Discovering the scientific revolution in the countryside:The mutual configuration of"science"and"locality"in Beibei during the Republic of China
Modern China has witnessed a scientific revolution,which started in the late Qing Dynasty and early Republic of China,flourished in the 1920s and 1930s,and became increasingly popular after the Anti-Japanese War.The scientific revolution has greatly changed the basic outlook of Chinese society.In the past,the cognition of the scientific revolution,influenced by the history of Western science,focused on great scientists and urban areas,formal scientific organizations and established disciplines,and paid little attention to how science was introduced to the countryside and changed the local conditions.There was insufficient research on the mobility and localization of science.This essay takes the first private academy of science in China,the"Western China Academy of Sciences",as the main research object,to discuss how it localized and institutionalized scientific concepts,promoted the transformation of rural areas with modern scientific concepts and culture,and creatively reshaped the basic economic and cultural features of local society.The focus is on the evolution of local scientific system,how and in what specific form it is introduced to the local society,and how the local society designs,operates and adjusts the institutional structure of local scientific system according to its own needs,local resources and existing foundations.In the organizational chart designed by the Western China Academy of Sciences,its core institutions consist of the Institute of Physics and Chemistry,the Institute of Biology,the Institute of Agriculture,the museum,the rural schools,the local newspapers among others.These institutions correspond to different aspects such as scientific research,scientific education,and popularization of science,and play different social functions,implementing the basic meaning of modern science in various fields and aspects such as local mining development,discovery and classification of animals and plants in the western China,economic development in mountainous areas,and popularization of scientific knowledge and concepts.In this process,traditional villages gradually transformed into modern places,and abstract science was implemented and enriched.In this sense,while science changed the place,the place also reconstructed science,making it present a local form.The rural scientific revolution has a strong local and contemporary nature.It has the structural characteristics of focusing on practicality,popularization,communication,and resource orientation,which deserves further in-depth study.
scientific revolutionWestern China Academy of Sciencesrural construction
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