Om tidsskrifter, faghistorie og passive (?) fiskeredskap

Journals are reflecting its time, and the chain of a journal’s volumes through time shows trends that are a valuable source for research history. This is “real life” trends in research history, that show both the complexity and intrinsic inertness of research traditions, that tend to be lost in research histories’ struggle to simplify and characterize phases and borderlines. This is exemplified by trends in the forty volumes of Norwegian Archaeological Review (1968-2007). The paper proceeds to a discussion of how a journal reflects trends in its scientific surroundings, and fishing with net is used as a metaphor. In a sense, fishing nets and journals are passive, catching a representative of what is swimming around – and the catch may be used to characterise the general habitat. Nonetheless, someone has decided location, depth and shape/size of the mesh – that subsequently influence what is caught and what slips by. In fact, journals are active players in scientific dynamics. This metaphor may also illustrate that the dynamics of change and developments in most cases are to be found outside what is stuck in the net (or journal) – in the general dynamics of the habitat, salinity, temperature, microbiology ... or the endless relations between a scientific discipline and “what’s on” in its ideological, political, social, ontological, and epistemological surroundings.