Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Situating technoscience: an inquiry into spatialities
AU - Law, John
AU - Mol, A.
PY - 2001
Y1 - 2001
N2 - This paper explores the spatial characteristics of science and technology. Originally seen as universal, and therefore outside space and place, studies in science, technology, and society (STS) located it first in specific locations -- laboratories -- and then in narrow networks linking laboratories. This double location implied that science is caught up in and enacts two topological forms -- region and network -- since objects in networks hold their shape by freezing relations rather than fixing Euclidean coordinates. More recent STS work suggests that science and technology also exist in and help to enact additional spatial forms. Thus some technoscience objects are fluid, holding their form by shifting their relations. And yet others achieve constancy by enacting simultaneous absence and presence, a topological possibility which we call here fire . The paper concludes by arguing that the 'global' includes and is enacted in all four of these topological systems.
AB - This paper explores the spatial characteristics of science and technology. Originally seen as universal, and therefore outside space and place, studies in science, technology, and society (STS) located it first in specific locations -- laboratories -- and then in narrow networks linking laboratories. This double location implied that science is caught up in and enacts two topological forms -- region and network -- since objects in networks hold their shape by freezing relations rather than fixing Euclidean coordinates. More recent STS work suggests that science and technology also exist in and help to enact additional spatial forms. Thus some technoscience objects are fluid, holding their form by shifting their relations. And yet others achieve constancy by enacting simultaneous absence and presence, a topological possibility which we call here fire . The paper concludes by arguing that the 'global' includes and is enacted in all four of these topological systems.
U2 - 10.1068/d243t
DO - 10.1068/d243t
M3 - Journal article
VL - 19
SP - 609
EP - 621
JO - Environment and Planning D: Society and Space
JF - Environment and Planning D: Society and Space
SN - 0263-7758
IS - 5
ER -