Making a Place for Science

Abstract

This paper explores the complex interaction between a group of University of California `farm advisors' and the farm community that they are meant to advise. In contrast with previous literature in science and technology studies (S&TS) on the distinctions between `laboratory science' and `field science', I show how advisors' work is a blend of these modes. More specifically, I focus on the advisors' use of `field trials' - field-based experiments conducted on growers' land - to convince their agricultural clientele to farm in a new way. Field trials retain some characteristics of lab science, such as control groups and special, experimental methods, but they are also solidly in the field, as they are often conducted on a grower's property, and the data from the experiment are a grower's crop. Drawing from my fieldwork with farm advisors and growers, I use the case of agricultural field trials to illustrate the role of `place' in applied science, highlight issues of `control' between scientists and their `public' in the field, and point to the challenges of producing consent through field trials.