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Audit Culture

How Indicators and Rankings are Reshaping the World
Brief Description
All aspects of our work and private lives are increasingly measured and managed. But how has this 'audit culture' arisen and what kind of a world is it producing? Cris Shore and Susan Wright provide a timely account of the rise of the new industries of... Read More
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An anthropological account of how rankings, statistics and numbers are reshaping the world we live in

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All aspects of our work and private lives are increasingly measured and managed. But how has this 'audit culture' arisen and what kind of a world is it producing?

Cris Shore and Susan Wright provide a timely account of the rise of the new industries of accounting, enumeration, and ranking from an anthropological perspective, drawing on political economy, ethnographic observation, and genealogical excavation. Audit Culture is the first book to systematically document and analyse these phenomena and their implications for democracy.

The book explores how audit culture operates across a wide range of fields, including health, higher education, NGOs, finance, the automobile industry, and the military. The authors build a powerful critique of contemporary public sector management in an age of neoliberal market-making, privatisation, and outsourcing. They conclude by offering a raft of suggested actions to reverse its damaging effects on communities, reclaim professional autonomy, and restore the democratic accountability that audit culture is systematically undermining.

Series: Anthropology, Culture and Society

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  • Audit Culture
    All aspects of our work and private lives are increasingly measured and managed. But how has this 'audit culture' arisen and what kind of a world is it producing? Cris Shore and Susan Wright provide a timely account of the rise of the new industries of accounting, enumeration, and ranking from an anthropological perspective, drawing on political economy, ethnographic observation,...
    Paperback
    $4799
    Available
    Ships in 3-4 weeks
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Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9780745336459

Publisher: Pluto Press

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 20 February 2024

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Pluto Press

Audience: Professional and scholarly

DIMENSIONS

Width: 140.0mm

Height: 216.0mm

Weight: 250g

Pages: 256

About the Author

Cris Shore is Emeritus Professor of Social Anthropology at Goldsmiths, University of London, and Research Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study, Central European University. One of his recent publications isΒ The Shapeshifting Crown and he and Susan Wright are co-editors of the Anthropology of Policy book series for Stanford University Press. Susan Wright is Professor of Educational Anthropology at Aarhus University, Denmark. Her latest publication is Enacting the University. With Cris Shore, she is the co-editor of theΒ Anthropology of Policy book series for Stanford University Press and Death of the Public University?.

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