Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
3
Organizing Space
What do the spaces in which bioinformatic knowledge
is produced look like? How are they arranged? How
do people move around in them? What difference does
this make to the knowledge that is produced? The dy-
namics of data exchange have driven a spatial reorgani-
zation of biological work. That is, data work demands
that people and laboratories be arranged and organized
in specifi c ways. The ways in which walls, hallways, of-
fi ces, and benches are arranged, and the ways in which
people move among them, are crucial in certifying and
authorizing bioinformatic knowledge—the movement of
data through space and among people renders them more
or less valuable, more or less plausible. Because of this,
spatial motion is also bound up with struggles between
different kinds of work and the value of different kinds
of knowledge in contemporary biology.
The volume and speed associated with high-through-
put techniques have transformed biologists' knowledge-
making practices. But computers have also necessitated
reorganizations of workers and space that transform
what counts as useful knowledge and work for biology.
In particular, laboratory work itself is managed as data:
samples, movements, and people are recorded in data-
bases. These new practices have led to the quantifi cation
and control of space and work. Bioinformatics entails not
