historical trends among influential circles tends towards the depiction of a modernist progressive state that sets as its goal life in the United States and Europe, but which ignores the consequences of the state’s indifference towards its indigenous, peasant and urban poor populations. The breach between development and underdevelopment inside the country has been growing in parallel with the breach between the nations. Exploration of the popularisation of science has been proposed within this context, to find out to what extent awareness of internal needs is also popularised. It has been shown that even in the development of a science centre, there is no intention of investing in the endogenous development of interactive displays, but there is a forceful tendency towards commercialisation and technological dependency. Where should scientific independence come from? Why is there little awareness of these issues in the products of contemporary popularisers? Many questions are left unanswered, but hopefully one or two routes to finding the answers have been opened here.

The depoliticisation of the advancement of science

I remember when a teenager decided to touch one of the real aeroplane engines in one section of the Planetarium: he put his hand in between the sharp ends and heavy parts of the aeroplane so that he could see the movement of a dusty propeller. He severely cut one finger and had to be taken to a Red Cross clinic near the Planetarium. Afraid of being held responsible and reprimanded, the teenager tried to avoid answering questions about what happened. Nowhere close to this area, immediate neighbour to the interactive physics room, was there any sign saying ‘Interactive zone ends here. Danger. Do not touch’. The accident provoked the director to go and see where the accident had happened. He realised

16 Current opinion points to the total erasure of a pre-modern Mexico, for example. Recently, Mexican newspapers triggered an intellectual movement against removing the history of pre-Colombian Mexico from secondary education textbooks. 161 that the dust had been accumulating for months, that no one cleaned the area or the propellers, and that the engines were not safely shielded from curious fingers. The teenager knew that he had played with an object that he was not supposed to touch. He would be made responsible because he had crossed the limits. But putting your hands on an engine that is out of bounds but five meters away from an interactive hands- on scene is not only fun; for this teenager it meant curiosity, risk, adventure, prohibition, harm, but also a sort of learning. Real technology (and real science) can be dangerous, and it should be handled with care and expertise. But this learning was explicitly accidental, unintended and controversial. The Planetarium may be just one of many institutions that somehow influence the public understandings of science; it might be even peripheral to school and family. Nevertheless, a science centre is designed to fulfil a specific goal, which other institutions share: the process through which culture is organised and ‘created in the minds and the bodies of those who participate in it’ (Briggs 1998, 209). When we closely observe a popularisation environment we realise that our attention is continually distracted by the visible and the discursive although we do not quite understand. The real challenge in these centres, from my point of view, is the extra effort it takes to imagine what else science can be – both for the visitors and for the designers and curators. The endogenous development of the sciences is prevented in every activity that the visitor starts in this centre. But in spaces where people are compelled to understand – where some buttons do not work, where explanations are short or visitors know more than the guides – detachment will prevail, participation will not ensue and the individual will leave indifferent to what science represents in her or his life. If boredom, distrust and indifference are the unintended conditions of the socialisation of science, what is the resulting understanding? In my opinion it is that detachment is safer. In two senses interactive displays become apolitical machines, as Barry proposed (2001): some ‘close down the space for political contestation and judgement’ (Barry 2001, 201) and many ‘fail’ in the procurement of elements which help understand what else science can be. What I see as the key problem in the public understanding of science endeavour is reproduced in this old planetarium and in the conceiving stage of the new science centre: the public is made responsible for understanding. The scientist is not portrayed and the stakeholders together with their interests and responsibilities are not discussed. The direction of the advancement of science is disguised with the moral discourse of the general good.

162 This research has shown that, in an environment for the popularisation of science, there are overriding limits on the participation of the public and scientists in environments where practice should develop. The discourse of popularisation, as much as the use of interactive displays, are aiding in the depoliticisation of the interests of those entrepreneurs now involved in the private advancement of science. This conclusion comes from the observed problem of the major roles that interactive displays are set to play in an environment where everything else is rendered less significant than the object itself. This ‘failure’ to help people understand science is in fact part of what Ferguson called ‘a counter-intentional structural production’ (Ferguson 1985, abstract). Individuals will leave the rooms feeling indifferent and linking scientific explanations with boredom. Some will not question the direction that the advancement of science is taking; they will not even think about why they should. This apolitical attitude will allow the unchallenged advancement of whatever finds shelter under the concept of science. Technology and science zones are surely not as accessible as a science centre portrays them. So, although the new science centre project said that science may be found everywhere around us, access to interactive science is very limited, although permeable, both in physical and political terms (Barry 2001, 41). Relationships of disconnection within particular borders allow for the inclusion of only a few who may benefit more directly than the vast majority from the circuits of production, education, technoscientific tools and scientific development.

163 Conclusion: Understanding science

The public character of the popularisation of science presents an important problem: efforts to popularise science are hindered when access to the benefits and achievements of science is limited. Class and power issues compromise any cheerful explanation about the idyllic share of benefits of science for all. The historical transformation of science into a highly profitable business and investment has complicated the popularisers’ profession. This research opened up with the unintended messages communicated by an engineer in a rural setting in Mexico. The next chapters were also based on the description of the unanticipated realities lived in and perceived in the rooms of a planetarium, syncopated by an account of the plans and ideas of those interested in privatising the institution. Once put in practice, the discourses of the public understanding of science divert into the controlling of the behaviour of the public. In the planetarium, the most visible consequences of this are boredom, indifference and miscommunication. The conclusion reached seems more like a paradox: it could be argued that at the end of this story, people grow indifferent to science after they experience a failure to understand it. This may be the end of the story of the individual’s interest in science, but with this indifference the discursive power of science is reinforced. The pursued reinforcement of science seems to be significantly based on the unintended indifference, and not on the desired understanding. When, for analytical purposes, we shift the focus and make the lay public responsible for understanding, or we highlight the mediatic manipulation, or the scientists’ lack of interest in popularising, we are essentially and most significantly depoliticising the advancement of enterprised science. Inside science centres, forms of participation in neoliberal democracies are being proposed, thereby disturbing the idealised equal distribution of knowledge among a population. It is in these environments where actors find it impossible to participate, and therefore fail to understand science.

When the individual is made responsible for understanding science…

Modern interactive spaces are conceived of and designed with the objective of creating compelling environments where immediate, almost unexpected experiences and the 164 availability of technologies for understanding, help visitors to feel better informed. The individual is made responsible for his/her own understanding, whilst the institution only provides the media to help facilitate this understanding. With the naturalisation of this division, and the obstruction of the participation of the individuals in intersubjective dialogues, the understanding of science is hampered. The participation of every individual in technoscientific environments – as something more than mere consumers – is obstructed. Interactive settings imply participation, but as individuals participate only with the objects, social participation becomes irrelevant, and the communitarian nature of scientific practice (Zabusky 1995) does not develop. It is in the limits of the participation of scientists, lay people and other stakeholders where the complexity of scientific literacy can be better understood, and the understanding of science improved. This thesis began taking shape when I decided to describe how boring it seemed to work in a specific planetarium. I began thinking about how boredom could be a manifestation of resistance. However, I did not pursue this idea because I was never under the impression that children resisted understanding science. Whereas, they certainly resisted the school-like behaviour they were forced to follow, they did not resist understanding through their play or participation in the many interactive environments. As mentioned in the chapter about boredom, when an anthropologist observes that apparently ‘nothing’ is communicated or learned, when we interpret that there is a ‘failed’ attempt of representation, the presence of this failure, as well as the pre-existent assumptions, must be observed and explained. The problem for the individual who is invited to participate in popularisation activities is that the discourses challenge you to have fun in environments where, as has been shown, is probable that this will not happen. There is no visible coercion once you are face to face with the interactive object, but nevertheless, most individuals enter a challenging environment – interaction ‘is compulsory and compulsive’ (Barry 2001, 145), even in dysfunctional centres. The most interesting phenomenon is that the explanations of science provided stop at the point where the individual addressed could engage in some sort of participation. When the individual may really be in the position to interact, learn or teach as a full participant, or when an individual has the chance to become a practitioner, the explanation, the zone or the conversation, even the race for knowledge like a scientific rally for children, stops, thus preventing the individual from gaining a better understanding. Before undertaking this research I could have said that the individual often leaves empty- handed, without understanding science. This research showed me that on the contrary, many visitors who do not seem to be understanding science may understand other parallel ideas. Unintended messages materialised in the environments and the possibilities for social

165 interaction that these centres provide are part of the information that the individual takes home. From the introduction to this research it became clear that it is important to understand ignorance first. Ignorance has emerged from the public understanding of science studies as a political choice. Notions of ignorance are constructed on the basis of our participation in a world where we as understanders – practitioners in Lave and Wenger’s terms (1991) – opt for one kind of information rather than another kind, and that to an observer and even ourselves, this is unpredictable. The motives that drive one person’s search for knowledge may not correspond with the motives of another person. So, for example, a child that is unable at a specific moment to understand the difference between a robot and a living animal is not ignorant. He is just making evident the stage he is in the life-long event of understanding. His stubbornness to enter the room is the visible expression of his personal search for trustworthy information. Wynne (1992) showed that the ordinary person are not the blatantly ignorant subjects that they are thought to be. The individual’s knowledge regarding science will be built upon his or her need to participate in those social environments where scientific information also circulates. Understanding science is not only a learning act, but a political act too. With the idea that people need time to understand we can conclude that the person needs to make the associations between new information and his or her own knowledge, world and imagination (Briggs 1998; Alsop 1999, García Fernández 2002, 192-193). From whatever elements are presented to the individual, s/he will make connections that will be different to those made by others (Briggs 1998), but those associations and the ensuing understanding, or conceptual change, will derive from those facts, stories, objects, people, emotions and attitudes experienced. The resulting learning will not be only about information but about connections between the person, the knowledge and the world – the multiverse. The social character of the process of understanding is obvious in an institution where both the environment and the approach of the staff is intended to propagate understanding. Whatever the degree of interaction there will always be some understanding. If a person is around others, even unwillingly, s/he will become part of others’ processes of understanding, especially if s/he has some authority. If the companion’s intention is to explain, then in order to facilitate this process, s/he will need to devote some time to it. When interaction starts, time is invested. The first outcome will be a degree of trust. If time is not put in, trust will not develop, but some sort of understanding always will. Scientists develop their cultural dispositions, their habitus, in environments where authority is understood in parallel while the individual is being educated (Fortes and Lomnitz 1991;

166 Lave and Wenger 1991; Zabusky 1995). Later, among peers, much of what goes on is generally based on trust, trial and doubt. With the immediate – for being instantaneous – learning that is offered in popularisation environments, basic information can be readily acquired, but to approach an understanding of what science involves is more difficult and complex. It is such a complex endeavour that, as Mol and Law suggested with regard to any complex issue, ‘it shouldn’t be tamed too much,’ not to the point of impeding understanding (Mol and Law 2002, 17). The process of understanding can thus be described as these authors described complexity: ‘There is complexity if things relate but don’t add up, if events occur but not within the processes of linear time, and if phenomena share a space but cannot be mapped in terms of a single set of three-dimensional coordinates’ (Mol and Law 2002, 1). Once we start to consider that understanding and any cognitive process is social and is political, and it is not only ‘inside the head’ of the individual (Lave 1998; Ingold 2000; and authors like Gregory Bateson and James Gibson in Ingold 2000) then we start to notice relationships that were not as visible before. Scientific literacy clearly emerges as a social endeavour (Roth and Lee 2002, 33) and a new dimension opens up – a dimension in which the individual is not more accountable for what s/he knows than the people around him or her are. As Wynne explained (1992, 29) relationships of trust and dependency, as much as the alienation and the division of labour, also take place in every environment for the understanding of science. What this research brought to light are the problems that an institution for scientific understanding faces. I suggested that the knowledge gap (the knowledge- ignorance paradox proposed by Ungar 2000) may – paradoxically – be reproduced in contexts of dissemination such as planetariums and science centres. Although these are the spaces where such a gap is being fought, this thesis has shown that the discourses of success, fun and excitement are one thing (Castillo Álvarez 1988), and the conditions for interaction provided in these centres are another (García Ferreiro 2003, 102). As explained in this thesis, the planetarium studied was, for many reasons not a very effective environment for the popularisation of science. Although the institution provided visitors with information, an interest in science could not develop easily in such an environment. The employees – seen in this study as part of the public who were either not interested or could become interested in the understanding of science – testify that the environment did not provide much support for the development of interest in science. The spaces were not lived nor perceived really for that purpose. The administrators of the Planetarium and the future science centre mainly put their trust in the immediate experiences offered by interactive technologies, but the environments prevented any form of further participation among the people. As explained in chapter six, when this sort of 167 centre develops only as the replication of pre-fabricated environments, participation is impeded from the moment it is conceived and henceforward. Idealised conceptions existed, but the reality of the social interaction in the place was far removed from the promotion and development of a scientific spirit.

When the scientists are made responsible…

As this research has shown, the bond that Irwin and Wynne have described as ‘compliant’ between scientists and cultural institutions that popularise is much more complex than the simple relationship of acquiescence. The scientist is being compelled to give back to society scientific knowledge. In this case knowledge is explicitly turned into a moral good. The rhetoric of success and concern (Kerr et al. 1997) that characterises the scientists’ discourses when they think about society is being used in some way ‘against’ scientists, and their participation in popularisation is thus re-negotiated. It has been shown that scientists are not the only communicators of science, and that the lay public is more than a passive receiver of that knowledge. Scientists are left aside by those involved in popularisation – other scientists, non scientists and entrepreneurs. Whereas the public, like the children described in chapter three, participate in learning and teaching communities, they are also members of these communities and so sometimes are the ones who teach, explain or explore – children are important science communicators. In chapter four I showed how the communication circuit between the large groups that interact daily with the guides in the Planetarium cuts through divisions of class, age and occupation. The popularisers working for this Mexican planetarium, as much as those first popularisers that helped me to introduce this research, are participants in projects that require a lot of planning and designing. They are the contemporary agents that aid the reproduction of forms of social participation and self-government, although they mainly perceive themselves as popularisers of science. Their activities can be seen as shaping the contemporary forms of self-government first studied by Michel Foucault in the French penal system (1997 [1975]). This research has provided a better account of the paradoxes that these individuals face. Economic interests, and those agents with the economic power to make alliances and lead institutions are forcefully directing the activities of the popularisers. The changes that we perceive in the popularisation of science environments – changes such as the privatisation of the institutions and the changes of the model of public – go hand in hand with major economic changes, influenced more by neoliberal politics than by isolated scientists. 168 Stakeholders are getting involved in popularisation activities through the articulation of relationships they bring with them and the environments of technoscience. They defend their positions, use their affiliations with other institutions and their resources to establish the nodes of the networks of popularisation and technoscience. These mediators, authorisers in Macdonald’s terms (1996), are the people redefining science for the public and negotiating the participation of scientists in these activities.

When the difficulty of understanding science is made accountable…

A problem specific to museums and science centres relates to the emphasis they place on the way learning new knowledge can be ‘hands-on’ and fun, but if there is not much to understand or learn, then both the mind and the hand (the body) become disappointed – we disengage and often feel bored. I had to consider the possibility that some children and some adult visitors might relate to science with boredom. Feeling bored might not be so significant to people because we are used to it. But the point to be made with the exploration of boredom in chapter five is that if science is felt as boring, this may be one of the reasons why science is somehow lived as peripheral to people’s and children’s immediate concerns in life. In two ways the importance of boredom is depoliticised: by habituation and by the obsessive search for fun, thrill and entertainment. By not experiencing the fun, exciting and engaging side of science in a planetarium we may start to detach ourselves from it. Through this process of active detachment – of scientific indifference – science, as an authority and as a potential enterprise, may continue to grow and develop unchallenged, while popularisers, statesmen, politicians, and scientists continue to support the rhetoric about the lay public misunderstanding science. Paradoxically, the public indifference towards science is not really a problem for the consolidation of the advancement of enterprise science, to the contrary.

The unintended understanding of power

The kaleidoscopic nature of people’s understanding of science certainly cannot be attributed to one institution only. In any case, in one possible populariser’s ideal setting, where science is available everywhere, we observe that class and indifference towards others emerge as determinant factors for both the increase of knowledge and ignorance at the same time. In this institutional setting the socialisation and communication circuits between generations are being ignored. The understanding of science is being closed but this time not around the scientific institutions, but around the middle and upper classes. (The history of closure around science somehow repeats its cycle.) 169 In an earlier chapter I asked what would happen to these circuits of communication and participation in contingent learning communities after the privatisation of the centre. The transformation of the planetarium into a science centre began with ignoring whatever went on in the rooms of the public institution. Newness emerged from the reproduction of similar institutions but not from the observation, enhancement or improvement of the conditions in which circuits of communication of science were already operating. The understanding of science began to change its concept of the public for the sake of a particular consumption capacity affecting the increase of the knowledge-ignorance gap. This is how the conceived spaces – so defined by Lefebvre (1991 [1974]) – once again overpower the other lived in realities in those same spaces. This particular communicative environment would disappear without being understood nor taken as a reference. The employees were also replaced by new members of staff without affiliation to the state’s workers union. These replacements, together with a predilection for imagined scenarios, showed how the realities of the communication of science were to an important degree ignored. This indifference towards the public venue characterised the approach of the people who were planning to administer the venue in the future. The plans to transform museum practices in many cases are the result of a parallel ignoring of current and meaningful practices or the ‘functioning social order’ (Scott 1998, 6). When discourses of excitement, fun and magic are contrasted with boring or stagnant exhibition rooms, the institutional attempts to explain the power, beauty or need for science are not so apt. As explained in the first chapter, one outcome of this study of the Planetarium is the need to question other studies that take for granted the success of the governing practices of similar institutions. I did not ‘discover’ boredom. The Planetarium is not the first ever science centre where infants have felt bored. This ‘ineffectiveness’ is more than common. In the field of development studies, James Ferguson (1994; 1985) has explained the ‘failure’ of projects when the discourses of development once put in practice apparently end up being baffled defeats. The challenge for the researcher – Ferguson suggests – is not to treat plans, or their ‘blueprints’ - ‘systems of thought and discourse’ – as master plans, nor as ephemeral social practices. The planners’ discourses are component parts of what Ferguson calls the ‘structural production’, but they are neither the master parts nor the only element (Ferguson 1985, 425). Ferguson’s suggestion comes after he realised that the international forces behind developmental projects produce ‘important unacknowledged effects even while ‘failing”’. These real effects are the manifestation of a ‘counter- intentional structural production’ that gives strength to the powerful parties involved in the provision of better conditions to the inhabitants. Those living in poverty will not notice any improvement to their conditions for example, but they will notice instead new bureaucratic 170 extensions of the State’s regime. This happens inadvertently, in unplanned ways, and the resulting extensions to controlling structures end up being surprisingly coherent, even to the astonishment of the planners (Ferguson 1985, 1994). This Planetarium may be taken as a blatant example of the ineffective popularisation of science in a developing country, but before linking failure with underdevelopment and success with development it is more productive to ask other kinds of questions. How, for example, the word ‘science’ does not stop being a buzz word associated with power and dreams of modernity? How does this happen? One possible explanation is that the attempt to follow how people learn science was overtaken by the reality of how people learn other things instead of the thrill of the scientific discovery: I call this parallel understanding. Willis (1977), not satisfied by Marxist explanations that see institutions as forums in which ruling classes exercise power and where children can only choose between compliance or resistance undertook research to explain how ideology can structure compliant behaviour. As Ferguson has explained, departing from Willis’ work, too: ‘the most important political effects of a planned intervention may occur unconsciously, behind the backs or against the wills of the “planners” who may seem to be running the show’ (Ferguson 1985, 33). The unintended articulations between the individual’s cognitive processes and the environment, the structural power of institutions and the individual’s agency are not straightforward and the consequences are difficult to predict. The consequences of these unpredictable connections constitute the unintended outcomes – messages, structures and attitudes – as described in this thesis. In art there is a concept that can be compared to this reasoning about analysing failures, and I have included it here because it allows me to present my interpretation of those exhibitions that are presented as promising. Although to the analyst they look partial and incomplete, to the visitor they are still authoritative: Pentimento (repentance), is an Italian term applied to signify the artist’s change of mind with respect to that which he or she was doing, or had done, and the consequent correction of the artwork […] Strictly speaking, however, for viewers, things happen inversely: a painting exists and as time passes a layer of oil paint thins and lets an older layer show through: two arms become ghost-like, that face once turned toward the sky fades, another pair of arms takes shape, and a grim gaze focuses on the ground. Now we have a two-headed, four-armed monster, a pentimento (Samoilovich 2002, 258).

A pentimento consists of the failed first artistic attempt that was left on the canvas, ‘it is an intermediate form between the preliminary drawing – meant for the artist’s eyes only – and the painting – commissioned by aristocrats or the Church’ (Samoilovich 2002, 259). As Samoilovich wrote, a pentimento seems to run counter to the romantic idea of 171 perfection, because it seems more like an artistic failure. Pentimento is also the best way to distinguish original paintings from copies that are reproduced from the final art product, as copies are devoid of any trace of trial, error or repentance. Like distinguishing the layers of paint on an old canvas, the presence of the unintended messages drove me to walk through the corridors and rooms of the planetarium as if it was a place where the invisible comes to the fore and the visible becomes more peripheral. The recognition of the signs of stagnation that obstruct the narrative of the progress of science made me think that the most interesting aspect of the unintended messages is that they are not lies nor manipulated ideas or thoughts. Unintended messages are concrete materialisations of socio-cultural realities. As with the populariser who is aware of the impact provoked by the tequila industry but silences it when addressing the children who are wary of belonging to superstitious families, the silences kept by those who design exhibitions emerge as unintended messages with their own explanatory power. I found that these institutions are essentially providers of information, but they do not take their functions beyond this because of political and economic reasons. This decision to remain just as providers of information is visible in the unintended messages. An institution that decides not to develop any learning environment apart from the bureaucratic one is limited, and thereby limits the opportunities of others to interact with third parties such as children and teenagers. It is by not placing the practice of science as central that some institutions are incapable of explaining that the practice of science is exciting. By putting ineffectiveness at the core of the analysis I have also tried to show how an institution is working. The promotion of scientific literacy cannot start from institutions that do not establish links and relationships that allow for the design and imagination of the furniture and environments of the institution. If another researcher wanted to study scientific literacy again with a deficit model as in the past, it should not be done through counting how much right answers a collection of individuals give, but maybe by counting how many institutions involved in the popularisation of science are developing knowledge around the task. The reason is simple: as much as science is the product of scientists’ activities (Yearley 1994, 245), understanding science is the product of understanding how it is done. The partial embodiment of the scientists’ experiences through ready-made interactives is not sufficient. Understanding science implies the involvement of individuals in the making of science, through activities such as collaboration with others: participation in the networks of technoscience. The dream of a populariser of science: to provide the scientific illiterate majority with accessible and widespread spaces for the understanding of science will only be possible in the discourse. What is missing are widespread spaces for the 172 participation and incorporation into technoscientific networks of those already interested in understanding science.

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