THE MISSING NARRATIVIST TURN IN THE HISTORIOGRAPHY OF SCIENCE

The narrativist turn of the 1970s and 1980s transformed the discussion of general history. With the rejection of Rankean historical realism, the focus shifted to the historian as a narrator and on narratives as literary products. Oddly, the historiography of science took a turn in the opposite direction at the same time. The social turn in the historiography of science emphasized studying science as a material and practical activity with traceable and documentable traits. This empirization of the field has led to an understanding that history of science could be directly describable from scientific practice alone without acknowledging the role of the historian as a constructor of narratives about these practices. Contemporary historians of science tend to be critical of science's ability to describe its object—nature, as it is—but they often are not similarly skeptical of their own abilities to describe their object: past science, as it is. I will argue that historiography of science can only gain from a belated narrativist turn.     

POSTMODERNISM AND HISTORY: MISSING THE MISSED CONNECTIONS

O n the F uture of H istory : T he P ostmodernist C hallenge and I ts A ftermath . By Ernst Breisach.     

EPICENTRES OF MISSING DAUGHTERS

The spatial spread of the female child deficit in India has been explored in terms of hot spots (with high deficits) and cold spots (with more female-favourable child sex ratios). It has been argued, using the Census of India data from individual censuses, that there is a contagion effect for both hot spots and cold spots. This paper takes this discussion forward by asking whether such an effect can be seen across censuses. To do so, it develops the concept of an epicentre to see whether a hot or cold spot in one census spreads shock waves across a wider region in later censuses. The longitudinal analysis of child sex ratios over three censuses—1991, 2001 and 2011—shows that the hot spots are epicentres for the spread of female child deficits, while the cold spots display a reverse effect.