Figures for what purposes? The issues at stake in the struggles to define and control the uses of statistics

Abstract

In this article, we would like to demonstrate the value of incorporating detailed investigation of the conflicts around the uses of statistics into more general studies of the effects of quantification. To that end, this article focuses on the process of quantification of “healt at work” and examines two quantification instruments, set up by occupational health physicians. It brings together the analysis of the genesis of the instruments, their uses and effects with the study of the actors who produced and managed them. Focussing on the “conflicting uses” around the numbers proposed by physicians, this article demonstrates that their production is part of social relations that contribute to the redefinition of the goals initially assigned to instruments by their creators. Embedded in unfavourable power relations, physicians struggle to weigh on the institutionalisation of the categories they produced and disseminated and to control the uses of “their” numbers. Stepping aside from the public statistics usually studied in the sociology of quantification, this article enlightens the process of manufacturing, distributing and appropriation of numbers devoid of legitimate institutional support.