The right time for the job? Insights into practices of time in contemporary field sciences

Temporal issues appear to be crucial to the relationship between life scientists and their field sites and to the making of science in the field. We elaborate on the notion of practices of time to describe the ways life scientists cope with multiple and potentially conflicting temporal aspects that influence how they become engaged and remain engaged in a field-site, such as pleasure, long-term security, scientific productivity, and timeliness. With this notion, we seek to bring enhanced visibility and coherence to the extensive but rather scattered and limited treatments of temporal practices in field sciences that already exist.