Negotiations of meanings, audiences and apparatuses in the Museums and Science Centres of the 21st century Cimuset – Belgrade 2009 Maria Margaret Lopes and Maria Esther Valente

Introduction Although several scientific themes are usual and commonly familiar to historians and sociologists of sciences, the museums and science centres were not yet included in the academic research as a relevant issue. The historical perspective over these spaces is one out of multiple possibilities opened for reflection on which roles, should museums and science centres play, facing the challenges set by contemporary times. The discussion on the importance of the inclusion of museums in the reflections of science historians, is introduced by three aspects, related to the studies of sciences: ►negotiations ►informed consent ► scientific instruments

1 - Negotiations - the creation of scientific institutions in relation of communication Understanding the current museums and science centres as knowledge-producing spaces, they can also constitute privileged spaces to remind us that the scientific works are passed and supported by relations and activities such as: philanthropic and public supported agencies, administrators, industries, institution directors, suppliers, media, exhibitions and standard experiments seller, and so on. So they are not independent of this conjecture. These arenas transcend the scientific production and impose directives and set trends, and they are not considered neither ‘merely’ scientific nor non-scientific. Today innumerable agents involved in the museological enterprise come from diverse origins and backgrounds.

2. Informed Consent - the audience in the museum and the access to information Related to the museums communication, the importance of the audience was also a historical built process, which keeps the contexts of the several circumstances in which it occurred. In different moments, deeply elitist connotations and profound social divisions are blended with intentions of democratic actions and generalised access to education, which museums presented as institutions feature of communication and control. The historical perspective on the themes of education and communication can also be a relevant contribution to broaden the approaches to museums and science centres.

3. Scientific instruments and apparatuses - scientific concept and museological presentation The History of scientific instruments integrated by discussions of the museological science, had stopped (since the 1960s and 1970s) to treat the scientific instruments and apparatuses as non-conceptual, as objects which merely help quantify concepts. Trends of History of scientific instruments started to challenge the view, which suggest that the scientific principles resided in the theory and perhaps in the experimental method, but never in the instruments or the collections themselves. In order to assume the whole complexity of the role of instruments in the connection of the sciences and the experimentation, it was necessary to remove the instruments from the subordinate space, from mere illustrators of conclusions obtained by the good Physics, made a priori, hiding the networks of their circulation and the validations of science, done around the world. If the objects are fundamental in the consolidation of the belief in the universality of the science, they can likewise be to question the conceptualisation of such belief.

Consideration Actually many of these aspects, presented here, are indeed difficult to manage. However it is necessary to consider the importance to be ware about we are doing and as we are contribute to change or to conserve ideas. Historical perspectives can help us to make questions in an appropriate way, to analyses what was proposed to develop museums and science centers and to understand our work today. So as to open spaces and allow the inclusion of different approaches to study and communicate scientific culture.

Considerations The understanding of the reproduction of a science in the Science Centres brought from abroad in a non-historical manner, suggests the permanence of an attitude which separates the sciences from societies and perpetuates the scientific knowledge, with a certain concept of science, as authoritarian and dogmatic, without the absorption of questioning perspectives of scientific culture. These are attitudes that devaluate local forms of construction of knowledge, which might take into consideration or prioritize issues related to regional nature, for instance. The curators responsible for the collection, study and diffusion of knowledge – give, more than ever, rise to a negotiation with different audiences. In order to do so, the communication resources become more and more sophisticated so as to provoke a more active participation of different segments of the society. In this case the tone of the exhibitions and activities held in these spaces may start to privilege the debate on controversial themes. A more active participation of the society may lead science to converge to social pressures, as well as to abandon programs, which evade funds and resources used, in many instances, in projects that are regarded as highly risky for the society.