Author	Merry, Sally Engle, 1944- author
Title	The seductions of quantification : Measuring human rights, gender violence, and sex trafficking / Sally Engle Merry
Imprint	Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 2016
Descript	viii, 249 pages ; 24 cm

"With The Seductions of Quantification, leading legal anthropologist Sally Engle Merry investigates the techniques by which information is gathered and analyzed in the production of global indicators on human rights, gender violence, and sex trafficking. Although such numbers convey an aura of objective truth and scientific validity, Merry argues persuasively that measurement systems constitute a form of power by incorporating theories about social change in their design but rarely explicitly acknowledging them. For instance, the US State Department's Trafficking in Persons Report, which ranks countries in terms of their compliance with antitrafficking activities, assumes that prosecuting traffickers as criminals is an effective corrective strategy -- overlooking cultures where women and children are frequently sold by their own families. As Merry shows, indicators are indeed seductive in their promise of providing concrete knowledge about how the world works, but they are implemented most successfully when paired with context-rich qualitative accounts grounded in local knowledge."--Amazon.com

A world of quantification -- Indicators as a technology of knowledge -- Measuring violence against women -- Categorizing violence against women: the cultural work of commensuration -- Measuring the unmeasurable: the US Trafficking in Persons Reports -- Knowledge effects and governance effects of the Trafficking in Persons Reports -- Human rights indicators: translating law into policy -- Conclusions

1. Women -- Violence against -- Research -- United States -- Methodology
2. Human trafficking -- Research -- United States -- Methodology
3. Women -- Violence against -- Data processing
4. Human trafficking -- Data processing
5. Quantitative research
6. Social indicators
7. Numerical analysis -- Data processing

LOCATION	CALL#	STATUS
Central Library (5th Floor)	362.88082 M573S 2016	CHECK SHELVES
Political Science Library	362.88082 M573S	CHECK SHELVES

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