Counting the population is one of the basic ambitions of governments, for the sake of public policy. But having comprehensive data on populations is a relatively new invention and it certainly hasn't been a smooth road to get to where we are now. For people who are marginalised, appearing in population statistics can signal recognition, acknowledgement and legitimacy - but it can also be something to be viewed with suspicion or avoided altogether. This seminar explains how migrants first started to be counted in the UK and how the act of counting - historically through censuses - was a negotiation between a state which wanted information and people who often only wanted to leave the statistical shadows if it was on their own terms. Even in the nineteenth century, censuses showed an extraordinary diversity of foreign-born people in parts of London and even recorded people who had fled slavery in the United States. Data which people had given in good faith on their country of birth was used during the Second World War to round up certain migrant groups and send them to internment camps. More recently, in the 1990s, we started to collect data on ethnicity - indicating migrant heritage - according to categories of people's own choosing, which was a milestone after centuries of using sometimes offensive top-down classifications. Population data is one of the most amazing achievements of democratic societies. But we shouldn't take it at face value. We should cherish it, while being critical of it in the right way - and we should pay close attention to how it evolves. The Seminar will take place on zoom please click on this link to join.
For further information, please contract Soha Youssef (convenor of the Migration seminar series, on behalf of UNU- MERIT & MACIMIDE): youssef@merit.unu.edu
