Burney Ian
University of Manchester, UK.
Hist Human Sci. 2012 Dec;25(5):49-72. doi: 10.1177/0952695112470350.
This article examines the processes through which civilian fear was turned into a practicable investigative object in the inter-war period and the opening stages of the Second World War, and how it was invested with significance at the level of science and of public policy. Its focus is on a single historical actor, Solly Zuckerman, and on his early war work for the Ministry of Home Security-funded Extra Mural Unit based in Oxford's Department of Anatomy (OEMU). It examines the process by which Zuckerman forged a working relationship with fear in the 1930s, and how he translated this work to questions of home front anxiety in his role as an operational research officer. In doing so it demonstrates the persistent applied to the problem: by highlighting it as an ongoing research project, and suggesting links between seemingly disparate research objects (e.g. the phenomenon of 'blast' exposure as physical and physiological trauma), the article aims to show how civilian 'nerve' emerged from within a highly specific analytical and operational matrix which itself had complex foundations.
本文考察了在两次世界大战之间的时期以及第二次世界大战初期，平民恐惧是如何转变为一个切实可行的调查对象的，以及它是如何在科学层面和公共政策层面被赋予重要意义的。其重点是一个历史人物，索利·朱克曼，以及他在战争初期为内政部资助的、设在牛津大学解剖学系的校外单位（OEMU）所做的工作。它考察了朱克曼在20世纪30年代与恐惧建立起工作关系的过程，以及他作为一名运筹学官员，是如何将这项工作转化为对后方焦虑问题的研究的。这样做展示了持续应用于该问题的方法：通过将其作为一个正在进行的研究项目加以突出，并指出看似不同的研究对象之间的联系（例如，“爆炸”暴露现象作为身体和生理创伤），本文旨在表明平民的“神经”是如何从一个高度特定的分析和操作矩阵中产生的，而这个矩阵本身有着复杂的基础。
