What is the social history of the unit of observation’s definition? How do social groups talk about this definition? How has it been contested?

Annotations

Enter a comma separated list of user names.
February 23, 2024

1. In the statistical measurement of the individual subject has a social history in the counting of population and though following a rendering of the individual as a economic subject (political economy). It is a measurment of the individual, implying a specific reduction of pedestrians as homo oeconomicus. (See the location of the counter in consumer area)

2. Logic of Individuality: Thinking first in relata and then in relations.

February 23, 2024

historical perspective on census surveys, statistical data on population as a gouvernmental technology?

Janine Hagemeister's picture
February 19, 2024
In response to:

By reading the dataset it occured to me that in most households, different water connections are built in for different purposes already: the kitchen tap is generally used for food / drinking or washing hands, the dishwasher usually has a separate connection, all the toilet connections have a different purpose, etc. This makes distinguishing different water usecases easier, but uncertainties remain: Without a dishwasher, it is difficult to distinguish between cooking and washing hands or dishes from the kitchen tap.

Janine Hagemeister's picture
February 19, 2024

The social history might be that walking is one of the oldest mobility forms and yet the least datafied one. Hence, laser scanners are used to automatically count pedestrians in highly frequented zones to produce data about these infrastructure users. The traffic group of pedestrians, while often overlooked, is an economically important group when it comes to shopping streets or last-mile workplace commuting. The laser scanners could be talked about as part of an increasing datafication and / or surveillance of the public sphere - they might remind of security cameras on the outside facades of private buildings within public spaces. Due to the laser, the scanners however do not actually produce personal data of the individual pedestrians.

February 14, 2024

It might be interesting to look into the history of reporting on the stockmarket, or businesses more general. There is some work done by scholars like T. Mitchell or Callon on how "the economy" has become essentialized through particular liberal ideologies and in the later case "devices" such as the stockmarket ticker. Looking at market sentiments from a linguistic perspective might be usefull to analyse this dataset.

December 15, 2023
In response to:

the unit of observation is dependent on the conflict intensity defined by the Heidelberg Conflict Barometer as well as in what part of the arms production and delivery and how (direct, shareholder, etc.) the company was involved

"Only conflicts that reached conflict intensity 4 (limited war) or 5 (war) at least once in the period from 2016 to 2021 were included in the current version of ExitArms.org. Intensity levels one and two include non-violent conflicts. Level three describes conflicts in which violence is used without the use of military weapons. The conflict intensity definition by the Heidelberg Conflict Barometer is based on an assessment of the conflict consequences in terms of victims, refugees, militarization, degree of organization of violence, and destruction of infrastructure. Additionally: ExitArms.org does not include conflicts for which the United Nations Security Council has issued a mandate under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter that includes the use of force"

--> Looking at how the conflict intensity definitions and classifications are contested in academia or the public sphere would reveal the social history and contigencies in the unit of observation

--> the same goes for company involvment level as well as the involved process of the arms delivery