Statistics and social critique

<span class="abs_content">This paper focuses on the history of the uses of statistics as a tool for socialcritique. Whereas nowadays they are very often conceived as being in the hands of the powerful, there are many historical cases when they were, on the contrary, used to oppose th...

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Autor principal: Alain Desrosières
Formato: article
Lenguaje:EN
Publicado: Coordinamento SIBA 2014
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spelling oai:doaj.org-article:810f7b20c4da403587ce12716234f8c92021-11-21T15:11:37ZStatistics and social critique1972-76232035-660910.1285/i20356609v7i2p348https://doaj.org/article/810f7b20c4da403587ce12716234f8c92014-07-01T00:00:00Zhttp://siba-ese.unisalento.it/index.php/paco/article/view/14157https://doaj.org/toc/1972-7623https://doaj.org/toc/2035-6609<span class="abs_content">This paper focuses on the history of the uses of statistics as a tool for socialcritique. Whereas nowadays they are very often conceived as being in the hands of the powerful, there are many historical cases when they were, on the contrary, used to oppose the authority. The author first illustrates the theory of Ted Porter according to which quantification might be a “tool of weakness”. He then addresses the fact that statistics were used in the context of labour and on living conditions, thus being a resource for the lower class of society (and presenting the theory of statistics of Pelloutier, an anarchist activist). Finally comes the question of the conditions of success of these counterpropositions, discussed on the examples of the new random experiments in public policies, and of the measure of the 1% of the richest persons</span><br />Alain DesrosièresCoordinamento SIBAarticleneoliberalismsociology of quantificationsocial critiquestatisticsPolitical science (General)JA1-92ENPartecipazione e Conflitto, Vol 7, Iss 2, Pp 348-359 (2014)
institution DOAJ
collection DOAJ
language EN
topic neoliberalism
sociology of quantification
social critique
statistics
Political science (General)
JA1-92
spellingShingle neoliberalism
sociology of quantification
social critique
statistics
Political science (General)
JA1-92
Alain Desrosières
Statistics and social critique
description <span class="abs_content">This paper focuses on the history of the uses of statistics as a tool for socialcritique. Whereas nowadays they are very often conceived as being in the hands of the powerful, there are many historical cases when they were, on the contrary, used to oppose the authority. The author first illustrates the theory of Ted Porter according to which quantification might be a “tool of weakness”. He then addresses the fact that statistics were used in the context of labour and on living conditions, thus being a resource for the lower class of society (and presenting the theory of statistics of Pelloutier, an anarchist activist). Finally comes the question of the conditions of success of these counterpropositions, discussed on the examples of the new random experiments in public policies, and of the measure of the 1% of the richest persons</span><br />
format article
author Alain Desrosières
author_facet Alain Desrosières
author_sort Alain Desrosières
title Statistics and social critique
title_short Statistics and social critique
title_full Statistics and social critique
title_fullStr Statistics and social critique
title_full_unstemmed Statistics and social critique
title_sort statistics and social critique
publisher Coordinamento SIBA
publishDate 2014
url https://doaj.org/article/810f7b20c4da403587ce12716234f8c9
work_keys_str_mv AT alaindesrosieres statisticsandsocialcritique
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