Population Census

The book develops a conception of data practices to analyze findings from collaborative ethnographic multisite fieldwork as part of a five-year project.

Who are the subjects of data practices? How do data practices configure the capacities of subjects to become part of a population?

We consider how the statistician subject is being shaped, and the profession of national statistician repositioned, through professionalising practices.

We develop the concept of methods as forces of subjectivation in relation to experiments we have encountered in a study of official population statistics.

What does it mean to say, I am European? Where does Europe begin and end? Who can legitimately claim to be a part of a European people?

We depart from some conceptual presuppositions of methodological cosmopolitanism to define a transversal method.

In a time of alternative facts, what constitutes legitimate knowledge and expertise are major political sites of contention and struggle.

We discuss how data science as a field and a profession came into being in relation to but also as a critique of existing ones such as statistics and statisticians.

This working paper was written in preparation for a collaborative workshop organised for statisticians, social scientists, and app designers.

This paper reflects on the challenges of doing collaborative ethnography in a research project (ARITHMUS) that studies the enactment of populations through statistics.