Beyond the Lab and the Field analyzes infrastructures as intense sites
of knowledge production in the Americas, Europe, and Asia since the late
nineteenth century. Moving beyond classical places known for yielding
scientific knowledge, chapters in this volume explore how the
construction and maintenance of canals, highways, dams, irrigation
schemes, the oil industry, and logistic networks intersected with the
creation of know-how and expertise. Referred to by the authors as
"scientific bonanzas," such intersections reveal opportunities for great
wealth, but also distress and misfortune.
This volume explores how innovative technologies provided research
opportunities for scientists and engineers, as they relied on expertise
to operate, which resulted in enormous profits for some. But, like the
history of any gold rush, the history of infrastructure also reveals how
technologies of modernity transformed nature, disrupting communities and
destroying the local environment. Focusing not on the victory march of
science and technology but on ambivalent change, contributors consider
the role of infrastructures for ecology, geology, archaeology, soil
science, engineering, ethnography, heritage, and polar exploration.
Together, they also examine largely overlooked perspectives on
modernity: the reliance of infrastructure on knowledge, and
infrastructures as places and occasions that inspired a greater
understanding of the natural world and the technologically made
environment.
