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.