TY  - BOOK
AU  - Merry,Sally Engle
TI  - Seductions of quantification: measuring human rights, gender violence, and sex trafficking 
T2  - Chicago series in law and society
SN  - 9780226261287
AV  - HV6250  .M47 2016
U1  - 362.88082 23
PY  - 2016///
CY  - Chicago : $b 
PB  - The University of Chicago Press, 
KW  - Women
KW  - Violence against
KW  - Research
KW  - United States
KW  - Methodology
KW  - Human trafficking
KW  - Data processing
KW  - Quantitative research
KW  - Social indicators
KW  - Numerical analysis
KW  - fast
KW  - Methods, techniques and organization of social science research
N1  - Includes bibliographical references (pages 225-242) and index; A world of quantification -- Indicators as a technology of knowledge -- Measuring violence against women -- Categorizing violence against women: the cultural work of commensuration -- Measuring the unmeasurable: the US Trafficking in Persons Reports -- Knowledge effects and governance effects of the Trafficking in Persons Reports -- Human rights indicators: translating law into policy -- Conclusions
N2  - "With The Seductions of Quantification, leading legal anthropologist Sally Engle Merry investigates the techniques by which information is gathered and analyzed in the production of global indicators on human rights, gender violence, and sex trafficking. Although such numbers convey an aura of objective truth and scientific validity, Merry argues persuasively that measurement systems constitute a form of power by incorporating theories about social change in their design but rarely explicitly acknowledging them. For instance, the US State Department's Trafficking in Persons Report, which ranks countries in terms of their compliance with antitrafficking activities, assumes that prosecuting traffickers as criminals is an effective corrective strategy -- overlooking cultures where women and children are frequently sold by their own families. As Merry shows, indicators are indeed seductive in their promise of providing concrete knowledge about how the world works, but they are implemented most successfully when paired with context-rich qualitative accounts grounded in local knowledge."--Amazon.com
ER  -