[Air-L] "House Arrest" by Dan Bouk

[danah boyd]

Sometimes, algorithms emerge in the strangest of places, even when you didn't expect to find them. 

Data & Society just published a new paper by Dan Bouk that I think might interest many tech studies folks in surprising ways so I thought I'd share. "House Arrest" is the history of how the US House of Representatives stopped increasing the size of the House during its apportionment processes. Turns out there was a lot of political investment in curbing the people's body house (see: nefarious intentions) and that the key to solving this problem was to define and mandate an algorithm, and enact a bill in 1929 that would automate this part of government. 

"House Arrest: How an Automated Algorithm Constrained Congress for a Century" by Dan Bouk details this history in a fun way: https://datasociety.net/library/house-arrest/ <https://datasociety.net/library/house-arrest/> 



For those who are curious about the present too, Dan and I connect this history to present fights over mathematical systems in the census in this essay: https://knightcolumbia.org/content/democracys-data-infrastructure <https://knightcolumbia.org/content/democracys-data-infrastructure> 

I hope you enjoy!

danah