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

摘要：本科学技术研究论文改进基金将资助20世纪初加拿大和以色列-巴勒斯坦国家统计数据的出现与民族国家形成过程之间联系的研究。关于这一主题的大多数工作都将统计作为国家的工具，并展示了如何使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，但也展示了相反的情况：统计数据是如何通过国家构成自己的。矛盾的是，这项研究表明，国家建立的统计局如何促进了一个试图与政治分离的统计科学界的发展。拟议研究的目标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，并将官方统计构建为客观的知识体系。由于统计实践不仅反映政治进程，该项目试图了解不同的统计风格和策略如何帮助塑造两个社会中的权力关系。该项目将比较20世纪初加拿大和1948年以色列建国前后的国家建设对国家统计数据的影响及其应用。这种比较是基于这样一个事实，即两国都是后殖民社会，都曾是大英帝国的一部分，而且两国都有主要种族和民族群体之间的冲突历史。它们曾经是英国的殖民地，这导致了它们在制度特征和科学实践的运用上的相似之处。这项研究的重点是加拿大自治领统计局和以色列中央统计局。将这些部门作为研究对象可以在几个方面为科学技术研究文献做出贡献。STS将普遍性重新概念化为成功扩展地方社会技术结构的结果，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工具来检验科学与国家之间的交集，该项目将说明，这种关系不仅是一种对政府的依赖，也是国家合法性的来源和公共行动的基础。由于加拿大的人口普查成为以色列的榜样，该研究表明，知识和方法的流动不仅主要发生在大都市和殖民地之间，也发生在周边地区，因为不同的州和地区试图就类似的知识和管理问题达成协议。更广泛的影响本研究的更广泛的影响在于其野心在于理解不同认识论工具（主要是统计工具）在制定针对少数民族的国家政策方面的政治影响。假设加拿大处理种族冲突的模式比以色列的模式更成功，这将标志着两国在发展国家统计方面的差异，并有助于解释为什么加拿大处理种族冲突的模式不同于以色列的模式。这个项目将说明，统计知识和实践具有使种族冲突制度化和深化的力量，就像在以色列发生的那样，或者能够缓和种族冲突，就像在加拿大发生的那样。

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.