Global Abstractions: The Classification of International Economic Data for Bibliographic and Statistical Purposes

This paper compares the representation of national and international agricultural economic information in the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) and the Library of Congress Classification (LCC). While LCC presents geographically-specific information within a larger context of agriculture as a field of study, NAICS presents agriculture as part of the overall depiction of economic activity in and between countries. To facilitate statistical aggregation and cross-comparison, NAICS has normalized economic activity by presenting it as a series of abstract activities that can be uniformly measured across different countries and regions. This rigorous standardization of economic data, while effective for statistical analysis, threatens to diminish the specific national, cultural and social contexts in which such data must be interpreted. [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail address: Website: © 2003 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.]