The 1872 census and the statistical utopia of Brazil’s Empire

Authors

  • Alexandre de Paiva Rio Camargo Instituto Universitário de Pesquisa do Rio de Janeiro (IUPERJ) - Universidade Candido Mendes (UCAM).

Abstract

The present article analyzes the discourse of the first exhaustive counting of the Brazilian population as well as its institutional conditions of production. By examining the census from within, we intend to shed light on the liturgical services that made the census operation possible and the choices that led to the construction of a statistical utopia for an Empire willing to be recognized as powerful and civilized. On the one hand, this project relied on the adoption of the resolutions issued by the International Statistical Congresses, which established the conventions on what should be counted. On the other hand, classifications were used in original ways and meanings, in order to produce a population that turned out to be internally hierarchical (by “condition” and “profession”) and ethnically homogeneous (by “language” and “religion”), which mirrored the cleavages by which the imperial elites imagined the country and its people. In addition, the article attempts to evaluate the innovations and continuities made possible by the census in the midst of the broader configuration of imperial statistics, marked by the persistence of estimates, a private enterprise whose source of authority lay in the personal reputation of its practitioner.

Keywords: social studies of quantification, state building, history of science.

Author Biography

Alexandre de Paiva Rio Camargo, Instituto Universitário de Pesquisa do Rio de Janeiro (IUPERJ) - Universidade Candido Mendes (UCAM).

Professor Adjunto do Programa de Pós-Graduação em Sociologia Política da Universidade Candido Mendes (PPGSP-UCAM)

Doutor em Sociologia (IESP-UERJ)

Mestre, Bacharel e Licenciado em História (UFF)

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Published

2018-11-23

Issue

Vol. 22 No. 3 (2018): September/October

Section

Articles

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