Cakici, Baki and Ruppert, Evelyn. 2020. Methods as Forces of Subjectivation: Experiments in the Remaking of Official Statistics. Journal of Cultural Economy, 13(2), pp. 221-235. ISSN 1753-0350 [Article]

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Abstract or Description

We develop the concept of methods as ‘forces of subjectivation’ in relation to experiments we have encountered in a study of government methods for generating official population statistics. These experiments problematise the subjects of traditional methods based on paper questionnaires and offer new digital technologies and data sources as possible solutions. We reflect on these experiments in relation to recent work on sociological and digital research methods as inventive and live. What this work identifies in relation to questions of research methods we take up to think about government methods in two ways. One concerns how government method experiments offered as solutions to problematic subjects, once put into action, change initial problem formulations and are inventive of new ones. Secondly, they are also inventive of their subjects who do not pre-exist but come into being through the agential capacities that methods configure. Both aspects of methods, we argue, are the result of the interactions and dynamics between human and technological actors, the outcomes of which cannot be settled in advance.

Item Type:	Article
Identification Number (DOI):	https://doi.org/10.1080/17530350.2019.1684340
Additional Information:	The research leading to this publication received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007–2013)/ERC Grant Agreement no. 615588. Principal Investigator, Evelyn Ruppert, Goldsmiths, University of London.
Keywords:	subjectivation, population statistics, research methods, government methods
Departments, Centres and Research Units:	Sociology Sociology > Centre for Invention and Social Process (CISP) [2016-]
Dates:	Date Event 24 September 2019 Accepted 5 November 2019 Published Online 2020 Published
Item ID:	27012
Date Deposited:	25 Sep 2019 16:02
Last Modified:	11 Mar 2021 10:00
Peer Reviewed:	Yes, this version has been peer-reviewed.
URI:	https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/27012

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