Flipping the Field
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3419524 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Stefan Helmreich (0000-0003-0859-5881, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 113 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 151-156 |
| Publication date | 2022-03-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Isis (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0021-1753 • E-ISSN: 1545-6994 |
| Publisher | University of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1086/718148 |
| OpenAlex | W4214828011 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 21 |
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
Archaeology · Buoy · Craft · Epistemology · Field (mathematics · Marine engineering · Objectivity (philosophy · Engineering · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Geology · History · Oceanography · Philosophy · Travel Writing and Literature
Queer Phenomenology
Beamtimes and Lifetimes
Landscapes and Labscapes
Climate in Motion
Objectivity and the Escape from Perspective
Making a Stable Sea
Decolonizing Encounters of the Third Kind
A sea of potential
Pity the Indians of Outer Space
The Spaces In Between
Lab History
Coming in at an Unusual Angle
Simians, Cyborgs, and Women
An anthropologist underwater
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,75 |
| Citation span | 2022 - 2025 (4) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |