|
|
|
|
|
|
|
regardless of a jury's verdict. Many are somewhere between, but knowing how reversible is the filiation is important for understanding its impact. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The metaphor of filiation presented here could be used to characterize a texture of information systems where categories touch either individuals or things. The aesthetics of the weave and the degree to which the individual is bound up or supported by it are among the types of characterizations that could be made. There are brute renderings, such as having two thick, irreversible threads tying one person to conflicting categories. More subtly, it is possible to think of something like Granovetter's strength of weak ties and characterize the thousand and one classifications that weakly tie people to information systems as binding or torquing in another way. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The metaphor of filiation is useful to the extent that it can be used to ask questions of working infrastructures in new and interesting ways. Two questions that rise directly out of our treatment of the metaphor for any individual or group filiation are: What will be the ecology and distribution of suffering? Who controls the ambiguity and visibility of categories? |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
This chapter has argued that there is more to be done in the analysis of classification systems than deconstructing universal master narratives. Certainly, such narratives should be challenged. We have attempted to show, however, that there are ways of scaling up from the local to the social, via the concept of boundary infrastructures, and that we can in the process recognize our own hybrid natures without losing our individuality. The value of this approach is that it allows us to intervene in the construction of infrastructureswhich surely exist and are powerfulas not only critics but also as designers. |
|
|
|
|
|