Content area
Full Text
ABSTRACT
Although it is evident in routine decision-making and a crucial vehicle of rationalization, commensuration as a general social process has been given little consideration by sociologists. This article defines commensuration as the comparison of different entities according to a common metric, notes commensuration's long history as an instrument of social thought, analyzes commensuration as a mode of power, and discusses the cognitive and political stakes inherent in calling something incommensurable. We provide a framework for future empirical study of commensuration and demonstrate how this analytic focus can inform established fields of sociological inquiry.
KEY WORDS: commodification, quantification, measurement
INTRODUCTION
Consider three examples. Faculty at a well-regarded liberal arts college recently received unexpected, generous raises. Some, concerned over the disparity between their comfortable salaries and those of the college's arguably underpaid staff, offered to share their raises with staff members. Their offers were rejected by administrators, who explained that their raises were "not about them." Faculty salaries are one criterion magazines use to rank colleges. Administrators, mindful of how fateful these rankings are, wished to protect their favorable ranking with preemptive faculty raises. Partly because college raters pay closest attention to professors' incomes, faculty and staff compensation plans are not considered comparable.
Several working mothers recently described their strategy for managing their anxiety about the amount of time they spend away from their young children. Each week, they calculate a ratio of mom-to-caregiver hours. If the ratio is close, or favors mom, they feel better. One woman admitted to "fudging" her numbers to produce a guilt-ameliorating figure. An opposite appeasement strategy involves the invention of "quality time," when harried parents try to convince themselves that what matters is the richness, rather than the volume, of time spent with their children. The emergence of "quality time" as a way to mark the specialness of parental involvement corresponded to the large influx of mothers moving into the paid work force. But some mothers who embrace traditional roles, or who sacrifice careers and income to stay home with their children, sniff at the self-serving aroma of "quality time" (Hays 1996, Berger 1995:43-44).
An economist evaluating a proposed dam faced the problem of how to estimate the value of tubing down the river, an activity that...