Nelli Piattoeva convened a working session entitled “Powerful numbers” at the 5th International Conference “Power, Institutions & Authority” that took place at the University of Tampere, 29-31 August, 2016.
In the working session, presenters from different countries focused on the functions of numerical data and quantification in the processes of governance. The broad questions that the session was interested in were: “What is the political life of numbers?” and “How does power operate with and through numerical data?”
The papers presented in the session urged to follow the socio-material, situated practices of data production with an aim to re-politicize data and to show how data production, and not only their use, serves diverse governing purposes.
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