Metric Power: Measurement - David Beer.

                                                                                             Image: Dickinson-Belskie's statues of 'Norman' & 'Norma'.

This reading approaches the implications of measurement with Beer deeming that measurement is not neutral but is instead a 'powerful performative presence in the fabric of the social.' Whilst the genealogy of measurement can be found hundreds of years ago, more importantly Beer's asks us to consider how these still play out today.

The power of metric lies not in the method but in the role it plays within both circulation and the organisation of everyday lives. 

Alain Desrosières isolates two main types; firstly the concern with the 'measurement itself or, secondly, with the object that is being measured':

The thing that is being measured exists in independence of the process that is applied to it. Furthermore, the way this measurement is taken hinges on the "reliability of the statistical process," in accordance to models provided by the physical sciences or industry. These two points of view,  create a tension best conjured by Desrosières as; "one viewing the objects to be described as real things, and the other as the result of convention in the actual work."

 Furthermore, the history of measurement, the social and natural worlds, are inextricably intertwined. The questions raised concern the measures and the object that are under measurement; is what is being measured shaped by those metrics? Beer explains that "comparability and commensuration are used to create and maintain apparently incontrovertible senses of difference, often through the establishment or maintenance of obdurate norms." 

This can lead to taxonomies which are can be understood through metrics and there is a concerted thought and method behind the practices of social measurement. 

The origins of these practices were the around the middle of the Victorian era. Measurement was increasing as a popular method of categorising and recording newly acquired knowledge about the social and physical worlds. The social world was often subjected to the same observations and measurement as that of the natural world in order to understand 'hidden laws and forms.' This effect of putting 'society on display' has consequence in our 21st century lives being tabulated and measured more frequently and in a 'greater number of ways.' Wearable fitness trackers, social media profiles, smartphone applications and their tracking and recording capabilities even involve an invidious use; people measure themselves for comparison to others and even for fun. If any of us have used ancestry.com we will see that the family tree stops somewhere in the 19th century; posterity and the nature of recording has a 'historical arc' but does not generally stretch further back than the 18th or 19th centuries. 

Beer's discussion hinges not on this being this source of the issue but more the form by which this is 'taken' and the reliability of the statistical process in accordance with the physical sciences and the intentions of industry. Foucault deemed that the modelling of populations can mean better provide insight into how better to govern them. 

Theodor Porter highlights that classifying people is particularly problematic. He notes that categories that may start out as 'highly contingent' and 'weak' can end up being 'resilient' - once they become qualified they can then 'become increasingly real'. Porter describes public statistics as recording the world whilst simultaneously shaping it. Carl Miller and Nikolas Rose contend that these calculations 'reveal and construct norms... to which evaluations can be attached,' they have the effect of form or reinscribing cultural bias. 

Michel Foucault's lectures between 1977-78 were, he suggested, a 'history of "governmentality."' One formulation put forward was the shift from sovereign power and the shift towards 'the disciplinary society'. The sovereign powers had dominion within borders of a territory; discipline is applied to the bodies of individuals and security over the whole populace. Another signal in this shift was the move from aggregating measurement of families to that of individuals.  

This reality has pushed for recognition of the need for better data collection, especially that concerning social mobility and for more detailed information on the 'measure of a nation' and what that constitutes. Troublingly, the histories of statistics have Occidental origins, to provide more inclusive balanced metrics means a desire for more genuine global account to explore 'connected sociologies'.  More locally, the census will be undertaken by the Australian Bureau of Statistics this year and begins next month, alternatively there has been a national campaign to recognise the traditional indigenous place names as part of NAIDOC week.