English
All knowledge implies classification, but conversely, as shown by anthropologists, classification always expresses knowledge. From primitive forms of classification to general reflections on the fundamental processes of “thinking, classifying and categorising,” attempts to classify what the world is made of give rise to ways of exercising knowledge that also reflect relations of power. Document classification systems are tools that give structure to the world and thus enable us to act upon it; as such they illustrate the idea that knowledge and power converge around the principle of order.
Keywords
- document classification
- classifying
- knowledge
- power
- order
- anthropology of knowledge
- arbitrary classification
- anthropological issue
