ABSTRACT
Field stations as sites in modern science have been locally situated, yet the knowledge produced at these stations has often been intended to have relevance beyond the locality. Scientific work at field stations has been place-based by design, which has enabled researchers to integrate the cosmopolitan knowledge of science with the experiential knowledge of place. Field stations such as the Desert Lab were situated uneasily between the local, regional, and global, with the "region" constructed alternatively as the spatial extension of local experience, as a subdivision of the global according to cosmopolitan scientific criteria. The automobile became integrated into the field practices of the Desert Lab, thereby creating a new expanded geography of intensive investigation and research coordination. The Desert Lab in Arizona was conceptualized mainly as a locality situated within a universal, global matrix of systematically varying climates and soil types.
