The author has published many studies of the ways in which classification of people affects the people classified, and how those people react to being classified, which sometimes leads to changes in the way the classification is understood. Here he provides a general framework in which to examine this phenomenon, and applies it to two examples, first autism, and then, by way of contrast, obesity.only subscribers can see the full article

Knowledge is the main productive force, changing the fundamental properties of the processes that lead to the production of economic value. Today these depend on the integration of technical intelligence, which is the result of modernity and the sources of reproducible knowledge, with the fluid intelligence of people, which has recently been rediscovered as a way of managing the complexity of a capitalism that, partly as a result of its global expansion, is now out of control. The growth in complexity has stemmed the power of technique and opened new spaces to the initiatives of those who, at their own risk, explore the new and the possible, going beyond the autonomatisms of early modernity.only subscribers can see the full article

The computerized social profile is an extremely valuable professional tool for evaluating ongoing social policies and planning future ones. It is a means of sharing social knowledge that gives life to a community of practices in which we can identify good forms of intervention, which is a starting-point for re-launching territorial planning of services. In this way the computerized social file expresses and interprets to the full the principle of participation and bottom-up public welfare policies. This essay discusses both its strong and critical points. only subscribers can see the full article