Strategic Place-Making and Public Scientific Outreach in the American Chemical Society's National Historic Chemical Landmarks Program

This article investigates place-making-a process involving appeals to embodiment, materiality, and spatial arrangement-as a means for building communicative relationships between technical scientific communities and lay publics. Drawing from discourses related to the National Historic Chemical Landmark Program's 89 landmarks, we illustrate how the National Historic Chemical Landmark Program builds different types of relationships with nonexperts via the utilization of place as (a) narrative framing device, (b) proprietor, and (c) gatekeeper. These findings reveal the ways in which specific strategic place-making gestures can support more or less public engagement in the processes of scientific work and outreach.

Automated summary

This article explores the significance of place-making in establishing communicative relationships between technical scientific communities and lay publics, using the National Historic Chemical Landmark Program as a case study to demonstrate how different types of relationships with nonexperts are built through the utilization of place. The findings reveal that specific strategic place-making gestures can either encourage or limit public engagement in scientific work and outreach processes.