There is an interesting ambiguity in the passage from the second to the third sentence of the definition of indicators provided by Davis, Kingsbury, and Merry that I quoted earlier. Saying that data, as they put it, is of being used’ is not the ‘capable same as actually being fashioned as a tool for this purpose. As this suggests, indicators turn from into and assume an ever more ‘facts’ ‘standards’ ‘performative’ effects as they move from the supposedly neutral task of providing explanation to that of providing local guidance or overarching standards. Likewise, the ‘same’ phenomena can count as for one group, whilst serving as a for ‘facts’ ‘standard’ another group. For example, what is normal or average in terms of trial times in different countries is easily turned into a standard which all those countries should meet (Nelken, 2008). Interestingly, Roy Walmsley, who maintains the UN statistics on incarceration rates around the world, also used it to recommend that countries should aim to keep their prisons numbers down to no more than one in a thousand (Walmsley, 2003: 188); although this has not yet had the institutional support to become a fully-fledged global social indicator. Those who develop global social indicators draw on comparisons made for all sorts of purposes. Many indicators, however, incorporate data from other indicators in order to create their own, without paying attention to the factors and values guiding the making of the indicators that they have chosen to encompass. In terms of future work, the analysis so far should therefore also be seen as an invitation to examine the relationship between different types of comparison in actual practice. One obvious link is the role that play in both disciplined and standardising comparisons ‘indicators’ and the way such a role changes where the emphasis is less on explanation and more on evaluation. Just as some indicators used by inter-governmental and organisations are prepared with the help of academics, there are many efforts at academic explanations that use concepts such as states’, which were ‘fragile originally created for practical purposes (Karstedt, 2011). Table 4 summarises some of the links that have been considered in this paper (but has no pretence to being exhaustive). Table 4 Overlaps and Feedbacks Supposedly disinterested explanations (type 1) are often shaped by foil goals (type 2)
There is an interesting ambiguity in the passage from the second to the third sentence of the definition of indicators provided by Davis, Kingsbury, and Merry that I quoted earlier. Saying that data, as they put it, is ‘capable of being used’ is not the same as actually being fashioned as a tool for this purpose. As this suggests, indicators turn from ‘facts’ into ‘standards’ and assume an ever more ‘performative’ effects as they move from the supposedly neutral task of providing explanation to that of providing local guidance or overarching standards. Likewise, the ‘same’ phenomena can count as ‘facts’ for one group, whilst serving as a ‘standard’ for another group. For example, what is normal or average in terms of trial times in different countries is easily turned into a standard which all those countries should meet (Nelken, 2008). Interestingly, Roy Walmsley, who maintains the UN statistics on incarceration rates around the world, also used it to recommend that countries should aim to keep their prisons numbers down to no more than one in a thousand (Walmsley, 2003: 188); although this has not yet had the institutional support to become a fully-fledged global social indicator. Those who develop global social indicators draw on comparisons made for all sorts of purposes. Many indicators, however, incorporate data from other indicators in order to create their own, without paying attention to the factors and values guiding the making of the indicators that they have chosen to encompass. In terms of future work, the analysis so far should therefore also be seen as an invitation to examine the relationship between different types of comparison in actual practice. One obvious link is the role that ‘indicators’ play in both disciplined and standardising comparisons and the way such a role changes where the emphasis is less on explanation and more on evaluation. Just as some indicators used by inter-governmental and organisations are prepared with the help of academics, there are many efforts at academic explanations that use concepts such as ‘fragile states’, which were originally created for practical purposes (Karstedt, 2011). Table 4 summarises some of the links that have been considered in this paper (but has no pretence to being exhaustive). Table 4 Overlaps and Feedbacks Supposedly disinterested explanations (type 1) are often shaped by foil goals (type 2)
IJLC_DN_paper_rev.docx