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The Politics of the Population Census: Key Indicators for Sustainable Development?
The Politics of the Population Census: Key Indicators for Sustainable Development?
Abstract Submissions Closed
Thursday, 25 February 2021: 17:45-20:00
Location:
Language: English
Session Type: Oral
Invited Session
The slogan „Better Data, Better Lives“ of the United Nations Statistical Commission captures the widespread instrumental belief that better information, such as collected through the 2020 World Population and Housing Census, will lead not only to better collective decision making but also to better individual results. However, this instrumental view becomes debatable if we look at the performative effect of counting populations. By producing key indicators on the populations to be governed censuses shape the knowledge of democracies about its demos in important ways. The systematic description of standardised features of the population transforms the object itself by defining those to be included and the classification of subgroups. Hence, otherwise latent subgroups become visible by their operationalisation and description through certain indicators. For example, the US census created racial categories that ultimately came to represent heterogeneous populations as homogeneous and consequentially changed patterns of identification in private and in public life, which are very different from the patterns of identification in Brazil. On the other hand avoiding the application of existing social classifications during the production of population indicators, might contribute to a blurring of social boundaries but also to a neglect of social problems relating to particular subgroups. This common session aims at exposing the current state of the art on the politics of the population census and sparking a more vivid sociological debate on what some may see as a rather technical and hence uncontroversial field of inquiry.
Session Organizers:
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