I was reading along in an article called "Neighbourhoods on the Net" when I
ran across an unfamiliar phrase: phenetic urge. The article evaluates the
impact of datasets circulating online about real neighborhoods. The three
authors collected links to 33 sites that make use of "geodemographic"
data–income, pollution, average selling price homes, etc. They reduced
the list to seventeen profiled examples, and from there, zeroed in on four sites
for extended "case studies." To conclude, the article offers a set of
implications for policy, which includes conclusions about screwy data leading to
flawed representations of certain places and accessibility concerns,
notably–and repeatedly–cast in terms of age and economic status ("Those
sections of the population that are financially unable and/or unwilling (as is
the case with many older people) to access online sources will be increasingly
disadvantaged as information availability and society’s dependence on it
expands" (37)).
Phenetic urge nods to the taxonomy impulse, the classificatory move.
Here’s the immediate context:
Allowing for the enormous difficulties involved in ‘un-inventing’ IBNIS
[‘Internet-based Neightbourhood Information Systems’] (let alone the ‘phenetic
urge’ of which they are so potent a symbol), the core policy issue to come out
of this report is how best to ensure that the advantages of IBNIS are not
outweighed by the disadvantages listed above. (36)
Specifically, the disadvantages are much like those I already mentioned: "mis-characterising
localities," "inacurate depiction[s]," "unwarranted ‘redlining,’" and "online
marginalisation." Ultimately, the concern-as-delivered is over the
datasets (geodemographic and, perhaps, beyond) representing neighbourhoods on
the net. A Beckettian critique: "The danger is in the neatness of
identifications." IBNIS, their place-identifying data, are a potent symbol
of "phenetic urges."