Bowker, Geoffrey C. - Susan Leigh Star: Sorting Things Out - Classification and Its Consequences
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What do a seventeenth-century mortality table (whose causes of death include "fainted in a bath," "frighted," and "itch"); the identification of South Africans during apartheid as European, Asian, colored, or black; and the separation of machine- from hand-washables have in common? All are examples of classification—the scaffolding of information infrastructures.
In Sorting Things Out, Geoffrey C. Bowker and Susan Leigh Star explore the role of categories and standards in shaping the modern world. In a clear and lively style, they investigate a variety of classification systems, including the International Classification of Diseases, the Nursing Interventions Classification, race classification under apartheid in South Africa, and the classification of viruses and of tuberculosis.| Condition: |  |
| Category: | Books > Foreign Language Books > Books in English > |
| Category: | Books > Natural Sciences > |
| Category: | Books > Philosophy > |
| Category: | Books > Foreign Language Books > Books in English > Social Sceinces > |
| Publisher: | MIT Press, 2000 |
| Item number / ISBN: | 9780262522953 |
| Binding: | paperback |
| Page count: | 377 |
| Item language: | English |