IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envirc/v31y2013i3p522-539.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Trying to Measure Local Well-Being: Indicator Development as a Site of Discursive Struggles

Author

Listed:
  • Karen Scott

    (Centre for Rural Economy, School of Agriculture, Food and Rural Development, University of Newcastle, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU, England)

  • Derek Bell

    (Politics, School of Geography, Politics and Sociology, 40-42 Great North Road, University of Newcastle, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU, England)

Abstract

The New Labour government in the UK encouraged all local authorities to develop quality-of-life indicators. Development of these indicators was intended to engage local people in a shared vision for their area and to effect improvements in local well-being and sustainability. However, international research has reported a failure of such instruments to generate concrete policy change. This paper reports on a three-year ethnographic study in one local authority in North East England which took a discursive approach to analysing indicator development. The research shows how indicator development acted as a ‘site of struggle’ between competing discourses. These discursive struggles may have hampered the development of a set of indicators, but they allowed different conceptions of well-being, participation, indicators, and the policy-making process to be discussed and deliberated, inducing discursive shifts in the political arena. Policy makers and scholars should therefore place more focus on the process of developing indicators rather than the indicators that are produced, as it is these which have the potential to produce longer term effects on policy making.

Suggested Citation

  • Karen Scott & Derek Bell, 2013. "Trying to Measure Local Well-Being: Indicator Development as a Site of Discursive Struggles," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 31(3), pages 522-539, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envirc:v:31:y:2013:i:3:p:522-539
    DOI: 10.1068/c10127
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1068/c10127
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1068/c10127?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Paul-Marie Boulanger, 2007. "Political uses of social indicators: overview and application to sustainable development indicators," International Journal of Sustainable Development, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 10(1/2), pages 14-32.
    2. Helene Rey-Valette & Francis Laloe & Jean Le Fur, 2007. "Introduction to the key issue concerning the use of sustainable development indicators," International Journal of Sustainable Development, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 10(1/2), pages 4-13.
    3. Milan Dluhy & Nicholas Swartz, 2006. "Connecting Knowledge and Policy: The Promise of Community Indicators in the United States," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 79(1), pages 1-23, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. M. Sirgy, 2011. "Theoretical Perspectives Guiding QOL Indicator Projects," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 103(1), pages 1-22, August.
    2. Phuong T. Nguyen & Sam Wells, 2018. "Systemic Indicators for Rural Communities in Developing Economies: Bringing the Shared Vision into Being," Systemic Practice and Action Research, Springer, vol. 31(2), pages 159-177, April.
    3. B. Sudhakara Reddy & Arpit Tiwari, 2016. "Picking the winner: Measuring urban sustainability in India," Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai Working Papers 2016-021, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai, India.
    4. Sara Moreno Pires & Liam Magee & Meg Holden, 2017. "Learning from community indicators movements: Towards a citizen-powered urban data revolution," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 35(7), pages 1304-1323, November.
    5. Robin DeLugan & Marcia Hernandez & Dari Sylvester & Simón Weffer, 2011. "The Dynamics of Social Indicator Research for California’s Central Valley in Transition," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 100(2), pages 259-271, January.
    6. Meg Holden, 2009. "Community Interests and Indicator System Success," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 92(3), pages 429-448, July.
    7. Melanie T. Davern & Lucy Gunn & Billie Giles-Corti & Stephanie David, 2017. "Best Practice Principles for Community Indicator Systems and a Case Study Analysis: How Community Indicators Victoria is Creating Impact and Bridging Policy, Practice and Research," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 131(2), pages 567-586, March.
    8. N. Girard & D. Magda & J. Astruc & N. Couix & H. Gross & J. P Guyon & J. Labatut & Y. Poinsot & F. Saldaqui, 2015. "Analyzing indicators for combining natural resources management and production-oriented activities," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 17(1), pages 155-172, February.
    9. Phuong T. Nguyen & Sam Wells & Nam Nguyen, 2019. "A Systemic Indicators Framework for Sustainable Rural Community Development," Systemic Practice and Action Research, Springer, vol. 32(3), pages 335-352, June.
    10. Jari Lyytimäki & Hanna Salo & Robert Lepenies & Leonie Büttner & Jyri Mustajoki, 2020. "Risks of producing and using indicators of sustainable development goals," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(6), pages 1528-1538, November.
    11. Francisco Zorondo-Rodríguez & Erik Gómez-Baggethun & Kathryn Demps & Pere Ariza-Montobbio & Claude García & Victoria Reyes-García, 2014. "What Defines Quality of Life? The Gap Between Public Policies and Locally Defined Indicators Among Residents of Kodagu, Karnataka (India)," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 115(1), pages 441-456, January.
    12. O׳Ryan, Raúl & Pereira, Mauricio, 2015. "Participatory indicators of sustainability for the salmon industry: The case of Chile," Marine Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 322-330.
    13. Chiba, Soumaya & Talbot, David & Boiral, Olivier, 2018. "Sustainability adrift: An evaluation of the credibility of sustainability information disclosed by public organizations," Accounting forum, Elsevier, vol. 42(4), pages 328-340.
    14. Hippu Salk Kristle Nathan & B. Sudhakara Reddy, 2010. "Selection Criteria for Sustainable Development Indicators," Governance Working Papers 23018, East Asian Bureau of Economic Research.
    15. Olga De Marco Larrauri & David Pérez Neira & Marta Soler Montiel, 2016. "Indicators for the Analysis of Peasant Women’s Equity and Empowerment Situations in a Sustainability Framework: A Case Study of Cacao Production in Ecuador," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(12), pages 1-18, November.
    16. Tomáš Hák & Svatava Janoušková & Alistair Whitby & Saamah Abdallah & Jan Kovanda, 2015. "Indicator Policy Factsheets: A Knowledge Brokerage Tool," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 7(3), pages 1-16, March.
    17. Marek Walacik & Małgorzata Renigier‐Biłozor & Aneta Chmielewska & Artur Janowski, 2020. "Property sustainable value versus highest and best use analyzes," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(6), pages 1755-1772, November.
    18. Phuong T. Nguyen & Sam Wells & Nam Nguyen, 2021. "Systemic Indicators for Rural Communities in Developing Countries: Empirical Evidence from Vietnam," Systemic Practice and Action Research, Springer, vol. 34(2), pages 203-226, April.
    19. Yi Cheng & Muhammad Nadeem & Shamsheer ul Haq & Kyalisiima Prisca & Babar Aziz & Muhammad Imran & Pomi Shahbaz, 2022. "Maintaining Quality of Life during the Pandemic: Managing Economic, Social, and Health Well-Being Amid the COVID-19 Crisis of Agricultural Entrepreneurs," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(23), pages 1-15, November.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:envirc:v:31:y:2013:i:3:p:522-539. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.