Taking Part, Apart: Inclusion of Researchers from the German Democratic Republic in Their International Scientific Communities

Abstract

AbstractIn this chapter, we present a discussion of ways in which researchers in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) became recognised members of their international scientific communities by negotiating the interplay of adverse conditions of research in the GDR and field-specific practices of knowledge production. The conditions for research as provided by the GDR and as shaped by the GDR’s international relations enabled and constrained the inclusion of researchers in the knowledge production of their scientific communities. We ask how researchers in two fields—semiconductor physics and molecular biology—managed to become recognised members to their communities’ knowledge production under adverse conditions. Our interviews suggest three partial answers: the right topic at the right time, a partial match between a field’s epistemic practices and the research conditions in the GDR, and the existence of “inclusion mentors” who actively promoted the inclusion of their younger colleagues.