Feeling to see: oversight in knowledge production

Abstract

Science as a practice is characterised by two types of visibility. On the one hand scientists make nature visible via imaging technologies; on the other hand they make scientific practice visible as relevant and useful to society. The sociology of translation has paved the way for analysing these two types of visibility as intrinsic parts of the same scientific practice but does not take into account the costs of putting science itself under the gaze. Based on ethnographic field work with Nano scientists the paper compares the costs of making nature visible with the costs of making science. Both types of visibility entail a necessary process of manufacturing the object of knowledge in order for it to display 'feelable forces' in relation the gaze through which visibility is obtained. The paper analyses how science acquires double visibility by a process of enhancement and erasure; two operations constitutive of producing visibility.