Centre of calculation

The notion of ‘centre of calculation’ was developed by the French sociologist Bruno Latour (1987) in his seminal book Science in Action. It is a concept about the venues in which knowledge production builds upon the accumulation of resources through circulatory movements to other places. Centres of calculation have been observed at a variety of scales, from the individual to supranational regions, and have contributed significantly to the construction and dissemination of scientific, geographical and other forms of knowledge in different times and spaces. In this chapter, it is argued that the principles for becoming a ‘centre of calculation’ are generic to the emergence of knowledge centres, while scientific and economic ‘centres of calculation’ became inextricably linked to the rise of European science, capitalism and imperialism and are as such an essentially modern project.