The lecture presents an overview of some methodological issues and a specific case study related to recent research in the history of science and knowledge which no longer focuses solely on individual collectors and well-known collections, but also on complex and far-reaching networks of collecting that mobilised and thereby often transformed objects, actors and inscriptions. This approach lead to the decentralisation of the persona of the collector and collections were conceptualised in the Latourian framework as "centres of calculation". Special emphasis was laid on the analysis of the diverse spaces within which objects of knowledge were constituted and circulated.

This lecture wants to address the complicated movements of objects, materials, specimen and living creatures (both humans and other animals) within these wide and heterogeneous networks.