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shifts in population based on infant mortality rates, and so forth. This chapter considers the nature and design of the ICD seen as a kind of super-CSCW or coordinating and decision-support tool. Large though it is in both temporal and spatial scope, however, it is also worth remembering that the ICD shares many attributes with more modest, contemporary CSCW and decision-support and modeling tools. This includes, frequently, gaps in frame of reference between designers and users, difficulties with data entry quality and speed, and incompatibility of new tools with legacy systems. |
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The first point in this analysis is a simple one: the ICD is a list and lists may be considered as interesting tools. |
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Truth Comes at the Point of a List |
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List making has frequently been seen as one of the foundational activities of advanced human society. The first written records are lists (of kings and of equipment) (Goody 1971, 1987). Leroi-Gourhan (1965) pointed out that what gets written down first are things that cannot be retained in the head. This is especially true of lists. The earlier feats of memorization by Welsh poets (up to 100,000 lines for professional bards) were of lists within epic poems. The memorization task was aided by numerous cues within the text, and they were embedded in social practice. |
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Michel Foucault (1970) and Patrick Tort (1989) have, in different ways, claimed that the production of lists (of languages, races, the minerals, and animals) revolutionized science in the nineteenth century and led directly to modern science. The list in this case is both a hierarchical ordering and a practical tool for organizing work and the division of labor. The prime job of the bureaucrat, according to Latour (1987), is to compile lists that can then be shuffled and compared. Yates (1989) makes a similar point about the humble file folder. And so empires are controlled from a distance, using these simplest of technologies. |
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These diverse authors have all looked at the work involved in making these productions possible. Instead of analyzing the dazzling end products of data collection and analysisin the various forms of Hammurabi's code, mythologies, the theory of evolution, the welfare statethey have instead chosen to dust off the archives and discover piles and piles of lowly, dull, mechanical lists. The material culture of bureaucracy and empire is not found in pomp and circumstance, nor even in the first instance at the point of a gun, but rather at the point of a list. |
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