Most and Least of Research Value/s

Abstract

There is value and there are values. There is the measure of wealth, metrified and calculated in numerous ways, and there are ideas, ethics, preferences of taste, and customs of ideology. That the two can be associated together is nothing new. It is easy to value values and quantify how well we like, prefer or perform values (on a scale from one to ten; and ironicized here in the reworking of this introduction by Pip Thornton). Likewise, such processes of valorization in themselves imply particular values, ideologies and ethi- cal or aesthetical preferences (the beauty and rightfulness of valorization, wealth and surplus). But what really happens when the two are conflated? How do we understand how the values associated with something give it value; or, how giving something a value affords certain values? And, in what ways are the conflations of value and values tied to the circulation of value and values in contemporary technical infrastructures?