Classifying (splintered) Classifications: Food categories in York and England since the 1950s

Emma Uprichard (York)

There is a growing interest in issues of measure and value across the social sciences, particularly in relation to obtaining meaningful measures relating to nonlinear complex dynamics. This paper taps into those debates by focusing on issues of classification. More specifically, the focus is on exploring and classifying the classifications themselves as a way of further understanding dynamic and interacting multi-level trajectories of change over time and space. Moreover, it is argued that whilst classification systems facilitate descriptions of change and continuity, recognising the patterns intrinsic to the classification systems in general is at least equally important to understanding the manifestation of complex social change. This argument is illustrated by drawing on publically available data on what food products purchased at household level in the UK since the mid-1970s, and the changing classification of retail outlets within the city of York since the 1950s. The paper concludes that classification systems not only provide a useful window through which changing measures and values in everyday life might be perceived, but also how the splintering of classifications may enable the manifestation of change and continuity itself.