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In this thesis I examine scientific practices which produce data on air pollution, and the ways in which these data are managed and co-ordinated by researchers to make claims about air pollution. In doing so, I attend to the everyday practices and experiences of scientific research, exploring the ways in which science is a social and cultural endeavour. Based on three years ethnographic fieldwork with a multi-disciplinary project studying the relationship between Weather, Health and Air Pollution (WHAP), I trace the local meaning of research, but also its implications, as part of a wider ensemble of environmental health and policy relations. Managing different data and co-ordinating research practices was understood by scientists as a fundamental part of doing ‘collaborative research’. Collaboration was performed through the movement of data, and also became an ethnographic device by which I traced and followed the activities of scientists. Working with data was considered ‘real’ scientific work, and it was this appeal to authenticity that led me to examine data as a form of material practice. The craftwork involved in the production and use of data illustrates the embodied and tacit nature of research. The way in which these different types of knowledge were negotiated by researchers shows that ‘objectivity’ is situated, and that scientific legitimacy is contingent on the social and technical configuration of tools, technologies, people and standards. Drawing upon research from social and cultural studies of science, I emphasise both the representational and performative shape of science. The reciprocal nature of data practices configure and enact …