Dear all,
We are happy to announce you that Camille Beaurepaire, Siyu Li, and myself,
are organizing the open panel “Quantification in process. Putting data into
measurement categories” at the 6th Nordic STS conference
in Oslo, June 7 – June 9, 2023. The deadline to submit an abstract
(250 words max) is March 1.
Quantification in process. Putting data into measurement categories:
Quantification refers to the process of building representations of reality
with numbers – in fields as varied as science, economics, administration,
or everyday life (Desrosières 1993, Porter 1995, Espeland and Stevens 2008,
Hirschman and Berman 2018, Mennicken and Espeland 2019, Mennicken and
Salais 2022). It includes two consecutive steps (Desrosières 2008): 1)
constructing measurement conventions and categories, i.e. standards that
define the object of measurement by selecting what counts and what does
not, and 2) measuring, i.e. to fill in the categories with elements of the
pre-existing reality (often called data). This panel aims at empirically
investigating the variety of processes by which data are produced and
integrated into measurement categories, in order to better understand the
intertwining of the two steps of quantification. To draw on an industrial
metaphor: once the conventional blueprint has been agreed upon, how do the
persons in charge of the quantification process (statisticians,
accountants…) collect and transform their data input into a quantified
output? Putting data into categories is thus seen as a concrete activity, a
set of material and moral practices that unfold in a work environment,
drawing on ecologies of work and infrastructures ethnographies (Star and
Strauss 1999, Star 1999, Denis and Goëta 2018, Didier 2022). Furthermore,
putting data into categories is considered as a problematic process in
which data must first be produced, then conveyed and transformed, before
being integrated into categories of measurement (Edwards 2010, Gitelman
2013, Leonelli and Tempini 2020). From official statistics to corporate
accounting, from management indicators to covid curves and dashboards, each
quantification brings a particular response to the challenges of data
integration into categories and implies a singular work on data. To
identify points of convergence and contrasts between the forms of
integration, the expected communications will be based on a rich empirical
material, and may address the following questions:
1) which data are needed, and which criteria lead to their selection or
dismissal?
2) How to collect and store them? To what extent should they be modified?
3) How to eventually articulate them to the categories?
4) How to maintain data into categories, and deal with the possible
frictions resulting from the encounter between categories and data?
Panel organizers:
Camille Beaurepaire (Ecole Normale Supérieure - EHESS)
Quentin Dufour (Ecole Normale Supérieure - EHESS)
Siyu Li (Ecole Normale Supérieure - EHESS)
Best wishes,
Quentin Dufour
Quentin Dufour
Post-Doctorant en sociologie au CMH
Responsable de la chaire QUALIDATA - ENS
Membre de l'ISNS - Paris Santé Campus
quentindufour92@gmail.com
https://cv.archives-ouvertes.fr/quentin-dufour
+33 6 68 30 10 59
Centre Maurice Halbwachs
École Normale Supérieure - EHESS
48 Bd Jourdan 75014 Paris
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