Counting Indigenous Population in Brazilian National Censuses: Ethnic Classification, Counting Practices and Governance Regimes

• In Event: State Numerology: Conceptual and Ethnographic Engagements with Numbering Practices and Ontologies

Abstract

Recent decades have witnessed a major increase in data uptake on indigenous populations in official information systems in Latin American countries. One factor in this expansion has been the inclusion of questions on indigenous ethnic identity in national population censuses. This process is part of broader social and political changes since the 1980s that have led to the revision of legal provisions in various countries, which were marked by multicultural perspectives. This paper analyzes how the indigenous populations has been identified and counted by the Brazilian State in recent decades. In the complex trajectory of relations between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples in Brazil, which spans more than 500 years, the interests, perspectives and approaches adopted by initiatives seeking to identify the indigenous population for the purposes of official statistics have assumed a variety of forms. At present, the diverse official sources contain a multitude of criteria for identifying indigenous peoples, not always mutually compatible. In 2010, when the most recent national census was carried out, the indigenous population in Brazil totaled 305 ethnic groups and approximately 900,000 people, corresponding to less than 0.5% of the total Brazilian population. Focusing on the “state numerology” aimed at indigenous communities in Brazil as expressed through the counting techniques utilized in the national censuses, we explore how governmental initiatives go well beyond “portraying reality,” instead producing population statistics and indigenous ethnic landscapes that strongly reflect Western perspectives and long-term governance perspectives.

Authors

• Ricardo Ventura Santos, Fundacao Oswaldo Cruz

• Bruno Nogueira Guimaraes, Fundacao Oswaldo Cruz

• Alessandra Traldi Simoni, Universidade Estadual de Campinas