Coextension of knowledge networks and technological infrastructures: The Jesuits and meteorology in late colonial Asia

Abstract This article challenges the traditional view of the linear causality of technological globalization in the history of modern predictive meteorology. According to this linear narrative, telegraphy, by enabling near-instantaneous communication over vast distances, was the causa efficiens that directly and inevitably produced large-scale weather forecasting. However, the role of Jesuit scientists in East Asia as pioneers of cyclone warning systems not only demonstrates that the linear narrative is too simple but invites a rigorous examination of the relationships between prior knowledge networks and technological infrastructures. This article contends that the expansion of technological networks does not inexorably imply the expansion of knowledge networks. There was not, therefore, a unidirectional causal relationship but a concomitant two-way interaction; that is, there was a coextension of knowledge and technological networks, where both Jesuit scientists and telegraph companies benefited from each other and shared common goals confronting a global threat—cyclones. This offers a new perspective not only on the history of meteorological services but also of science globalization.