IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aph/ajpbhl/200090111738-1745_3.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

History counts: A comparative analysis of racial/color categorization in US and Brazilian censuses

Author

Listed:
  • Nobles, M.

Abstract

Categories of race (ethnicity, color, or both) have appeared and continue to appear in the demographic censuses of numerous countries, including the United States and Brazil. Until recently, such categorization had largely escaped critical scrutiny, being viewed and treated as a technical procedure requiring little conceptual clarity or historical explanation. Recent political developments and methodological changes, in US censuses especially, have engendered a critical reexamination of both the comparative and the historical dimensions of categorization. The author presents a comparative analysis of the histories of racial/color categorization in American and Brazilian censuses and shows that racial (and color) categories have appeared in these censuses because of shifting ideas about race and the enduring power of these ideas as organizers of political, economic, and social life in both countries. These categories have not appeared simply as demographic markers. The author demonstrates that censuses are instruments at a state's disposal and are not simply detached registers of population and performance.

Suggested Citation

  • Nobles, M., 2000. "History counts: A comparative analysis of racial/color categorization in US and Brazilian censuses," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 90(11), pages 1738-1745.
    • Handle: RePEc:aph:ajpbhl:2000:90:11:1738-1745_3
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Hyun Song Lee, 2010. "Change in the Singular Racial Concept of American Society," International Area Studies Review, Center for International Area Studies, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, vol. 13(3), pages 51-72, September.
    2. Gagnon, A.J. & Zimbeck, M. & Zeitlin, J., 2009. "Migration to western industrialised countries and perinatal health: A systematic review," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 69(6), pages 934-946, September.
    3. Dirk Jacobs & Andrea Rea, 2006. "Construction and Import of Ethnic Categorisations: “Allochthones” in The Netherlands and Belgium," Working Papers 2006.68, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    4. Jacobs, Dirk & Rea, Andrea, 2006. "Construction and Import of Ethnic Categorisations: 'Allochthones' in The Netherlands and Belgium," Knowledge, Technology, Human Capital Working Papers 12103, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
    5. Jerônimo Muniz & Stanley R. Bailey, 2022. "Does race response shift impact racial inequality?," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 47(30), pages 935-966.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aph:ajpbhl:2000:90:11:1738-1745_3. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Christopher F Baum (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.apha.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.