Sedimentary legacy and the disturbing recurrence of the human in long-term ecological research (2022)
Shana Lee Hirsch (Author)
Ribes, David (Author)
Hinman, Sarah Elizabeth (Author)
Social Studies of Science
Volume: 52
Issue: 4
Pages: 561-580
Even as new elements of a research infrastructure are added, older parts continue to exert persistent and consequential influence. We introduce the concept of sedimentary legacy to describe the relationship between infrastructure and research objects. Contrary to common accounts of legacy infrastructure that underscore lock-in, static, or constraining outcomes, sedimentary legacy emphasizes how researchers adapt infrastructure to support the investigation of new research objects, even while operating under constraining legacies. To illustrate the implications of sedimentary legacy, we track shifting objects of investigation across the history of the Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) Network, focusing especially on recurrent ecological investigations of ‘human disturbance’ as researchers shift to study socioecological objects. We examine the relationship between scientific objects and the resources collected and preserved to render such objects tractable to scientific investigations, and show how the resources of a long-term research infrastructure support the assembly of certain objects of investigation, even while foreclosing others.
...MoreSimilar Citations
Article
de la Bellacasa, Maria Puig;
(February 2011)
Matters of care in technoscience: Assembling neglected things
Article
Elsa Faugère;
Dorothée Dussy;
(July 2021)
Obstacles to Greener Beekeeping in France: Anthropological Approach
Article
Sonja van Wichelen;
(2022)
Identity in Postgenomic Times: Epigenetic Knowledge and the Pursuit of Biological Origins
Article
Charles Dupras;
Katie Michelle Saulnier;
Yann Joly;
(October 2019)
Epigenetics, ethics, law and society: A multidisciplinary review of descriptive, instrumental, dialectical and reflexive analyses
Article
Martin Stacey;
Claudia Eckert;
(2022)
Objects as Carriers of Engineering Knowledge
Article
Sjoerd Zwart;
(2022)
Engineering Epistemology: Between Theory and Practice
Article
Sonja van Wichelen;
Jaya Keaney;
(2022)
The Reproductive Bodies of Postgenomics
Article
Papadopoulos, Dimitris;
(April 2011)
Alter-ontologies: Towards a constituent politics in technoscience
Article
Luciano Levin;
(2020)
Advising and controling: Science communication at a crossroads
Article
Paige L Sweet;
Danielle Giffort;
(June 2021)
The bad expert
Article
Michelle Riedlinger;
Jaclyn Rea;
(July 2015)
Discourse Ecology and Knowledge Niches Negotiating the Risks of Radiation in Online Canadian Forums, Post-Fukushima
Article
Linda Martín Alcoff;
(2022)
Extractivist epistemologies
Book
Sun-ha Hong;
(2020)
Technologies of speculation : The limits of knowledge in a data-driven society
Book
Robert Waide;
Sharon Kingsland;
(2021)
The Challenges of Long Term Ecological Research: A Historical Analysis
Article
Michael A. Weston;
Maree R. Yarwood;
Desley A. Whisson;
Matthew R. E. Symonds;
(2020)
Persistent spatial gaps in ornithological study in Australia, 1901–2011
Article
Sally Wyatt;
(March 2017)
Making Policies for Open Data: Experiencing the Technological Imperative in the Policy World (Special Issue Commentary)
Article
María Elena Giraldo;
Eliana Arancibia Gutiérrez;
(2023)
Governance in socio-environmental research: an analysis of multi-stakeholder cooperation mechanisms in two research laboratories in Yucatan, Mexico
Article
Knaapen. Loes;
(October 2013)
Being ‘evidence-based’ in the absence of evidence: The management of non-evidence in guideline development
Article
Mikko Lagerspetz;
(March 2021)
“The Grievance Studies Affair” Project: Reconstructing and Assessing the Experimental Design
Article
Chan-Yuan Wong;
Sangook Park;
(2021)
Diverged Evolutionary Pathways of Two Public Research Institutes in Taiwan and Korea: Shared Missions and Varied Organizational Dynamics in ITRI and KIST
Be the first to comment!