Karin Knorr Cetina introduces the idea of laboratory studies by framing it in two ways. The first is chronological attribute attached to lab studies, as a discursive perspective, calling it recent. This perspective is thus a 'recent' one with the larger discursive field of STS. The second is more characteristic. Two used phrases are particular here, the first is "direct observation and discourse analysis" and "the root where knowledge is produced". The first phrase is ''methodological", tending towards the "studies" aspect of the title in question. The second is ''locative'', the phrase being qualified a follow up that says " in modern science typically the scientific laboratory". Here the laboratory is likened to the function of knowledge, specifically scientific knowledge. There is a teleological quality or even value given to the lab. A value that is simultaneously social and methodological.
The rest of the sections of the chapter delve deeper into the operation of the characteristics. The point is that the laboratory marks a fundamental 'change' in the working of STS and the understanding of science as a knowledge system in general.
