The Marine Environmental Awareness. Knowledge, Media, and Politics of the Underwater Realm (1870 to 1980)

• Applicant: Privatdozent Dr. Franziska Torma
• Subject Area: History of Science ; Modern and Contemporary History
• Term: from 2018 to 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 397100892

• Final Report Year: 2024

Final Report Abstract

Environmental knowledge is of great relevance for understanding human interaction with nature in the 20th century. This DFG project has shown that marine research in the German Empire played a key role in its production. Environmental knowledge, according to the first thesis, emerged in the late 19th century on board research ships. According to the second thesis, environmental knowledge was linked to the global political plans of the German Empire. Exemplary analyses substantiated the theses: The focus was on the expeditions of the SMS Gazelle to the Pacific (1874-1876), the steamer National (1889) to the Atlantic and the steamer Valdivia (1898-1899) to the Indian Ocean. The analysis was guided by a methodological approach developed by Sverker Sörlin and Nina Wormbs under the title “Environing Technologies. A Theory of Making Environment”. Each of the above-mentioned expeditions is examined using this theory. The first case study deals with the voyage of the SMS Gazelle. The Hydrographic Office of the German Navy organized it. The voyage of the SMS Gazelle in 1874 combined marine research with the early colonial and global political plans of the German Empire: the press coverage of the Gazelle expedition, for example, foreshadowed the colonization of Micronesia. The second study deals with the Kiel plankton expedition on the steamer National, which was sent out by the Prussian Ministry of Agriculture, Domains and Forests (1889). This voyage drew attention to the importance of plankton for fish stocks in the Atlantic. Newspaper and magazine articles about the plankton expedition, plankton and plankton research conveyed environmental knowledge about the economic productivity of the oceans. Plankton research fed into the plans to expand fishing in the German colonies. Ecological knowledge contributed to the formulation of economic imperial development plans for the Atlantic. The third study sheds light on the German Deep Sea Expedition (1899-1900). The German Ministry of the Interior sent it out. The Ministry of the Interior also financed the publication of the travelogue “Aus den Tiefen des Weltmeeres” (1900/1903). The book was based on the diary entries of the expedition leader Carl Chun. Popular travelogues such as Chun's conveyed knowledge of deep sea ecology and underpinned the empire's claims to world power in the age of high imperialism. The entanglement of marine research and world politics was evident in the commitment of the expedition participants, who, as political experts, advised the Foreign Office and the Imperial Colonial Office on the exploration of the Indo-Pacific. By focusing on the intertwining of world politics and environmental knowledge, the project points to the emergence of modern environmental knowledge from the power-political contexts of imperialism. The project is therefore a plea for a historicization of environmental knowledge, as “environment” is usually used in current political and socio-cultural debates as an ahistorical, supratemporal category of interpretation, which in turn can make it difficult to deal objectively with “environmental problems” (and their solutions).

Publications

• Exploring Ice and Snow in the Cold War. Ice and Snow in the Cold War, 3-19. Berghahn Books.
  Herzberg, Julia; Kehrt, Christian & Torma, Franziska
  
• Geographies of Tropical Ecology: Place-Making in William Beebe’s Travel and Writing. Comparativ, 28(2), 42-55.
  Torma, Franziska
  
• Hydrotopische Momente. Von Flaschenpost bis Fischreklame, 191-204. Böhlau Verlag.
  Torma, Franziska
  
• Jenseits des „Blue Hole“: Zur Konsolidierung der Meere in der Geschichtswissenschaft. NTM Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Wissenschaften, Technik und Medizin, 28(1), 91-103.
  Torma, Franziska
  
• „Wasser“. 100 Seiten, Stuttgart. (Serie 100 Seiten im Reclam-Verlag, Zielgruppe: breites Publikum). ISBN 978-3150205709 (Qualitätssicherung erfolgte durch Verlagslektorat).
  Torma, Franziska
  
• A Cultural History of the Sea in the Global Age. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.
  Torma, Franziska
  
• Schiffe als environing technologies. Wasserrouten und Metageographien, in: Archiv für Mediengeschichte „Das Schiff“ 20, 9-16. ISBN-10 3-947238-44-4; ISBN-13 978-3- 947238-44-6
  Torma, Franziska