New Publication: The Invention of Scientific Conservation

Featuring a chapter by Noémie Etienne and Maeva Pimo

We are delighted to announce the publication of The Invention of Scientific Conservation: Expert Cultures of Conservation after the Second World War (Nuncius Series, vol. 15), edited by Sven Dupré and Esther van Duijn.

The volume traces how scientific conservation gained authority in the post–Second World War decades, shaped by the rise of organisations such as the International Institute for Conservation (IIC), journals like Studies in Conservation, and institutes including KIK-IRPA in Brussels. It brings together diverse scholarly perspectives on how scientific methods structured conservation practice until the 1970s, when contemporary art and its processual nature sparked renewed debate on the limits of scientific approaches.

Noémie Etienne and Maeva Pimo contributed the chapter “Situated Conservation: Pragmatism, Politics, and Aesthetics of Care” (pp. 419–450). Their chapter highlights how conservation is always embedded in specific social and political contexts, showing how situated forms of care challenge universalist assumptions within scientific conservation.

The book features contributions by Camille Bourdiel, Marco Cardinali, Leib Celnik, Angela Cerasuolo, Esther van Duijn, Sven Dupré, Thierry Ford, Michael von der Goltz, Jo Kirby, Hero Lotti, Salvador Muñoz-Viñas, Ron Spronk, Geert Vanpaemel, Aga Wielocha, and others.

This publication offers an important contribution to the history and contemporary debates of conservation practice.

Find the chapter in our publications section under articles!