Antecedents of Censuses from Medieval to Nation States

Emigh, Rebecca Jean; Riley, D. H.; Ahmed, Patricia

doi:10.1057/9781137485038

Cited by 34 publications

(12 citation statements)

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“…Furthermore, the role of pan-Asian coalitions in actively pursuing enumeration demonstrates the co-constitutive relationships between the census, societies, and the state. In a comparative analysis of the censuses of Italy, the UK, and the US, Emigh et al (2016) show the complex ways in which states and societies interact, affecting when and how a census is produced and the uses made of its information. They aim to counter what they claim is the prevailing view, a state-centric approach to understanding the census as a top-down exercise of state formation and control.…”

Section: Asian Americans and The Censusmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ethical dimensions of quantification

Espeland

Yung

2019

Social Science Information

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The ethical dimensions of quantification are seldom analysed. We examine three ethical features that are characteristic of quantification – its capacity to express or mediate power, focus attention, and shape opportunity structures. We do so in the context of three recent examples of new types of quantification : university rankings, the racial classification of Asians in the US, and facial recognition algorithms. Our examples highlight the importance of understanding the varied and complex ways that quantification creates and organizes social relations, and the effect of this on multiple forms of inequality.

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Section: Asian Americans and The Censusmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ethical dimensions of quantification

Espeland

Yung

2019

Social Science Information

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“…However, new studies have appeared recently which question its exclusivity as the only actor capable of gathering official information and show how the acceptance and collaboration of other social agents was required. It is argued that mutual trust between the State and the population is necessary for this type of enterprise (Emigh et al., 2016a; Slack, 2004; Thorvaldsen, 2018; Thorvaldsen & Glavatskaya, 2017). Regional and municipal authorities were key to explaining the increase in the administrative capacity of states during the nineteenth century and, by derivation, the compilation of statistics.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Equally important is the fact that, after Emigh et al. (2016a), we cannot conceive the compilation of censuses solely as an enterprise of the State, a result of its capacity for social change. Censuses owe as much to civil society as to public administration.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Bottom‐up Nation‐building: National Censuses and Local Administration in Nineteenth‐Century Spain

Salas-Vives¹,

Pujadas-Mora²

2021

J Historical Sociology

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It is customary to consider population censuses (and statistics in general) as exclusive to the modern State, appearing in the second half of the eighteenth century but being developed and spreading in the West during the nineteenth century. Indeed, censuses help to strengthen and legitimize such states. However, in Spain, just as in Europe and the United States, the first population censuses considered modern were the result of, on the one hand, the directives and general and provincial coordination provided by the new state statistical institutions, such as the Statistics Commission or the Institute of Geography and, on the other, municipal personnel and the previous knowledge of local conditions held by the councils and other agents, such as the clergy, intellectuals, and notables. The media were also availed of for the cause. Let us recall that the municipalities were an explicit part of the state apparatus, therefore their relevance in carrying out censuses is not an indication of failure or weakness on the part of the Spanish State regarding the process of “bottom‐up nation‐building”, but rather a way to imagine the nation through which collective involvement would build the nation from the locality.

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“…Censuses have historically been an important tool for the government of populations. 26 These governmentalities are largely informed by governmental categorisation practices imposed on citizens through census practices. 27 Peter Skerry explains that such categorisation practices make census-taking a political endeavour:…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Origins

Schie

2018

TMG

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In this article, categorisation based on origins is investigated in the Dutch census reports produced between 1899 and 2018. Through this analysis, I will argue that the conceptual pair of autochthon and allochthon (until 2017 used to describe ‘native’ and ‘non-native’ Dutch people) is not a social construct, but rather a sociotechnical construct. Through this analysis, it becomes clear that where the category of the ‘foreigner’ at the beginning of the twentieth century was mainly related to a passport and place of birth, later national origins became a racially tainted concept. Pre-1980, counting machines at CBS only counted people’s information as selfdescribed; since 1980, computers have determined the identity of Dutch citizens. Today, governmental statistics based on the origins of Dutch people are available online for free and can be used by third parties for a variety of applications. Through this historical analysis, it becomes clear that the current practices are not the ‘standard’ way of categorisation, but rather one of the possibilities that are historically, socially and technologically situated.

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Antecedents of Censuses from Medieval to Nation States

Cited by 34 publications

References 0 publications

Ethical dimensions of quantification

Ethical dimensions of quantification

Bottom‐up Nation‐building: National Censuses and Local Administration in Nineteenth‐Century Spain

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