Technologies of Valuation

Catalog description

Valuation is a pervasive feature of contemporary life. Professors, start-ups, immigrants, intelligence, insurance premiums, and human lives: almost everything these days is subject to some form of more or less methodical assessment. This seminar examines valuation as a socio-technical phenomenon and asks how value and values are established, co-produced, maintained, subverted, institutionalized, and resisted. Through a mix of reading, writing, and activities, we shall engage with theoretical, historical, and contemporary studies of (e)valuation in science & technology studies (STS), but also draw on related areas like economic sociology, critical accounting studies, anthropology, and information science. Taken together, these ideas provide a powerful lens for analyzing what counts in cultures, organizations, and other forms of social life.