Thanks to all who recommended papers, books, and ideas. Here is the list.
Architectural standards, codes, regulations, and work practices -
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/schools/sspp/geography/people/phd/cities/street.html
Biomedical Conventions and Regulatory Objectivity - Social Studies of
Science (special issue) 39 (5), 2009.
Governance of and Through Science and Numbers - Minerva (special issue) 47
(3), 2009. See Isabelle Bruno's paper which is specifically about
benchmarking.
Larner, Wendy, and Le Heron, Richard, 2004. Global Benchmarking, In Global
Governmentality: Governing International Spaces, eds. W. Larner and W.
Walters, pp. 212-232 - this reference was mentioned several times.
Literature on certification - e.g. Tad Mutersbaugh on coffee certifcation.
Management literature - especially quality management.
Natural resource management - especially in Australia.
Nikolas Rose - his work on governmentality.
Policy transfer / policy mobilities - "The interest in benchmarking in this
literature is often because it is a (politically infused) practice that
normalises a certain set of practices/characteristics/criteria that is
drawn upon to justify policy interventions. In this case, the transfer of a
policy idea from one location to another." Two key papers: Peck, Jamie,
and Theodore, Nik, Mobilizing Policy: Models, Methods, and Mutations -
Geoforum 41 (2010) 169-174; McCann, Eugene, J., Expertise, Truth, and Urban
Policy Mobilities: Global Circuits of Knowledge in the Development of
Vancouver, Canada's "Four Pillar" Drug Strategy. Environment and Planning
A 40 (2008) 885-904.
Raghuram, Parvati, Bornat, Joanna, and Henry, Leroi - Geriatric Medicine
and the Management of Transitions into Old Age: the Hospital Bed as a Site
of Spatial Practice - Area (forthcoming). Benchmarking used to determine
the "way geriatrics is defined differentially and how this revolves around
medical practice and beliefs rather than age; how bed blocking became the
key issue and how, therefore, bed turnover was used as the basis of success
in geriatrics. That was the benchmark for becoming a good geriatric
department."
Standards in agri-biotechnology research -
http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/faculty/profiles/Larry-Busch/Sociology/
Standardisation in an educational context - Wayne Au - Unequal by Design:
High-stakes Testing and the Standardization of Inequality - introduction
available online -
http://books.google.com/books?id=9gk3rc-KZkMC&printsec=frontcover&dq=unequal+by+design&hl=en&ei=KLTFTOZQ1eedB5KR2dMJ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCwQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
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Matthew Rippon
School of Geography
Queen Mary, University of London
Mile End Road, London, E1 4NS
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http://www.geog.qmul.ac.uk/staff/ripponm.html
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