Routledge Revivals: Art and Artifact in Laboratory Science (1985): A Study of Shop Work and Shop Talk in a Research Laboratory

First published in 1985, this book provides a descriptive study of social activities in a neurosciences laboratory. Based on fieldwork conducted by the author in the laboratory during 1975 and 1976, and taking an ethnomethodological approach, it focuses on the phenomenon of the social accomplishment of natural scientific order. Through the examination of shop work and shop talk in this environment, it identifies an analyzable social basis in the local production of accounts of natural objects in laboratory research.

This work will be of interest to students and scholars of ethnomethodology and sociology.

Michael E. Lynch is an emeritus professor at the department of Science and Technology Studies at Cornell University. His works are particularly concerned with ethnomethodological approaches in science studies. Much of his research has addressed the role of visual representation in scientific practice.