ABSTRACT
Wetlands have received a great deal of scientific and regulatory attention in recent years. This chapter presents an analysis of wetlands that illustrates an important feature of technoscientific objects; namely, they can display a fascinating interplay of plasticity and recalcitrance in response to scientific and technical practices. It argues that natural wetlands constitute particularly fascinating examples of technoscientific objects, in part because their technoscientific character is not immediately obvious. Partly as a result of this plasticity and recalcitrance, they interact with these practices in an iterative fashion that alters science and culture as well as the technoscientific objects themselves. The chapter discusses current ontology of wetlands and argues that one can learn much about their technoscientific character by studying how they have been commodified in wetland mitigation banks. As a result of plasticity and recalcitrance, wetlands can interact with the scientific and cultural practices in an iterative fashion that alters science and culture as well as the technoscientific objects themselves.
