MANNERS AND HIERARCHY IN THE NATURAL SCIENCES
MANNERS AND HIERARCHY IN THE NATURAL SCIENCES

Summary/Abstract: Much recent anthropological work on the natural sciences has taken its starting point from Latour and Woolgar (1986). Yet one dimension that was little considered in their work was that both observer and observed were employed by Western European states and by institutions regarded as prestigious. This shoved questions of perceived authority or hierarchies of institutions and the state to one side. Consequently the foundations of such hierarchy on a broader historical scale, namely, a concrete discussion of the situation in which both the ethnographers and scientists found themselves, in relation to the economic history and context of Western imperialism, was left untouched. It is this topic I address, in offering a very different anthropological study of science. Following Graeber’s (2007) work linking the rapid growth of mild avoidance relations (manners) over the past few centuries to the development of private property regimes, I look at how manners and ‘polite conduct’ express an unpleasant relation of hierarchy and how that connects with the natural sciences. Such sciences, according to Shapin (1995), have a male-biased grounding in being a conversation between 'gentlemen' in civil society. This is because, during the early modern period, there was a move towards valuing highly knowledge based on experience. Testimony played a crucial role in convincing others that your experiences and observations were worth taking seriously. Whilst not constituting the basis of truth alone, the question of who to trust, or rather, who was a credible spokeswoman for reality was of central importance. This 'credible spokeswoman' was typically a gentleman, a man of refined manners and conduct. I consider the implications of Shapin and Graeber’s arguments for the natural sciences by exploring these fascinating connections between the global production of hierarchy in academia, manners and private property regimes through ethnographic material gained from eighteen months of ethnographic fieldwork based in Belgrade and Zagreb, working in scientific institutions with researchers and students.

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