This panel explores top-down societal labelling practices in past and present and their consequences. Eric Wolf wrote that certain categories describing social groups often turn into perilous ideas fuelling social tensions and divisions. This has also be a key observation in other classical writings of anthropology, such as by Arjun Appadurai and Edwin Ardener. Concepts, research and analytical tools used by scientists, administrations, census institutions, and commercial organizations, often treated as "objectively describing society", tend to impose not only images of human groups, but even to create new groups, identities, and political ethnicities. "Political arithmetic" and "Staatswissenschaft" from the beginning of their existence were intended to serve those who count, and not necessarily those who are counted. Colonial and nation-state censuses often forced a person to choose between categories with which one did not identify. They produced their own object of study, gave increased importance to aspects that had previously been overlooked, and omitted important issues if they were inconvenient for the census takers. Today, similar questions are caused by the behaviour of corporations and the use of Big Data.
To participate in the panel, we invite researchers interested in the ways and consequences of measuring and top-down describing society and generating the discourse of public debate.
