The French Institute of Pondicherry (IFP) hosted a three-day workshop on the ‘Social Lives of Measuring Instruments’ in collaboration with the History of Science Museum (HSM), Oxford on 4-6 May, 2026. The workshop invited scholars from around India to reflect on how measuring objects can form the basis of a social history of labour, caste, state power, and commerce in the subcontinent in the longue durée. 

A particular concern was the relationship between measuring instruments, forms of power rooted in caste-ordered hierarchies, and historical notions of justice grounded in quantitative measures. The workshop included discussions on grain and wage measures, land measures, and measures of quality of various commodities. A brief description of the workshop by IFP colleagues can be found below.

‘Standardised measures and measuring instruments are typically seen as neutral, with measures understood as facts about the world and measuring instruments as the means to arrive at them objectively. This, in turn, renders them arbiters in disputes and as guarantors of fairness and justice in various social relations, particularly exchange relations.

This workshop is an attempt to examine this claim. Through presentations on social history of twenty four different instruments, we aim to closely engage with questions like: do experiences of measures and measuring instruments remain the same for everyone? Do they take different forms depending on who is measuring and who is being measured? How do measures and measuring instruments relate to existing social relations? And so on.’