DATAFIELD Turnbull is an innovative theorist and astute writer, and this book makes a major contribution to our understanding of the ways knowledge practices work. - History of Consciousness Department, University of California at Santa Cruz, USADATAFIELD This beautiful, passionate and inspiring book is essential reading for everyone interested in post colonialism and science and technology studies. - History of Consciousness Department, University of California at Santa Cruz, USA

• 1. Introduction: From Rationality to Messiness: Rethinking Technoscientific Knowledge 2. On With the Motley: The Contingent Assemblage of Knowledge Spaces 3. Talk, Templates and Tradition: How the Masons Built Chartres Cathedral Without Plans 4. Tricksters and Cartographers: Maps, Science and the State in the Making of a Modern Scientific Knowledge Space 5. Pacific Navigation: An Alternative Scientific Tradition 6. Making Malaria Curable: Extending a Knowledge Space to Create a Vaccine 7. Messiness and Order in Turbulence Research 8. Conclusion: Rationality, Relativism and the Politics of Knowledge