Gegenexpert:innen

Author(s)
Nils Robert Güttler
Abstract

With the demand for “counter-knowledge” in the social movements of the 1970s and 1980s, “counter-experts” became an integral part of politics. In the field of environmental activism, counter-experts were particularly well represented in regions and agglomerations with high levels of industrial pollution. This essay argues that awareness correlated with a mode of knowledge production that was typical for the environmental sciences in the twentieth century. The history of the environmental sciences throughout that period was shaped by regional epistemologies, often emerging in the context of large-scale infrastructural projects. Many counter-experts therefore had strong ties with the field of the environmental sciences. The article traces three influential counter-experts in the Frankfurt Main region by 1980: the pastor Kurt Oeser; scientific green activist Jutta Ditfurth; and the project of a “social natural science” related to the Darmstadt philosopher Gernot Böhme.

Organisation(s)
Department of History
Journal
NTM Journal of History of Sciences, Technology, and Medicine
Volume
30
Pages
541-567
No. of pages
27
ISSN
0036-6978
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00048-022-00350-x
Publication date
12-2022
Peer reviewed
Yes
Austrian Fields of Science 2012
601022 Contemporary history
Keywords
ASJC Scopus subject areas
History
Portal url
https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/gegenexpertinnen(3405e713-d2b5-4a54-ba9f-0cd0172d7df1).html