multidimensional classifying

Leigh Star (s-star1 who-is-at uiuc.edu)
Thu, 20 Nov 1997 12:42:49 -0600

David, I was intrigued by your description of the orthogonal time lines.
This has been a central concern of mine in trying to model how
organizations, individual biographies, and scientific problems (or
medical/clinical problems) interact. Discrete/continuous is an important
distinction. The discreteness may also be textured in various ways, or
have its own ryhthm (or not). From the point of view of the individual,
the horizon of expectation (Ricoeur) or trajectory projection (Strauss)
also matters a great deal. Is the particular timeline unfolding as
expected, and if not, what can be done to reshape it, if anything?

Boy, I resonated with your description (and I think the thick complexity of
the texts from Jay and others in talking about this recently reflects this)
about the difficulty in conceptualizing or envisioning these timelines and
their differences. We really need 4-D visualization tools to even start.
If you look at the article, "Of Lungs and Lungers" that Geof Bowker and I
did last year in MCA, there's a (realy funky) attempt to draw how the
different trajectories fracture, collide, pull each other along.

L*

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Susan Leigh Star
Graduate School of Library and Information Science
501 East Daniel St. University of Illinois
Champaign, IL 61820 USA s-star1 who-is-at uiuc.edu