"German railways" in China: Technology as a site of knowledge. Issue 3 (December 2019) - Mahltig, Philipp
In this article, I test how the concept of sites of knowledge – originally developed by Christian Jacob for scholarly work – can be applied to technologies. I analyse how acquisition, transmission and transformation of knowledge work in the construction and use of technologies. The two railway lines built with German participation in China at the turn from the nineteenth to the twentieth century, the Shandong Railway and the Tianjin-Pukou Railway, are taken as an example. By investigating what knowledge for building and operating the railroad as a whole and the trains as a part of it was needed and available and how it relates to space, I demonstrate how technical and non-technical knowledge interact in the practices of the actively involved and passively affected individuals. The article thereby examines the complexity of different forms of knowledge necessary for a site of knowledge to take shape and to exist in relation to its surrounding.