Browse by author
Lookup NU author(s): Dr Matt Jenkins
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
This paper examines the creation of the UK's 'Measuring National Well-being' statistical programme, drawing on accounts given of the creation of the programme in official sources and primary interviews. Focusing on the microspaces of public consultations and advisory panels, it argues that the construction of this statistical object was simultaneously the construction of a knowledge-object for academics and of a policy-object for policy-makers. As such, the statistic drew on and fed into domestic and international networks of statistical, academic and policy usage. The programme was shaped by the needs of these multiple networks, creating an object that they could hold in common but which did not necessarily fully satisfy any of them. Understanding the creation of objects in this way extends understandings around policy transfers and mobilities by showing how policy-objects arise through the transfer and mobility of things which are not policy. Simultaneously, what arises from policy mobility is not simply policy. Instead, what arises is multiple objects, which are the product of the intersection of travelling policy, knowledge and practice and they feed back into existing networks of knowledge, policy and practice. In doing so, the paper shows the inter-relations of knowledge and practice with policy, revealing them to be situated in place, contingent and compromised. It also contributes to the understanding of how official statistics, as a key technology of the state, are created.
Author(s): Jenkins M
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Political Geography
Year: 2017
Volume: 56
Pages: 24-33
Print publication date: 01/01/2017
Online publication date: 04/11/2016
Acceptance date: 24/10/2016
Date deposited: 17/01/2017
ISSN (print): 0962-6298
ISSN (electronic): 1873-5096
Publisher: Pergamon Press
URL: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2016.10.005
DOI: 10.1016/j.polgeo.2016.10.005
Altmetrics provided by Altmetric
