'Inspired divination': mapping the boundaries of meteorological credibility in New Zealand, 1920-1939

In November 1933 Wellington's Evening Post carried a complaint from the New Zealand Meteorological Service's (NZMS) Director, Dr Edward Kidson, about the ways in which the NZMS had to suffer 'pseudo-scientists' whose activities undermined the authority of trained meteorologists. Drawing on the work of Thomas Gieryn, this paper explores the epistemological and personal contests that Kidson, and others, engaged in with lay forecasters as they sought to position meteorology as a credible and useful scientific activity. Examining this meteorological boundary work provides us with insights into the complex relationship between meteorologists' struggles to reconcile their partial understandings of atmospheric processes, the data 'friction' generated by their practices, and the desires and expectations of the users of their forecasts. In exploring this situated boundary work the paper adds to our understanding of how the increasingly global reach of meteorology in the twentieth century required ongoing local performances of credibility in which meteorology's status as a science was constantly being contested and strategically defended.