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Temperature and Capital

Measuring the Future with Quantified Heat

Bibliographic Data

ID2615932
AuthorsScott W Schwartz (0000-0002-3837-9998)
Year2017
Volume8
Issue1
Publication date2017-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEnvironment and Society (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2150-6779 • E-ISSN: 2150-6787
PublisherBerghahn Books (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.3167/ares.2017.080109
OpenAlexW2758820285
LanguageEN
Citations received11
References cited51

The quantification of human environments has a history—a relatively short history. This article explores how the notion of quantifiable reality has become naturalized through the privileging of predictive utility as the primary goal of knowledge production. This theme is examined via the invention and application of temperature—how it was sociomaterially constructed and how it is globally restructuring social organization today. Temperature does not exist pervasively throughout all space and time. Physicists may affirm that fluctuations in relative heat are ubiquitous, but as a measurement of these fluctuations, temperature only emerges through arrangements of political and environmental observations. What phenomena do populations deem worthy of observation? How do populations manipulate materials to make such observations? By tracing the origins of thermometry and investigating modern efforts to reconstruct and model ulterior temperatures, I illustrate that temperatures, like other measurements, are cultural artifacts pliable to sociopolitical efforts of control and domination

Capital (architecture · Economics · Microeconomics · Political science · Politics · Production (economics · Restructuring · Theme (computing · Computer Science · Geographies of human-animal interactions · History of Science and Medicine · Race, Genetics, and Society · History

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Unique citing works11
Citations per year1,57
Citation span2019 - 2025 (7)
Citation velocityrecent
Highly citedNo
Citation typesNeutral: 11
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