Daniel Sosna (2024) Ecology of Quantification: Ways of Knowing Quantity and Ways of Studying It, Conference Qualitative Methods in Research IX., 12 December 2024, Prague

Quantification has become a privileged way of knowing and a means of governance. References to 'hard data' are not only common in the natural sciences, but have become a normal part of public life. Humanities and social sciences use numbers, graphs, and tables as part of their methodological toolkit, but one can also look at them as objects of research interest. In this paper, I present an approach to the study of quantification that is based on ethnographic research. Using waste management as an example, I analyze the ways of knowing quantity, how senses and measurements may or may not lead to the emergence of numbers, and what the effects of such practices may have on society. As an alternative to a myopic understanding of the world through 'hard data', I present the approach to quantification inspired by ecological relationality.