Making Information Matter

"An unusually incisive and pragmatic approach to what it means to live with information. Synthesizing thinking from a huge range of disciplines and domains from our worlds of plural information, the book effectively provides a guide to how to live, situate, engage or extricate oneself." Adrian Mackenzie, Australian National University

"A breath of fresh air, a book about data, but uniquely framed as the lively matter of information -- in the sense of 'being in-formation' - and always bringing us back to what makes all this information matter." David Ribes, University of Washington

"A rich resource for anyone concerned with how information – understood as always material and relational – comes to matter, its dominant formations as data, and how data could be made differently." Lucy Suchman, Lancaster University

"An intriguing account of how data becomes information and is then taken up in material interventions of surveillance and control. By drawing on a wide range of literature, the book demonstrates the complex and ethical relations involved in making information matter in different worlds." Evelyn Ruppert, Goldsmiths, University of London

"If I had to name one book for understanding ‘information’ in the world today, this would be it. Kaufmann’s work is marvellously wide-ranging while maintaining intellectual rigour; and it’s fun." Geoffrey C. Bowker, University of California, Irvine

"Professor Kaufmann has produced a fascinating book. One might even call it a brave book for grappling with the productive tensions inherent in contemplating the materiality of information – something we almost instinctively conceive of as being immaterial." Kevin D. Haggerty, University of Alberta