Sisters at the Rockface – the Van der Riet Twins and Dorothea Bleek's Rock Art Research and Publishing, 1932–1940

Abstract

This article discusses the processes, networks and contingencies underlying the making of scientific knowledge in the field, theorising these in relation to scholarship dealing with the field sciences which has engaged with the dynamics of ‘the field’ as complex site and context of knowledge production in particular disciplines. Drawing on the archive and scholarship of Dorothea Bleek, it examines a particular field research project centred on the reproduction of rock art and contrasts the ‘dirty’ detail of fieldwork with the sanitised texts produced later for public consumption. It describes the creation of knowledge in the field as a contingent, interactive and haphazard process at the rock face rather than the purposeful, coherent and methodical practice later presented as authoritative scientific knowledge. Through a close examination of a small-scale field research project, the article examines the personal relationships between the researcher and her assistants, and the broader social and political networks in which the particular inquiry was located. It shows how both the researcher and her assistants are inscribed into the outputs they produce in a variety of subtle ways and how knowledge flows in both directions between researcher and assistants. It describes how methodology develops in organic, pragmatic ways often in reaction to the specifics of a particular field site and how the affectivities in terms of personalities and energies of the research assistants contribute to and influence research results. In addition, it examines the ways in which local or indigenous knowledge may be mediated through research assistants and supervisor to become part of the scientific knowledge that emerges at the end of the process.