Sociologists have long been interested in how systems of classification – whether wielded by the state, market actors, or simply encoded in tacit cultural codes – organize the exercise of political power. Generally speaking, sociologists have emphasized how classifications – particularly those embedded in statistical calculations – constitute the social groups that are the carriers of political struggles. In this paper, we suggest that in addition to considering how collectivities are constituted by forms of statistical classification, we also ought to investigate the person who “lives” in the cells defined by our practices of classification. In this regard, we distinguish between two forms of statistical classification, each involving distinct modes of individuation, that are pervasive in decisionmaking systems in modern capitalist societies. In class-based systems, individuals gain personhood through group membership; in other words, it is the process of being assigned to a class of individuals who are judged to share certain characteristics in common that determines one’s position as an individual subject. In attribute-based systems, by contrast, personhood is determined not by reference to an individual’s position in a group, but rather by virtue of one’s possession of a set of attributes. Our basic claim is that differences between these two types of classification have important implications for how persons attach (or fail to attach) to groups, and therefore what kinds of politics are possible. We illustrate this argument by examining contention over the use of gender as a variable in the pricing of risk in insurance and credit – two markets in which individuals directly encounter class-based and attribute-based systems of classification, respectively.
LOCATION:William James Hall 1550 STATUS:CONFIRMED DTSTART:20190313T200000Z DTEND:20190313T213000Z END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR