Census and Identity: The Politics of Race, Ethnicity, and Language in National Censuses

✍ Scribed by David I. Kertzer, Dominique Arel

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2002
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 224
• Series: New Perspectives on Anthropological and Social Demography
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This study examines the ways that states have attempted to pigeon-hole the people within their boundaries into racial, ethnic, and language categories. These attempts, whether through American efforts to divide the U.S. population into mutually exclusive racial categories, or through the Soviet system of inscribing nationality categories on internal passports, have important implications not only for people's own identities and life chances, but for national political and social processes as well. The book reviews the history of these categorizing efforts by the state, offers a theoretical context for examining them, and illustrates the case with studies from a range of countries.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover......Page 1
Half-title......Page 3
Series-title......Page 5
Title......Page 7
Copyright......Page 8
Contents......Page 9
Contributors......Page 10
Preface......Page 11
1 Censuses, identity formation, and the struggle for political power......Page 15
State modernity and the impetus to categorize......Page 16
The rise of population statistics and the construction of identities......Page 19
The development of cultural categories......Page 22
Censuses and the construction of race......Page 24
The confusion between race and ethnicity......Page 25
The validity of defining cultural identity in the census......Page 32
The refusal to count......Page 37
Counting fluid identities: the language conundrum......Page 39
Bottom-up efforts to influence census categories......Page 41
The impact of census categories on identity formation......Page 45
The continuing political and social importance of census categorization......Page 49
NOTES......Page 50
REFERENCES......Page 52
2 Racial categorization and censuses......Page 57
Why compare the United States and Brazil?......Page 58
Race as discourse......Page 60
1790 – 1840 Censuses......Page 63
1850 – 1920......Page 65
1930 – 1960......Page 70
1970 – 2000......Page 71
Brazilian censuses: White is better......Page 74
1872 – 1910......Page 75
1920 – 1950......Page 76
1960 – 2000......Page 77
Making sense of the American and Brazilian cases......Page 79
REFERENCES......Page 82
3 Ethnic categorizations in censuses: comparative observations from Israel, Canada, and the United States......Page 85
The denial of ethnicity and its official measurement: the case of Israel......Page 88
Ethnicity in a multicultural context:the complex case of ethnicity in Canada......Page 93
The United States: ethnic ancestries, Hispanics and race......Page 97
Some analytic implications of official ethnic measurement......Page 99
NOTES......Page 102
REFERENCES......Page 103
4 Language categories in censuses: backward-or forward-looking?......Page 106
Language and nationality......Page 108
Language fluency......Page 111
Mother tongue vs. language of use......Page 112
Austria: the Czech-German dispute......Page 114
The Soviet cooptation of nationalist discourse......Page 116
Belgium: when counting becomes no longer possible......Page 119
Quebec: whither the allophones?......Page 120
Census, language and territoriality......Page 122
Census and linguistic rights......Page 126
Conclusion......Page 128
NOTES......Page 130
REFERENCES......Page 132
5 Resistance to identity categorization in France......Page 135
The issues of the current debate......Page 136
The debate in historical perspective......Page 140
The stability of French censuses......Page 141
Colonial ambiguity......Page 143
A history of the debate......Page 144
Response to criticisms......Page 149
Ambiguities......Page 151
The construction of reality......Page 154
Conclusion......Page 156
NOTES......Page 158
REFERENCES......Page 159
6 On counting, categorizing, and violence in Burundi and Rwanda......Page 162
The colonial state......Page 163
The independent state......Page 166
Observations......Page 168
Categorizing the administered......Page 169
On the origins of ethnic categories......Page 171
Nature of the postcolonial state......Page 176
To feed the development beast......Page 181
Conclusion......Page 183
NOTES......Page 185
REFERENCES......Page 186
7 Identity counts: the Soviet legacy and the census in Uzbekistan......Page 190
Central Asia and the Soviet census: counting nations, discounting states......Page 193
Uzbek identity and the Tajik question......Page 201
Global numbers and new states......Page 206
Conclusion......Page 209
NOTES......Page 211
REFERENCES......Page 213
Index......Page 216

✦ Subjects

Социологические дисциплины;Демография;