Wiring knowledge domains. Metaphors and knowledge combination in a multi-disciplinary field

In the process of combining distant domains of knowledge, metaphors play a privileged role in constructing a shared understanding and in coordinating multiple actors with different background, language and practices. Yet they are still relatively under-investigated, in particular their dynamic interplay with individual cognition and action along the knowledge creation process. Through the case study of a neuroscience research project over a eight-year period, we reconstruct the role that metaphors play in defining conceptually the object of research, interfacing and coordinating different bodies of knowledge, and informing actual practices of laboratory experimentation and technology development. We show how metaphors develop and change over the different phases of the project, responding to the new puzzles they contribute to create and to the changing composition of the network of actors involved. We offer some insight on the emergence of such metaphors and their dynamics in processes of knowledge combination.