Lay Observers, Telegraph Lines, and Kansas Weather: The Field Network as a Mode of Knowledge Production

摘要

This paper examines the field network – linking together lay observers in geographicallyuddistributed locations with a central figure who aggregated their locally produced observationsudinto more general, regional knowledge – as a historically emergent mode of knowledgeudproduction. After discussing the significance of weather knowledge as a vital domain in whichudfield networks have operated, it describes and analyzes how a more robust and systematizedudweather observing field network became established and maintained on the ground in theudearly twentieth century. This case study, which examines two Kansas City-based local observerudnetworks supervised by the same U.S. Weather Bureau office, demonstrates some of the keyudissues involved in maintaining field networks, such as the role of communications infrastructure,udespecially the telegraph, the procedures designed to make local observation more systematic anduduniform, and the centralized, hierarchical power relations that underpinned even a low-statusudexample of knowledge production on the periphery.