Developing concept

Diagnostic Capture

How provisional diagnoses acquire authority through records and institutional systems.

A developing area of Monica Ross’s research on classification, documentation, and institutional memory.

Area of inquiry

This inquiry follows the movement of psychiatric interpretations across clinical, administrative, and technical settings without treating that movement as neutral or predetermined.

Questions in development

The research asks when a provisional interpretation becomes difficult to question, what supports revision, and how a person’s account remains available to later readers.

References and further reading

  1. Bowker, Geoffrey C., and Susan Leigh Star. 1999. Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences. MIT Press.
  2. Hacking, Ian. 2006. ‘Making Up People: Clinical Classifications.’ London Review of Books 28 (16).