Cultural Astronomy: A scientific frame to understand academic astronomy as part of the Social World

Abstract

AbstractIn the past, Western academic astronomy has conceived in a very specific way its interests. However, in recent decades there has been a promising openness to the rest of the society, in the context of areas such as education, heritage and outreach. Despite this, there has not been an adequate scientific approach to do it, which would imply taking into account the social sciences and a truly interdisciplinary perspective. Here we want to develop the idea that this interdisciplinary approach already exists and it is called: Cultural Astronomy. Unfortunately, in the context of academic astronomy it has been only seen as a study of the “astronomies of others”, intended as previous stages or failed attempts of Western academic astronomy. We will seek to show that Cultural Astronomy, as a critical reflection on the social character of the astronomical knowledge, is key to the success of these opening efforts.