“The census does much more than simply reflect social reality; rather, it plays a key role in the construction of that reality”, note Kertzer and Arel (2002b, p. 2). This is the crux of the first key point identifiable in the census-ethnicity literature of recent years – censuses themselves help fashion ethnicity as a social construct. In this respect, existing studies examining census classifications of ethnicity adopt (at least implicitly) a constructivist view. This is unsurprising, given that the critical literature surrounding the phenomenon is relatively recent, occurring after the theoretical turn away from primordialism instigated by Barth. During the era of primordialism, when ethnicity was largely regarded as an innate and natural given, that the collection of data related to such a concept
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was apparently viewed straightforwardly, as simply recording an objective, primordial reality.
This misconception, of ethnic enumeration as a neutral means of quantifying an underlying social reality, remains a common view (Kertzer & Arel, 2002a; Nobles, 2000). Despite growing recognition in the social sciences that group identities are socially constructed, traditional primordialist understandings of ethnicity still hold sway for many. Rodríguez (2000), for example, argues that the United States public has always adhered to a rigid belief in race as a biological fact, while Nobles (2000, p. 14) notes that demographers and officials have long regarded race as “naturally created and objective”. These authors examine race, given that it remains the dominant conceptualisation of difference in these former slaveholding territories of the US and Brazil where their case-studies are located than elsewhere. ‘Race’ has undoubtedly been more strongly conceptualised as objective and scientific ‘reality’ than ‘ethnicity’, which arose in part as a denial of racial thinking (Nobles, 2000). Nevertheless, even in those censuses where ‘ethnic’ distinctions are emphasised, understanding of ethnic categories as benign descriptors persists. For example, the 2011 UK census asked “What is your ethnic group?” (UK Office for National Statistics, 2011), a question itself implying that ethnic groups are unquestionable, objective categories into which respondents will have little difficultly classifying themselves. Moreover, ethnic statistics are typically used authoritatively, without consideration of their ultimately subjective nature (Kertzer & Arel, 2002b).
This understanding of official statistics, as unproblematic, universal and objective is promoted by census bureaus and governments more generally (Kertzer & Arel, 2002a; Ventresca, 2003; Hochschild & Powell, 2008). This is partly because of the considerable resources invested into census-taking, and because of the unique status of censuses as a mandated source of authoritative information (Ventresca, 2003). More important, however, is the role of the census in legitimising particular ways of conceptualising the social order. In the case of ethnic enumeration, censuses create the official language and taxonomy of ethnicity in
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a given country and “imbue them with the authority of the state” (Hochschild & Powell, 2008, p. 68). Censuses tend to reflect the a priori vision of the majority, or at least the politically powerful (see Rallu, Piché, & Simon, 2006). In this context, the official presentation of ethnic data as neutral and objective may be viewed as supporting a particular discourse or ideology of ethnicity, reflecting majoritarian interests in a hegemonic sense.28
Despite this, ethnic affiliation is situational and amendable. One particularly salient finding in this regard is that the mere specification of particular groups on census forms as examples or prompts increases the size of the group. In a study of an ancestry question included in the Australian census, for example, Khoo and Lucas (2006) show how a ‘South Sea Islander’ example listed in the 2001 census saw a six-fold increase in those reporting such an ancestry from the previous census. Scottish and Welsh ancestries, listed as response options on the 1986 but not the 2001 forms, saw declines of 27 and 29 per cent respectively (Khoo & Lucas, 2006). When the 1996 Canadian census proffered ‘Canadian’ as a response option for a question on ‘ethnic origin’, it was recorded by 31 per cent of the population – a substantial increase from the nearly four per cent who had recorded it in an open-ended ‘Other’ response in 1991 (Boyd & Norris, 2001; Lee & Edmonston, 2010). In and of itself, listing such categories to some degree ‘nominates ethnic groups into existence’ (to borrow Goldberg’s 1997 phrase), giving government recognition and thereby legitimacy to particular imagined collectivities.
Also telling with regards to the socially constructed nature of ethnicities is the often significant, even contradictory, changes in the ways in which censuses conceive and measure ethnicity over time. For example, in New Zealand the
28
One such example of censuses categorisations reflecting dominant, hegemonic interests is how the conceptualisation of ‘race’ in the United States census is comparatively unproblematic for the European majority compared to those of Hispanic origin. Many Latinos reluctantly adopt one of the standard racial categories of the US census, believing themselves to have other, or multiple, identities (Rodriguez, 2000).
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standard nomenclature to distinguish cultural difference has only been ‘ethnic group’ since 1981, with various measures of blood quantum utilised prior to that time. This change came about in part as a result of Māori cultural revivalism and political activism and the gradual influence of global ideological shifts away from race (see Pool, 1991; Callister, 2004; Kukutai, 2012). Race has been the terminology used in the United States census since the 1790, although Nobles (2000) and Hochschild and Powell (2008) note significant changes in the ways in which it has been conceived and applied. During the pre-abolition era, for example, slaves were enumerated (for purposes of taxation and electoral representation) as three-fifths of a person, a reflection of their status as property. The 1930 census saw the introduction of a ‘one-drop’ rule of racial membership, which meant even the smallest amount of non-white ancestry saw people designated as Black. This subjected those redesignated to all the legal and social disqualifications of such categorisation, demonstrating the profound racial logics of the segregationist era.29 Political and social changes can lead to altered enumeration practices, even of categories previously considered to have possessed natural and self-evident qualities, a further demonstration of the constructed nature of ethnic categories.
Given these findings, it is important to consider how fallaciously ascribing primordial or objective characteristics to ethnic identities, through the census or otherwise, is problematic:
The use of traditional models or paradigms of ethnic cultures is fraught with serious problems… the tendency is to slip into reification of ethnic culture, that is, to attribute an independent or real existence to a mental creation. (Gelfand & Fandetti, 1986, p. 542).
Since at least since Barry Hindess’s 1973 work The use of Official Statistics in
Sociology: A Critique of Positivism and Ethnomethodology it has been argued that
29
Today, the Federal Government recognises that the racial categories it measures are ‘socio- political constructs’ which “should not be interpreted as being scientific or anthropological in nature” (US Office of Management and Budget, 1997), although the US public has nevertheless adhered to “a rather rigid belief in race as a biological fact” (Rodríguez, 2000, p. 42).
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such “true” categories as ethnic groupings are a “figment of the empiricist imagination”. As an unavoidably theoretical exercise measuring social statistics can never be reduced to a purely technical evaluation (see also Caldwell, 1996). Recognising that ethnic categorisations are not objective or neutral reflections of the underlying reality is an important foundation of studies of ethnic enumeration, and of this thesis.
It is important to make clear though, as do many of the authors cited here, that to deny that there exists no stable, biological, or objective ethnic groupings is not to discount their role and influence in society. Even as artificial and subjective categorisations they are nonetheless considered salient by social actors. Rodríguez (2000) notes how we should not lose sight of the continuing social significance of race. Reifications or not, ethnic categorisations still have clear and consequential influences on day-to-day lives, inasmuch as they influence social interactions and behaviour in social settings. The socially constructed nature of such categories, their imperfect and inherently politicised measurement, their lack of objective foundation and sometimes variance with scientific and moral principles does not mean that ethnic distinctions do not exist, and nor does it discount the personal significance of the bonds people have with their perceived ethnic communities. It does suggest that these communities are imagined, social communities based primarily on subjective perception and ascription (Rodríguez, 2000; Guillaumin, 1995). Counting and classifying by ethnicity is not a futile exercise.
Ultimately, this principle finding is important because it discredits the still- powerful notion that ethnic categories are reducible to an objective core. Labbé (2000, as cited in Ketzer & Arel, 2002b, p. 19) calls this idea “statistical realism”. Under such a view, ethnicity has a core outside of statistics, and the task of census agencies is to methodologically and accurately record it. That such a view appears to have many adherents among demographers and statistical agencies is significant. Friedman (1996) recounts how expert demographers dispatched to Macedonia to review claims of systemic undercounting of ethnic Albanians were
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completely perplexed by the complexity and political nature of the exercise, far from the simple technical and statistical assignment they had expected. Modern demography still retains vestiges of primordial notions of ethnicity as a timeless identity, a notion which the literature examined in this section discredits. That ethnic groups lack any ontologically-objective foundation means the recording of ethnicity in censuses is always subjective and normative, and thereby apt for critical examination of the type attempted here.