Socioplastics 11877 The Table Has Already Taken a Side
Comparison often begins by making different things look alike. A spreadsheet places varied observations in uniform columns; a scorecard compresses practical judgements into numerical intervals; an atlas frames distinct places through the same graphic structure. These operations make patterns visible and also determine which differences can enter. ComparisonMould names the intellectual work performed by the format that prepares materials for comparison. Marilyn Strathern’s Partial Connections challenges the assumption that comparison can make its terms fully symmetrical. Johanna Drucker examines how visual forms actively produce knowledge. Arjun Appadurai’s work on the social life of things follows objects through changing relations of value and exchange. Their approaches help researchers ask how the comparative frame shapes the result before a conclusion is drawn. A transdisciplinary project could compare neighbourhoods through a shared table of access, maintenance and environmental conditions. It might also preserve narrative descriptions, local categories and observations that do not fit the common fields. Researchers could record who designed the table, what each column means and how participants interpret it. The comparison would then show both its patterns and the differences its format leaves difficult to represent. ComparisonMould treats comparability as something constructed through method. Making the structure explicit improves the rigour of comparison and helps teams understand where a shared measure is useful. It also supports revisions when a common format begins to flatten relevant variation. A strong comparison can reveal patterns while showing how its own frame participates in producing them. That account allows readers to judge how far the findings can travel.
REFERENCES
Appadurai, A. (ed.) (1986) The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Drucker, J. (2014) Graphesis: Visual Forms of Knowledge Production. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Strathern, M. (1991) Partial Connections. Savage, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
CITE AS
Lloveras, A. (2026) Socioplastics, LAPIEZA-LAB, Madrid.
https://antolloveras.blogspot.com/p/socioplastics-project-index.html