Key Text: 'Epistimic Cultures' Orignal Binaries.

The fundamental tension at the very center of Knorr Cetina's categories is that of "knowledge production". This is the unitary concern of her text and the process of its comprehension is what gives rise to further binaries.

Knowledge production is framed as a social aspect. Here a process is linked to a state, production to the social formation. Though Knorr Cetina's categories are dynamic, they are none the less linked. However, it is here that the key problem begins to unfold. The link between knowledge production and society is exemplified through Knorr Cetina's conception of 'culture', both heterogeneous and an anthropological constant.   Cultures are  domains of social life,   ""national culture",  "market culture", "organizational culture". Though these areas create and warrant different types of "knowledge", through actors who refer back to different aspects of the culture, such as differing procedures, stages, or even each other, 'culture' is not seen as a category that denotes specialized knowledge and procedure. Rather, the category of  'discipline' or specialization is used to denote the aspect of knowledge creation and warranting. Externally this gives us our first binary, CULTURE / DISCIPLINE, but this contains other tensions.
The de-linking of culture with knowledge implies a deeper decoupling between knowledge production and propagation with the locative processes of production and propagation. Knorr Cetina explains that discipline or specialization denotes the organizational principles, containing subunits and sub-subunits. Ultimately, it is taxonomical in function and authority.  'Disciplines' fail to make visible the locative processes of  'complex textures of knowledge as practice' or the machinery of knowing. Thus a subtle binary at work here is the PROCESS OF KNOWLEDGE / PRINCIPLES OF KNOWLEDGE. Attached to this binary is that of VISIBILITY/ INVISIBILITY. 

This second topic binary is significant for it brings back society as an active agent, as one that 'sees' and promotes and institutionalizes. Conceiving of society as an active component for it leads us to Knorr Cetina's next claim, that of the increasing significance of the 'discipline' as a social category.  Notice that Knorr Cetina's linked culture to society as an anthropological constant, and not the discipline. The former is a ubiquitous outcome of anthropological formation, some would even argue human condition. Discipline is linked to the organization, with a particular functional role and intent.  However, with the natural sciences becoming the dominant knowledge institution, its mode of production is not merely afforded authority, it is replicated by other knowledge systems.  

The scientific mode of production is a functional system based on organized principles geared towards particular conditions of operations. Meaning that production is linked to organizational principles and they are (comparatively) homogenous and replicable Note that these are the conditions of production, and not the processes. The replicability and visibility are linked, in that what is replicability, becomes visible, and therefore liked to the organizational principles and so on forth to the produced knowledge of the said institution.  This chain of dominate knowledge institution, principle conditions, replicability, visibility, and knowledge produced replace cultures heterogeneous process of knowledge production. Rather they are referred to as 'historical forms'.  Note that the link to culture (process) and knowledge was never as prominent as that of discipline (principle), only now science's disciplinary aspect being more replicable as made the latter link stronger.

Knorr Cetina, who linked knowledge production with society, accommodates this move toward discipline being the dominant framing mode of society by bifurcating it into CONTEMPORARY SOCIETIES / KNOWLEDGE SOCIETIES.  Knowledge systems based on scientific organizational principles or scientific system is built on the pursuit of a particular function in a particular area from the very beginning. The participant in an area will, therefore, become a specialist, and their knowledge will be based on expertise rather than interactive role. They are separated by from other experts who claim different institutional boundaries. This framework is "deeply entrenched within every general system of classification within Knowledge Societies.
However, the process of 'knowing' does not go away, they are rendered invisible with regard to the production of knowledge    This is where culture returns as an anthropological constant.

 Knorr Cetina's book can be seen as a means of rendering the invisible visible. In doing so a deeper question is asked regarding the replicability or the dynamicity of the process of Knowledge production.  'Epistemic Culture' becomes a tool of linking knowledge production to culture. Thus it pays attention to the locative processes that refer back to itself in order to achieve the propagation of knowledge. The referring back to itself here denotes the laboratory space and the social, technical and symbolic relations that are part of its operation and functioning.