Calculating the Social Standards and the Reconfiguration of Governing

by Higgins, Vaughan; Kitto, Simon; Larner, Wendy

• ISBN13: 9780230579316
• ISBN10: 0230579310
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-11-15
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

Examining the increasingly powerful role of standards in the governing of economic, political and social life, this book draws upon governmentality and actor network theory to explore how standards and standardizing projects are articulated and rendered workable in practice, and the objects, subjects and forms of identity to which this gives rise.

Author Biography

Vaughan Higgins is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Monash University, Australia. His previous publications include Rural Governance: International Perspectives (with Lynda Cheshire and Geoffrey Lawrence) and Agricultural Governance: Globalization and the New Politics of Regulation (with Geoffrey Lawrence). Wendy Larner is Professor of Human Geography and Sociology at the University of Bristol, UK. Her research interests include political economy, governmentality, economic geography and social policy. She is co-editor of Global Governmentality (with William Walters) and author of a wide range of journal articles and book chapters.

Table of Contents

Standards and Standardization as a Social Science Problem; V.Higgins & W.Larner
PART I THE GLOBAL AND LOCAL POLITICS OF STANDARDIZING
Calculating Hybrids; P.Miller, L.Kurunmäki & T.O'Leary
Gendering Codes of Conduct: Chiquita Bananas and Nicaraguan Women Workers; M.Prieto-Carrón & W.Larner
The Practice of Third Party Certification: Enhancing Environmental Sustainability and Social Justice in the Global South?;  C.Bain & M.Hatanaka
PART II TECHNOLOGIES OF GOVERNING AND THE STANDARDIZING OF THE SOCIAL
E-government and the Production of Standardized Individuality; P.Henman & M.Dean
The Standardizing of Nursing Competencies; A.Dugdale & L.Grealish
Industry Analysts and the Labour of Comparison; N.Pollock
Sticking Plasters and the Standardizations of Everyday Life; M.Michael
PART III THE CONTESTATION AND ADAPTATION OF STANDARDIZING PRACTICES
Local Experiments with Global Certificates: How Russian Software Testers are Inventing Themselves as a Profession; M.Feakins
Adapting Standards: The Case of Environmental Management Systems in Australia; V.Higgins, J.Dibden & C.Cocklin
Standards, Orphan Drugs, and Pharmaceutical Markets; C.Novas
PART IV CONCLUSION
From Standardization to Standardizing Work; V.Higgins & W.Larner