UCLA

This thesis will argue for the value of plant science field photographs. More specifically, it will consider David Turnbull’s notion of ‘knowledge as movement’ through space while discussing field collecting as a type of knowledge production in motion and the field photograph a unique record of that. Likewise, it will look at Helen Verran’s notion of imaginaries as they relate to knowledge systems while discussing field photographs as visual records.

Likewise, it will argue that the field photographs that botanists take while out in the field contribute to and are part of constructing our imaginaries. Taken together, they knit an uneven, inconsistent, and heterogeneous view of nature that collides with science. They are not objective nor absolute. They are not fixed nor refined. They are irregular records of knowledge production, which do not fit nicely into plant science research. Though ubiquitous within research, in some ways they are outliers of research. Knowledge occurs in tandem and is tangential as does movement through space, like field collecting.