New Civic Epistemologies of Quantification: Making Sense of Indicators of Local and Global Sustainability

Abstract

Processes of globalization and decentralization are changing the relationship among statistical knowledge production, nation, and state. This article explores these changes through a comparison of five projects to design and implement indicators of sustainable development to replace conventional measures of economic welfare and social demographics—community sustainability indicators, Metropatterns, greening the gross domestic product, the Living Planet Index, and standardized accounting rules for inventorying greenhouse gas emissions. Drawing on a coproductionist idiom, the article argues that these projects constitute experiments in modifying the civic epistemologies of democratic societies, transforming not only knowledge production but also political identities, relationships, and institutions.