ABSTRACT
Categories and classifications play an important role in life in general, and they are significant elements of institutions and institutional practices in particular. Through the use of categories, institutions define what the nature of a problem is and what measures are relevant to take. Institutions ‘think and act’ through categories, as Douglas (1986) puts it. Through categorizing, the institution puts similar ‘things’ together, and entities of ‘dubious standing lose their ambiguity’ (Douglas 1986: 59). Thus, categories and classification systems serve as resources by means of which objects, people and events will be understood by representatives of institutions, and they are also consequential for action. The category, metaphorically speaking, becomes the link between the individual and the collective (Bowker and Star 2000).
