We have seen that working in the lab and doing fieldwork are two activities closely related to one another throughout the history of science and that conceptions of lab and field are co-produced. This can be highlighted by juxtaposing them as ideal types, the lab ideal dealing with controlled as opposed to uncontrolled places, where methods of intervention rather than those of observation are used and where knowledge production happens in closed rather than open spaces. As the ideal types are complementary to one another, a closer look at the experimental practices in the laboratory will help to also reveal the characteristics of the field as a site for scientific experimentation.

Laboratories are places designed for experimentation. They were created specifically for a group of researchers to inhabit – a dwelling place in which research programmes that imply specific experimental systems are pursued. Labs are built and controlled places and, in spite of their highly functional design, tinkering is a dominant practice that goes on there. Labs are simplified and indeed standardized places in which decontextualized knowledge is produced and environmental variations excluded.