statactivism

The French movement of statactivism advocates for the mobilization of statistics in support to social movements and agendas.I. Bruno, E. Didier, and T. Vitale, “Editorial: Statactivism: forms of action between disclosure and affirmation,” Open J. Sociopolitical Stud., vol. 2, no. 7, pp. 198–220, 2014.

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The program of French statactivistts is to ‘fight against’ as well as ‘fight with’ numbers, using a variety of possible strategies:I. Bruno, E. Didier, and J. Prévieux, Statactivisme. Comment lutter avec des nombres. Paris: Zones, La Découverte, 2014.I. Bruno, E. Didier, and T. Vitale, “Special Issue. Statistics and Activism,” Particip. Conflict. Open J. Sociopolitical Stud., vol. 7, no. 2, 2014.

• ‘Statistical judo’. This is a strategy of self-defence, whereby existing measures are ‘gamed’ as prescribed by the Goodhart's law;
• Denouncing the inadequacy or bias or unfairness of existing indicators and measures, e.g. from official statistics of poverty or inequality;P. Concialdi, “Le BIP40: alerte sur la pauvreté,” in Statactivisme. Comment lutter avec des nombres, I. Bruno, E. Didier, and J. Prévieux, Eds. Zones, La Découverte, 2014, pp. 199–211.
• Developing alternative indicators to substitute for those above;
• Identifying social contexts and problems which are invisible to existing statistics

Statactivism's intellectually belongs to the tradition of sociology of numbers.A. Desrosières, The politics of large numbers : a history of statistical reasoning. Harvard University Press, 1998.E. Didier, America by the numbers : quantification, democracy, and the birth of national statistics. MIT press, 2020.A. Desrosières, “Statistics and social critique,” Open J. Sociopolitical Stud., vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 348–359, 2014.

Following Alain Desrosières and Theodore Porter,T. M. Porter, Trust in Numbers: The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life. Princeton University Press, 1995. statactivists use statistics as a “tool of weakness”, which offer to the weak members of society the opportunity to act against their oppression by making injustice visible.