#11904. From Performativity to Generativity: Valuation and Its Consequences in the Context of Digitization

July 2026publication date
Proposal available till 28-05-2025
4 total number of authors per manuscript0 $

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Journal’s subject area:
Sociology and Political Science;
Social Psychology;
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Abstract:
In this article we explore (1) how the study of valuation practices can illuminate the relationships between comparison, classification, and measurement, and (2) how a focus on valuation practices can be used to critically analyze the conditions and consequences of new digital formats, such as comparison portals, recommender systems, and screening and scoring techniques. We argue that it is through valuation practices and technologies such as ratings, rankings, and other evaluative infrastructures that a good can be estimated as valuable or not. We develop an analytical framework for the study of interactive, digitized valuation technologies and propose that an analysis of such technologies can be enhanced by focusing on 1) evaluative infrastructures as regimes of valuation (as opposed to a narrow focus on individual devices); 2) protocol as the specific power effect of evaluative infrastructures, where, paradoxically (and in opposition to disciplinary power regimes), power is at once distributed and concentrated; and 3) the generative potential of such valuation regimes, i.e., the production of new values and categorizations through digital evaluative infrastructures (rather than performativity).
Keywords:
Commensuration; Digitized valuation; Evaluative infrastructures; Power; Pragmatism

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