Watson-Carlin2012

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Watson-Carlin2012
BibType ARTICLE
Key Watson-Carlin2012
Author(s) Rod Watson, Andrew P. Carlin
Title ‘Information’: praxeological considerations
Editor(s)
Tag(s) EMCA, Classification, Garfinkel, Information Theory, Philosophy of Information, Wittgenstein, Workplace Studies
Publisher
Year 2012
Language English
City
Month
Journal Human Studies
Volume 35
Number 2
Pages 327–345
URL Link
DOI 10.1007/s10746-012-9233-1
ISBN
Organization
Institution
School
Type
Edition
Series
Howpublished
Book title
Chapter

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Abstract

Harold Garfinkel wrote a series of highly detailed and lengthy ‘memos’ during his time (1951-53) at Princeton, where remarkable developments in information theory were taking place. These very substantial manuscripts have been edited by Anne Warfield Rawls in Toward a Sociological Theory of Information (Garfinkel 2008). This paper explores some of the implications of these memos, which we suggest are still relevant for the study of ‘information’ and information theory. Definitional privilege of ‘information’ as a technical term has been arrogated by information science, which thereby excludes the interactional occasions of use of ‘information’. The authors examine some ‘professional’ and ‘laic’ determinations of ‘information’. Looking at in situ uses of ‘information’ shows how dealing with ‘information’ is characterized by ad hoc practices, such as specifications, ‘authorization’ and ‘particularization’ procedures. The authors report on a series of workplace studies in academic libraries, looking at how librarians account for ‘information’ through practices of classification. Classifying ‘information’ is a member’s local accomplishment, and explicating practices of classifying ‘information’ undermines the formal-analytic project of the ‘Philosophy of Information,’ as formulated, for instance, by Luciano Floridi. Implications of Garfinkel’s work must remain beyond the purview of information science if it is to maintain its status as the recognized field dealing with ‘information’. However, such omission risks ‘losing the phenomenon’ of ‘information’: to adapt an argument from Dorothy Smith (Catalyst, 8, pp 39–54, 1974), it trades upon decontextualized uses and recontextualizes ‘information’ for the practical purposes of formal analysis.

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