Objectification and Standardization: On the Limits and Effects of Ritually Fixing and Measuring Life [Other book format]

"Modes of objectification-different ways of producing and quantifying entities through categories and classes-are part of the cultural infrastructure of any society and any epoch. But we are now in an era that displays a passion for objectification and quantification unparalleled since the beginning of statistics. This volume identifies the most prominent contemporary forms of objectification: in the arts, medicine, finance, identity management, the rhetoric of science as well as the everyday. Different chapters show how these modes of objectification, measurement, and standardization shape the main dimensions of social life: meaning and representation, morality, and notions of thinghood and personhood. Moreover, quantification, measurement, and standardization are not simply ways of organizing pre-given entities. Rather, they are performative and generative technologies which create institutional objects, give rise to forms of objectivity and carry with them a range of normativities. Hence, the chaptersalso elaborate on the enduring link between forms of objectification and ritualism. At times, objectification is accomplished and fortified by ritualization. But ritual may also help disrupt the objectified, quantified world which meets resistance in theencounter with the actual fuzziness, flux, and capaciousness of reality. While the volume highlights the growing objectification and standardization of social life on the one hand, on the other it describes resistance to this trend"--

Anthropologists and other social scientists explore objectification-the precise social processes whereby people transform domains of sensory and social practice into objects of thought and imagination, that they then can hold at a kind of ritual distance in a way that enables them to subject them to new forms of manipulation. They cover objectification, standardization, and monetization; standardization and the professions; standardization, the sensory, and the aesthetic; and objectification and identity politics. Annotation ©2021 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com)

Modes of objectification—different ways of producing and quantifying entities through categories and classes—are part of the cultural infrastructure of any society and any epoch. But we are now in an era that displays a passion for objectification and quantification unparalleled since the beginning of statistics. This volume identifies the most prominent contemporary forms of objectification: in the arts, medicine, finance, identity management, the rhetoric of science as well as the everyday. Different chapters show how these modes of objectification, measurement, and standardization shape the main dimensions of social life: meaning and representation, morality, and notions of thinghood and personhood.

Moreover, quantification, measurement, and standardization are not simply ways of organizing pre-given entities. Rather, they are performative and generative technologies which create institutional objects, give rise to forms of objectivity and carry with them a range of normativities. Hence, the chapters also elaborate on the enduring link between forms of objectification and ritualism. At times, objectification is accomplished and fortified by ritualization. But ritual may also help disrupt the objectified, quantified world which meets resistance in the encounter with the actual fuzziness, flux, and capaciousness of reality. While the volume highlights the growing objectification and standardization of social life on the one hand, on the other it describes resistance to this trend.

This book is part of the Ritual Studies Monograph Series, edited by Pamela J. Stewart and Andrew Strathern, Department of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh.

Modes of objectification-different ways of producing and quantifying entities through categories and classes-are part of the cultural infrastructure of any society and any epoch. But we are now in an era that displays a passion for objectification and quantification unparalleled since the beginning of statistics. This volume identifies the most prominent contemporary forms of objectification: in the arts, medicine, finance, identity management, the rhetoric of science as well as the everyday. Different chapters show how these modes of objectification, measurement, and standardization shape the main dimensions of social life: meaning and representation, morality, and notions of thinghood and personhood. Moreover, quantification, measurement, and standardization are not simply ways of organizing pre-given entities. Rather, they are performative and generative technologies which create institutional objects, give rise to forms of objectivity and carry with them a range of normativities. Hence, the chapters also elaborate on the enduring link between forms of objectification and ritualism. At times, objectification is accomplished and fortified by ritualization. But ritual may also help disrupt the objectified, quantified world which meets resistance in the encounter with the actual fuzziness, flux, and capaciousness of reality. While the volume highlights the growing objectification and standardization of social life on the one hand, on the other it describes resistance to this trend. This book is part of the Ritual Studies Monograph Series, edited by Pamela J. Stewart and Andrew Strathern, Department of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh.