Standards and standpoints: Why and how standards, and studying them, imply critique

This article argues that critique is a necessary component in any study of standards, just as it is implied in the concept of standard itself. From this follows the relevance of reflexively situating our research in relation to the cultural-historical development of standards and standardization. The argument takes off from two different conceptualizations of standards in the literature. On the one hand, standards as immanent to practices (the “Neo-Aristotelian” approach), and on the other hand, standards as imposed to regulate practices (the “neo-pragmatist” and “governmentality” approaches). It is suggested that this opposition can be superseded by articulating the former alternative, not as an essentialism of “practice,” but as the reflexive assumption of standpoint. Some intricacies of the articulation of standpoint are then discussed, concluding in a proposed dialectics of standard and standpoint.