Quantification always depends on contested conventions, not neutral measurement.

Evidence

My aim in this paper is to contribute to these analyses and add weight to these concerns. But I want to go beyond these ”economic” or ”monetary” qualities. If quantifying is, as Desrosie`res (2008: 10) said, ”agreeing a convention then measuring,” then very different conventions can be brought into play to create a monetary or economic measure. … This pluralisation enables us to concentrate on a subset of economic conventions I consider ”financialised”. — Ève Chiapello, Financialisation of Valuation, 10

Categorization

• DEFINE: Desrosières’s formulation — quantifying as ‘agreeing a convention then measuring’ — is the load-bearing frame for the whole financialization-of-valuation argument.
• XREF: connects to: Conflicting interpretive standards point to contested origins, not better absolutes. — Edward W. Said, Covering Islam: How the Media and the…, 357; Deviation itself gets standardized, not exempt from it; Procedural rules for information offer conventions, not objective truth, for interpreting agents’ data. — Shapiro, Susan P., The Social Control of Impersonal Trust, 67 (+5 more)

Related

• Financialised reasoning can colonise non-monetary measures like scores and percentages. (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Conflicting interpretive standards point to contested origins, not better absolutes. #corroborates (0.85) — Edward W. Said, Covering Islam, 357
• Societal needs, not reality, determine whether knowledge counts as accurate. #corroborates (0.85) — Edward W. Said, Covering Islam, 356
• Quantification allocates the power to measure to some actors over others. #expands (0.84) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 385
• Procedural rules for information offer conventions, not objective truth, for interpreting agents’ data. #corroborates (0.82) — Shapiro, Susan P., The Social Control of Impersonal Trust, 67
• Deviation itself gets standardized, not exempt from it #expands (0.80)
• Arbitrary conceptual distinctions become inviolable norms through social forces, not inherent validity #expands (0.80) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 361
• Mathematically distinct fairness definitions can directly conflict with one another #exemplifies (0.78) — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law, 1158
• A construct’s conceptual opposite is rarely singular and depends on measurement. #qualifies (0.72) — Bob Altemeyer, The Authoritarian Specter, 4075