The Distributed Discursive Laboratory: A Conversational Infrastructure for the Ecology of Scientific Knowledge Production

This working paper introduces the concept of the distributed discursive laboratory, defined as a research configuration in which scientific ideas emerge, evolve, and stabilize through continuous written discursive interactions supported by an open documentary infrastructure. The framework draws on six analytical perspectives: infrastructure studies, distributed cognition, sociology of science, discourse analysis and enunciation theory, user experience design (UX), and the concept of the co-situated laboratory. The paper argues that digital documentary infrastructures are not merely technical supports for research but active systems that shape the emergence, stabilization, and circulation of scientific ideas. This working paper is part of the DSHAI research program (Discursive Signatures and Uses of Large Language Models). It complements WP02, which examined documentary circulation and scientific reception, by analyzing the discursive infrastructure upstream of which scientific documents themselves emerge. The paper also provides a practical description of how a distributed discursive laboratory operates, showing how ideas move through a transformation chain from conversational exploration to documentary crystallization and archival stabilization via intermediate artifacts such as notes, research journals, and working papers. Author: Alexandre Féron ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0008-3264-3920