Disciplinary identities and crossing boundaries: The academization of speleology in the first half of the twentieth century

Abstract

This paper examines the development and legitimization of the study of caves as an academic scientific discipline from the end of the 19th century to World War II. It discusses the function of history and related methodological and epistemological practices used to define and legitimize speleology as an academic discipline. It also discusses the political and social context involved in this process of academization. In this context, special attention is paid to the formation of disciplinary identities and transdisciplinary cooperation. The role of individuality and community in science goes hand-in-hand with the construction of combined memory, which gives an identity to each researcher and attributes significance and legitimization to his or her activity. At the turn of the 20th century, the term ‘speleology’ was introduced for this newly developed interdisciplinary study of caves. Speleology was regarded as a ‘group’ or ‘synthetic science’, linking different branches of the humanities and natural sciences, such as geology, geography, mineralogy, hydrology, meteorology, paleontology, zoology, botany, anthropology, archeology, prehistory, and art history. The claim that speleology was a new academic scientific discipline also involved an enforced differentiation between cave study as a science and exploration for leisure purposes. This led to the foundation of the first chair and university institute of speleology in Vienna in 1929.