Breathing Life into a Standard

Standardisation is commonly thought of as leading to
uniformity and order while practices are regarded as dynamic.
They evolve and change through repeated enactments. This
study explores the meeting of these two apparently conflicting
phenomena by inquiring into how a specific piece of
standardised information, namely the standard for bystander
cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), is configured in the
practices of lifesaving and bystander CPR-training. In pursuits
of making the standard an intervention to be carried out
by the lay public, it is linked to technologies, hopes and
aspirations. In these activities other configurations of lifesaving
and resuscitation than that delineated by the standard appear.
The ways in which information features and informing
happens in these pursuits are diverse and shown to have
implications for the shaping of lay rescuers. This study
consequently raises questions about how standardised
information is configured in practices and how diverse ways
in which informing happens in practice are associated with
different forms of governance.
Karolina Lindh, Department of Art and Cultural Sciences Lund
University. Breathing Life into a Standard is her doctoral thesis
in Information Studies.