How does STS (ac)count? Methods and critical engagements with quantification.

• In Event: How Do STS Studies Translate Numbers: Knowledge, Theory, Method

Abstract

STS has an strong tradition in the analysis of the production of numbers and the role of quantification in the governing of the different nature-culture that we dwell. However, numbers and quantification have been almost exclusively matters of critique. Its role as tools, methods and strategies of critique has been relatively marginal. This paper wants to open a dialogue about the role of quantification and the production of numbers within STS research practices. I present two alternative pathways to explore methodological engagements with numbers: Statactivism (Bruno, Didier and Vitale, 2014) and the hacking (Maxigas, 2017) of statistical and numerical devices. To illustrate the first path I discuss the development of alternative data infrastructures for the register of Human Rights violations in Colombia and the role of the production of numbers and statistics in contesting the official accounts of the war and its victims. As example of the second path, I present my own work on Markov Chain modelling in the estimation of the cost-effectiveness of HPV vaccination in Colombia. I have explored alternative uses of this device showing the contradictions in the claims of safety and effectiveness of the vaccine and presenting alternative enactments of the relations between populations, vaccination and risk.

Author

• Oscar Javier Maldonado Castaneda, Universidad del Rosario