Indexers strive for equity and objectivity in their work, but indexes – like all other texts – have political implications. For our National Indexing Day blog, indexer Tanya Izzard looks at how indexing gets political, and how indexers respond to that.
I was at a party a few years ago and was explaining what I do for a living to a fellow guest. It turned out that she had indexed several of her own books, and replied with enthusiasm: “Oh, I love indexing! It’s so political!” If knowledge is power, then an index’s provision of access to that knowledge is inevitably political. Inclusion in an index is a form of power, too: it proves the significance of a concept, the impact of a scholar, the importance of a place, person or event, at least in the context of the book in question. How do indexers deal with the political consequences of their work?
Bias and objectivity
Objectivity, and avoiding bias, underpins all indexing decisions. Indexers, like everyone else, have their own ideas, beliefs and prejudices. When we start a project, we need to be aware of how those ideas relate to the text in question and consider how to approach it in a suitably neutral frame of mind. Our own opinions must not be perceptible in the index.
One way to support objectivity is to focus on the tone and content of the text, and work to ensure it is fairly represented. All the index entries should be serving the text and improving access to its ideas. Bearing the text and its major themes and arguments in mind can help the creation of neutral, accessible index terms.
Another useful exercise, that all indexers do as a matter of course in their work, is to consider the needs of the readers. Thinking about the range of readers and what they might be looking for – empathising with the needs of readers who might have very different views from the indexer – can be helpful in avoiding bias and maintaining objectivity.
Positive biases can affect an index, too. It’s possible to unbalance an index by over-indexing material that interests you, or chimes with your own opinions. Our editing processes include tools for looking at the balance of an index and seeing whether some topics have been over-emphasised at the expense of others.
Most indexers will have had the experience of indexing texts we disagree with in some way. Maybe a cookbook has a radical way of making pastry that we cannot personally endorse. Maybe the author has political views, or opinions on social matters, that sit awkwardly with our own. This can be a useful exercise in making sure your indexing is fair and neutral. But sometimes it’s better to decline the project altogether.
Representation and inclusion
Who finds their way into the index, and how indexers gauge their significance, is another tricky political issue. Histories that recover the stories of marginalised people will often feature names that are not already well-known. A history of the transatlantic slave trade, for example, may recover through research the names of enslaved people, as well as recording the names of slaveowners and slave traders. If the name of a person is being written down for the first time in a work of history, does it merit inclusion in the index? If the space for the index is tight, the names that are already well-known, and therefore likely search terms, may prevail, perpetuating a sort of historiographical exclusion.
The purpose of the book may provide a steer. I indexed a memoir of Jewish life in 1930s Poland, intended in part as a memorial to all the people from the author’s childhood who died in the Holocaust. All those names went in, including names only known as fragments, with glosses to help explain who they were. Discussing inclusion of names with the author or editor in cases like these can be very helpful in shaping the inclusivity of the index.
Status and reputation
In other cases, well-known names may well end up not being indexed. Indexers sometimes get requests to include entries for well-known or influential people who are mentioned only fleetingly in the text. Perhaps these people will expect to see themselves in the index, but the index is not the place for flattery or ego-boosting. There are sometimes good reasons for excluding the eminent from an index, and our blog post on passing mentions explains these in more detail.
For example, indexers may leave out a famous person whose work has provided an apt quotation, but who does not have a strong link to the topic of the book. A book of advice on budgeting might quote Shakespeare’s “Put money in thy purse”, but it’s not really necessary to include an entry for Shakespeare, William in the index.
Emerging political voices
Politics is a changeable business. New parties emerge, often from the remnants of old ones; parties merge and divide, names change. Within political parties, alliances may develop and acquire names of their own, like the loose designation “One-Nation Conservatives” in the British Conservative Party, or Blue Labour, which is an organised campaigning group within the British Labour Party. Political names are sometimes different depending on the author’s political positioning.
Activist groups sometimes come to prominence with a clear and specific name already in place, such as Just Stop Oil. Other protest groups may not really have any sort of name, or may have names ascribed to them, like the protests in Iran and beyond that are associated with the slogan “Woman, Life, Freedom”.
Increasingly, people enter politics who are already well-known in another field. This may give them the appearance of indexability; the significance of a mention needs to be carefully considered.
As these new names and terms start to appear in books, indexers must decide whether they are indexable. If they are substantially discussed in the text, that makes it easier to decide to index them, but it may be necessary to use a lot of double entries or cross-references to make sure these groups and people can be found by various routes.
Terminology
Similarly, new terms of art describing political ideas can emerge. The term Brexit dates to 2012, first used before David Cameron even announced the idea of an EU referendum. By the time of the referendum in 2016, it was in very frequent use and definitely indexable. But in the intervening four years, indexers encountering the term would have had to consider whether readers would recognise it and search for it.
The political positioning of the author and the book will affect terminology choices as well. A “riot” might be a “protest”, depending on your point of view. Historical accounts of social unrest might shift from describing it as a “revolt” to using terms like “uprising”. For example, what was once known as the Indian Mutiny or Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 is now commonly known as India’s First War of Independence. Indexers will aim to reflect the tone of the book rather than impose their own view of events, but they may also need to include some more neutral terms to help the reader find the information they need. Cross-references may be used to point from outdated terms to the preferred current version.
Existing indexers can sharpen their political indexing acumen through our conferences and CPD offer; new indexers will find everything they need in the training course. And we all benefit from the guidance provided by our Code of Professional Conduct.
All such considerations are part of an indexer’s working life, as celebrated by the Society of Indexers on our annual National Indexing Day today (see also #IndexDay on social media).
About Tanya Izzard
Tanya Izzard indexes scholarly and trade books in the humanities, producing standard and embedded indexes for authors and publishers. She has been indexing full-time since 2017 and is an Advanced Professional Member of SI and the Marketing Director on the SI Executive Board.
The image shows a meeting of the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) leaders, c.1906 – c.1907, from the Women’s Library collection, LSE.
