NYU anthropologist to examine how human rights rankings are created

October 5th, 2009 in Other Sciences / Social Sciences


"Indicators are increasingly important for bringing about reforms," Merry explained. "But it is critical to understand how these indicators are constructed and what significance they have across countries."



"The essence of a human rights indicator is that it is simple and easy to understand," Merry explained. "Like , it appears to allow easy comparison among groups and countries by converting values into numbers. Indicators use numerical measures to make comparisons across countries and over time. But comparisons require developing universal categories to describe highly diverse social phenomena. They are then compared and ranked as simple numbers."

"What information is lost?" she asked. "Does the number bury the messiness of difference among countries and cultures? Embedded theories, decisions about measures, and interpretive work on the data are replaced by the certainty and lack of ambiguity of a number."

The goal of Merry's research project is to open up the political and technical processes through which indicators are made.



Source: New York University (news : web)

"NYU anthropologist to examine how human rights rankings are created." October 5th, 2009. http://phys.org/news173975965.html