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.

We cannot stop at denouncing the lack of accountability for algorithms but must engage the broader systems and that algorithmic systems exist within.

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.

Babbage’s constants and engines exemplified a rationality which emphasised counting and measurement as essential means for legitimate knowledge production.

Our chapter is informed by work that theorizes the relationship between knowledge of populations and modes of governance

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.