Statistics are embedded with power and subject effects (Hacking 1986, 1991, Urla 1993, Rabinow 1989). Statistics help create understandings about “types” of people by measuring attributes of particular categories of peoples and putting people into populations to be managed, governed, and normalized (Hacking 1991). Because they are popularly perceived as objective representations of social phenomena, statistics are often given widespread credence as non-subjective and empirical data.
Vincent Lyon-Callo. Inequality, Poverty, and Neoliberal Governance: Activist Ethnography in the Homeless Sheltering Industry