Bibliography
Bowker, G. C., & Star, S. L. (1999). Sorting Things Out: Classification and its Consequences. Cambridge and London: The MIT Press.
Review by Michael Beach
This book speaks to a long-standing problem in both science and technology. When is a thing a thing, and not something else? Despite belief in clear categories, there is often ambiguity and continuum when it comes to pretty much anything we choose to measure. Even in something as ‘obvious’ as on or off. For example, in any electrical system (computers included) there is a voltage increase or decrease just after a switch is thrown. As immediate as the process may seem in human time, we have instruments that can measure the charging and discharging that goes on. What about when the power has a ‘brown out’. Is it on or off?
This dilemma is where the authors go in this book. They emphasize the effect that human choice has on establishing categories, and in deciding when something is in one category or another. In the world of the sociology of science, this idea is sometimes dubbed ‘boundary work’. Scientists are influenced by the professional and general societies they find themselves in. Different scientific organizations may approach the same ‘problem’ in different ways creating competing categories. For example, there a lots of different ways scientific disciplines name or describe anything from substances, to flora and fauna, to human traits. Pick pretty much any like-grouped things and you have created your own version of a category. The issue in terms of science is the addition of an authority that comes along with the supposed objectivity of scientists.
Bowker and Star share examples as wide ranging as tuberculosis, apartheid, and nursing work. They conclude with a chapter on why classifications matter. “Classifications are powerful technologies. Embedded in working infrastructures they become relatively invisible without losing any of that power” (Bowker & Star, 1999, p. 320). Decided by convention over time, categories, by definition, create a form of hierarchy. Such hierarchy might be among humans in an organization (who’s a doctor and who’s a nurse?), or among which form of category will be accepted within a given society as ‘higher’ or ‘lower’. For example, in evolutionary science specimens are often dubbed higher or lower forms of life based on the complexity of their cellular make up or their DNA structure. Bowker and Star point out that things are generally on some sort of continuum or other, and drawing lines within the continuum is arbitrary and tends to mislead. One classic example is the box on a form describing race. Which does a multi-racial person check when describing themselves?
Bowker, G. C., & Star, S. L. (1999). Sorting Things Out: Classification and its Consequences. Cambridge and London: The MIT Press.
Review by Michael Beach
This book speaks to a long-standing problem in both science and technology. When is a thing a thing, and not something else? Despite belief in clear categories, there is often ambiguity and continuum when it comes to pretty much anything we choose to measure. Even in something as ‘obvious’ as on or off. For example, in any electrical system (computers included) there is a voltage increase or decrease just after a switch is thrown. As immediate as the process may seem in human time, we have instruments that can measure the charging and discharging that goes on. What about when the power has a ‘brown out’. Is it on or off?
This dilemma is where the authors go in this book. They emphasize the effect that human choice has on establishing categories, and in deciding when something is in one category or another. In the world of the sociology of science, this idea is sometimes dubbed ‘boundary work’. Scientists are influenced by the professional and general societies they find themselves in. Different scientific organizations may approach the same ‘problem’ in different ways creating competing categories. For example, there a lots of different ways scientific disciplines name or describe anything from substances, to flora and fauna, to human traits. Pick pretty much any like-grouped things and you have created your own version of a category. The issue in terms of science is the addition of an authority that comes along with the supposed objectivity of scientists.
Bowker and Star share examples as wide ranging as tuberculosis, apartheid, and nursing work. They conclude with a chapter on why classifications matter. “Classifications are powerful technologies. Embedded in working infrastructures they become relatively invisible without losing any of that power” (Bowker & Star, 1999, p. 320). Decided by convention over time, categories, by definition, create a form of hierarchy. Such hierarchy might be among humans in an organization (who’s a doctor and who’s a nurse?), or among which form of category will be accepted within a given society as ‘higher’ or ‘lower’. For example, in evolutionary science specimens are often dubbed higher or lower forms of life based on the complexity of their cellular make up or their DNA structure. Bowker and Star point out that things are generally on some sort of continuum or other, and drawing lines within the continuum is arbitrary and tends to mislead. One classic example is the box on a form describing race. Which does a multi-racial person check when describing themselves?
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