Article
ID: CBB219887602

Flipping the Field (2022)

unapi
Hydrography Hydrology Waves Scientific apparatus and instruments RP FLIP (FLoating Instrument Platform) Laboratories Perspective Geospatial analysis; geospatial data Field work Oceanography 20th century, late United States. Office of Naval Research Scripps Institution of Oceanography

The FLoating Instrument Platform (FLIP), a seagoing vessel managed by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, offers an unusual vantage point on the sea, one useful for reflecting on how the figure of the “field” is made in oceanography—and how it rotates in and out of alignment with attempts to render portions of the sea more lab-like. FLIP works like this: in its horizontal conformation, the vessel travels like an ordinary oceangoing craft. But by “flipping” 90 degrees into a vertical position once it arrives at its destination—with all the instrumentation inside swiveling correspondingly—it becomes an enormous spar buoy, more or less stationary in the wave field. This essay draws on the author’s anthropology-of-science fieldwork on FLIP to offer prompts for thinking about objectivity, orientation, and perspective in the practice of at-sea fieldwork.

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Associated with

Article Cameron Brinitzer; Etienne Benson (2022) Introduction: What Is a Field? Transformations in Fields, Fieldwork, and Field Sciences since the Mid-Twentieth Century. Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences (pp. 108-113). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB219887602/

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Authors & Contributors
Rainger, Ronald
Friedman, Robert Marc
Han, Ki Won
Helmreich, Stefan
Karafantis, Layne
Mills, Eric L.
Journals
Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences
Earth Sciences History: Journal of the History of the Earth Sciences Society
Environment and History
Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences
Journal of the History of Biology
Minerva: A Review of Science, Learning and Policy
Publishers
Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University California, San Diego
University of California Press
University of California, Berkeley
Duke University Press
Concepts
Oceanography
Hydrography
Research institutes; research stations
Field work
Laboratories
Hydrology
People
Revelle, Roger
Severdrup, Harald Ulrik
Sverdrup, Harald Urlik
Time Periods
20th century
20th century, late
20th century, early
19th century
21st century
Early modern
Places
United States
California (U.S.)
Italy
Great Britain
India
Canada
Institutions
Scripps Institution of Oceanography
United States Navy
University of California
United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration
National Institute of Health (U.S.)
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute
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