The Social Lives of Numbers : Statistics, Reform and the Remaking of Rural Life in Turkey

Brian Silverstein

ISBN 10: 9811591954 / ISBN 13: 9789811591952

Published by Springer Nature Singapore, Springer Nature Singapore, 2020

About this Item

Druck auf Anfrage Neuware - Printed after ordering - This book examines the changing role of statistics in institutional reform in Turkey, and the unanticipated ways in which such changes transform livelihoods as well. Turkish agriculture is undergoing its most profound transformation since the establishment of the Republic in the 1920s. Seemingly minor technical adjustments in farmers' reporting requirements and practices to collect better data on agriculture for statistics are also having a rapid and massive effect on farmers' practices and livelihoods. The attempt to understand agriculture in Turkey in new ways is changing agriculture itself. The relationship between statistics and social and natural phenomena is thus performative, and such performativity undergirds a great deal of socio-technical change in the world. Drawing on fieldwork in Turkey with statisticians, farmers and agricultural extension technicians, the book shows how alongside deliberation about reforms, it is in and through this performativity that much of the work of institutional commensuration actually happens.

Seller Inventory # 9789811591952

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Social Lives of Numbers : Statistics, Reform and the Remaking of Rural Life in Turkey
• Publisher: Springer Nature Singapore, Springer Nature Singapore
• Publication Date: 2020
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 9811591954
• ISBN 13: 9789811591952
• Binding: Buch
• Condition: Neu
• Dimensions: 216W x 153H x 12D millimeters 216 millimeters width by 153 millimeters height by 12 millimeters depth
• Weight: 293 grams

About this title

Synopsis

This book examines the changing role of statistics in institutional reform in Turkey, and the unanticipated ways in which such changes transform livelihoods as well. Turkish agriculture is undergoing its most profound transformation since the establishment of the Republic in the 1920s. Seemingly minor technical adjustments in farmers' reporting requirements and practices to collect better data on agriculture for statistics are also having a rapid and massive effect on farmers' practices and livelihoods. The attempt to understand agriculture in Turkey in new ways is changing agriculture itself. The relationship between statistics and social and natural phenomena is thus performative, and such performativity undergirds a great deal of socio-technical change in the world. Drawing on fieldwork in Turkey with statisticians, farmers and agricultural extension technicians, the book shows how alongside deliberation about reforms, it is in and through this performativity that much of the work of institutional commensuration actually happens.

• Examines processes by which institutions,worldviews, and lifestyles are transformed through reform, involvingphenomena like norms, formats, standards and statistics
• Contributes to recent anthropological and interdisciplinary work on science, expertise, economy and livelihoods
• Draws on extensive original fieldwork in Turkey with statisticians, farmers and agricultural extension technicians

About the Author

Brian Silverstein is Associate Professor in the School of Anthropology at the University of Arizona, where he is also the inaugural Director of the Arizona Center for Turkish Studies.