From the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope to state-of-the-art polar research ships to building its very own mega-sized particle-collider, China is increasingly leveraging its financial clout and technical prowess to bankroll and engineer advanced, large-scale research infrastructure. As nexuses of international research and sources of prestige, these facilities illustrate how science, although globalized, is at the same time unavoidably spatially embedded. This presentation will explore a series of conceptual frameworks for studying the geographical situatedness of large-scale scientific infrastructures. I will present some preliminary theorization about how to best map both the topologies and topographies of these infrastructures, drawing primarily on concepts from Actor-Network Theory. This is then brought to bear on China with the aim to demonstrate how these concepts can help elucidate the geopolitical implications of the country’s push to become a “big science” power.

Discussant:
Yishu Mao