A home for science: The life and times of Tropical and Polar field stations

Abstract

A 'halfway house' between the generic, purified space of the laboratory and the varied and particular spaces of the field, the field station is a controlled yet uncontained setting from which nature can be accessed and anchored. As living quarters for visiting scientists, field stations are also enmeshed in the routine and rhythms of everyday domestic life, and in longer cycles of habitation, wear, and repair. This introduction considers the empirical and conceptual significance of Polar and Tropical field stations as homes for scientific work and scientific lives. The field station's extra-territorial yet intimate character affects the credibility and circulation of knowledge along science's frontiers. The challenge of making a home in the (non-temperate) field and the mundane experiences of expatriation and appropriation establish particular political dynamics of knowledge-making in these locations. They bring into focus the imaginaries of nature and science that drive transnational research and put into relief the aesthetic and affective dimensions of work and life in these distant homes for science. All these themes are pursued and amplified in a different medium by the artists who contributed to our research and are also featured in this special issue.

Networks of international co-authorship in journal articles about Antarctic research, 1998–2015

“…The political, economic and social importance of Antarctica and international competition over its resources have been escalating (Geissler & Kelly 2016;Jang et al 2016). The growing recognition of Antarctica's role in environmental issues such as climate change is one of the reasons for the recent growth of Antarctic science (O'Reilly et al 2012).…”

Beyond realism: Africa's medical dreams Introduction

“… 1 The collective existed from 2005 to 2015, and edited collections by its members include Molyneux and Geissler (2008), Geissler and Molyneux (2011), Kelly and Geissler (2011), Geissler et al . (2013), Geissler (2013), Geissler and Kelly (2016), Geissler et al (2016) and Geissler and Tousignant (2016). …”

The politics of a natural laboratory: Claiming territory and governing life in the Galápagos Islands

“…This work stresses the unique material characteristics that make particular places valuable for research, while also asserting that field sites are not encountered whole, but are always in the process of being constructed, their boundaries continually redefined and remade through the practices of scientific research (Driver, 2000). Field sites are shaped by the ways scientists envision, and inhabit, space (Geissler and Kelly, 2016;Greenhough, 2006;Lachenal, 2016). So, too, are they shaped by the dynamism of nature and social histories of place (Lachmund, 2003;Raby, 2015).…”

“…Such territorial productions of the natural laboratory were premised on a modernist vision of isolated, controllable island space and an ontological commitment to Nature. Historians of science have argued that natural laboratories confound such binary logics -that they are at once 'controlled and wild, artificial and natural, purified and contaminated, abstract and practical and [places of both] experience and experiment' (Geissler andKelly, 2017: 798, citing Heggie, 2014). 2 But here I argue that the metaphor is unsustainable as a model for conservation not because of inherent contradictions, but because of the tensions that have arisen through attempts to make the archipelago conform to mid-century visions of isolated nature.…”