Geoffrey C. Bowker > Quotes

“Second, different designers of the classification system have different needs, and the shifting ecology of relationships among the disciplines using the classification will necessarily be reflected in the scheme itself.”
― Geoffrey C. Bowker, Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences

“The two basic problems for any overarching classification scheme in it rapidly changing and complex field call be described as follows. First, any classificatory decision made now might by its nature block off valuable future developments.”
― Geoffrey C. Bowker, Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences

“In general, classificatory work practices involve politics, kinds of both prototypical and Aristotelian classifications, and deletion of the practices in the production of' the final formal record.”
― Geoffrey C. Bowker, Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences

“But what are these categories? Who makes them, and who may change them? When and why do they become visible? How do they spread?...Remarkably for such a central part of our lives, we stand for the most part in formal ignorance of the social and moral order created by these invisible, potent entities.”
― Geoffrey C Bowker and Susan Leigh Starr

“Designer of information superhighways need to take the occasional stroll down memory lane.”
― Geoffrey Bowker

“So why do we sometimes appear in practice prototypical in our classifications, even if in principal we are Aristotelian? For two main reasons: because each classification system is tied to a particular set of coding practices; and because classification systems in general...reflect the conflicting, contradictory motives of the sociotechnical situations that gave rise to them.”
― geoffrey c bowker and

“The only good classification is a living classification.”
― Geoffrey C. Bowker, Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences

“The work of making, maintaining, and analyzing classification systems is richly textured. It is one of the central kinds of work of modernity including science and medicine. It is, we argue, central to social life”
― Geoffrey Bowker

“When faced with too many alternatives and too much information, they satisfice (March and Simon 1958).”
― Geoffrey C. Bowker, Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences

“Prototype theory proposes that we have a broad picture in our minds of what a chair is; and we extend this picture by metaphor and analogy when trying to decide if any given thing that we are sitting on counts. We call up a best example, and then see if there is a reasonable direct or metaphorical thread that takes us from the example to the object under consideration.”
― Geoffrey C Bowker and Susan Leigh Starr

“The ICU's life cycle for humans is as follows: a spurt of intense activity at birth; timeless adulthood, when one is afflicted with a range of woes that carry their own temporalities; and an inglorious, ill-defined end. The effect of this is, paradoxically, to make the individual an tin-defined, tabula rasa onto which various diseases are inscribed.”
― Geoffrey C. Bowker, Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences

“For any individual group or situation, classifications and standards give advantage or they give suffering. Jobs are made and lost; some regions benefit at the expense of others. How these choices are made, and how we may think about that invisible matching process, is at the core of the ethical project of this work.”
― Geoffrey C Bowker and Susan Leigh Starr