Dissertation Research: The Emergence of National Statistics in Canada and Israel-Palestine

摘要：科学与技术研究论文改进基金将资助20世纪初加拿大和以色列-巴勒斯坦国家统计的出现与民族国家形成过程之间关系的研究。关于这一主题的大多数工作都将统计定位为国家的工具，并展示了如何利用这一工具来加强民族国家的合理化和创造社会。这项研究表明这种情况正在发生，但也证明了相反的情况：统计数据是如何通过国家构成自身的。矛盾的是，这项研究表明，国家创建的统计局如何促进了试图与政治脱节的统计科学界的发展。拟议研究的目的是将官方统计的出现描述为与民族国家的巩固交织在一起，并与官方统计作为客观知识体系的构建交织在一起。由于统计实践不仅反映了政治进程，该项目试图了解不同的统计风格和战略如何帮助塑造两个社会的权力关系。该项目将比较20世纪初加拿大和以色列在1948年建国前后的国家建设如何塑造国家统计数据，以及它们是如何应用的。这种比较是基于这样一个事实，即这两个国家都是后殖民社会，都曾是大英帝国的一部分，都有主要种族和民族群体之间的冲突历史。它们作为昔日英国殖民地的地位，导致了它们在机构特征和如何使用科学实践方面的相似之处。这项研究将重点放在加拿大自治领统计局和以色列的中央统计局。智力价值将这些局作为调查对象，可以在几个方面为科学和技术研究文献做出贡献。STS将普遍性重新定义为成功扩展当地社会技术建设的结果，而不是先验条件的发现。对中央国家统计局的分析是对一个地方机构的研究，该机构将其知识、政治、经济和人口及其认识论基础设施扩展到国界之外。通过应用STS工具来考察科学和国家之间的交集，这个项目将说明这种关系不仅是对政府的依赖，而且是国家合法性的来源和公共行动的基础。自从加拿大的人口普查成为以色列的榜样以来，这项研究表明，知识和方法的流动不仅主要在大都市和殖民地之间，而且在外围地区也是如此，因为不同的州和地区试图解决类似的知识和管理问题。更广泛的影响这项研究的更广泛的影响在于它雄心勃勃地理解不同的认识论工具，主要是统计学工具，在制定国家对少数群体的政策时的政治影响。假设加拿大处理种族冲突的模式比以色列更成功，这将标志着两国在编制国家统计数据方面的差异，并有助于解释为什么加拿大处理种族冲突的模式与以色列不同。该项目将说明，统计知识和做法有能力使族裔冲突制度化和加深，就像在以色列发生的那样，或者能够缓和这些冲突，就像加拿大的情况一样。

Abstract:This Science and Technology Studies Dissertation Improvement Grant will fund research on connections between the emergence of national statistics and the processes of nation-state formation in Canada and Israel-Palestine in the early 20th century. Most work on the topic has located statistics as a tool of the state and shown how this tool is used to enhance the rationalization of the nation-state and to invent society. This study shows this is happening, but also demonstrates the reverse: how statistics constitutes itself through the state. Paradoxically, the study shows how state creation of a bureau of statistics contributed to development of a statistical scientific community that tried to dissociate itself from politics. The goal of the proposed research is to describe the emergence of official statistics as intertwined with the consolidation of the nation-state, and with the construction of official statistics as an objective body of knowledge. Since statistical practices not only reflect political processes, the project seeks to understand how different statistical styles and strategies helped shape power relations in both societies. The project will compare how state building in Canada in the early 20th century, and in Israel, before and after establishment of the state in 1948, have shaped national statistics and how they were applied. The comparison is based on the fact that both countries are post-colonial societies that were once part of the British Empire, and both have a history of conflict between major ethnic and national groups. Their status as erstwhile British colonies has resulted in resemblances in institutional characteristics and how scientific practices were employed. This study will focus on the Dominion Bureau of Statistics, Canada, and in Israel, the Central Bureau of Statistics. Intellectual MeritsTreating these bureaus as objects of inquiry can contribute to the Science and Technology Studies literature in several ways. STS has reconceptualized universality as the result of successfully extending local socio-technical constructions rather than as discovery of a priori conditions. Analysis of a central bureau of national statistics is a study of a local institution that extends its knowledge, political, economic and demographic, and its epistemological infrastructure, beyond national boundaries. By applying STS tools to examine the intersection between science and the state, this project will illustrate that the relationship is not merely one of dependence on the government, but also a source of state legitimacy and a basis of public action. Since the Canadian census became a model for Israel, the study show that the flow of knowledge and methods was not mainly between metropolis and colony but also around the periphery, as different states and territories tried to come to terms with similar problems of knowledge and administration. Broader ImpactsThe broader impact of this study is in its ambition to comprehend the political impact of different epistemological tools, mainly statistical, in shaping state policies towards minorities. Assuming that the Canadian model of dealing with ethnic conflicts was more successful than the Israeli, that would mark the differences between the two countries in developing national statistics and could help explain why the Canadian model of dealing with ethnic conflicts differs from the Israeli one. This project will illustrate that statistical knowledge and practices have the power to institutionalize and deepen ethnic conflicts, as has happened in the Israeli, or to moderate them, as perhaps in the Canadian case.