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Abstract

Discussions on the collection of ethnoracial data in official statistics reflect not only institutional priorities but also broader struggles over visibility, recognition, and democratic accountability. This research examines how these dynamics unfold in Portugal, with a particular focus on the debates surrounding the 2021 Population Census and the subsequent development of the Survey on Origins and Living Conditions (ICOT). Drawing on interviews, web archive research, and historical analysis of governmental and statistical office documentation, the project investigates how ethnoracial data became a central point of contestation within Portuguese statistical governance. In the lead-up to the 2021 Census, a working group of academics, civil society, and government representatives recommended including an optional question on ethnoracial self-identification. Statistics Portugal rejected the proposal, citing concerns about data quality, comparability, and methodological limits, while announcing the development of a specialised survey. In the aftermath of this decision, ICOT emerged as a key institutional response. Conceived as a survey rather than a core census instrument, ICOT represents an effort to collect, for the first time in the country since colonial times, official data on ethnoracial self-identification while operating within a more controlled methodological and ethical framework. Its design reflects broader transformations in contemporary European official statistics, where quality is understood not only in terms of accuracy, but also in relation to risk management, confidentiality, interpretability, and trust. Through a staged process, including pilot testing, iterative revisions, and engagement with interviewers and institutional actors, ICOT illustrates how sensitive data are produced through reflexive and incremental practices rather than through immediate integration into large-scale statistical infrastructures. At the same time, the development of ICOT reveals a series of unresolved tensions. While it responds to demands for ethnoracial visibility, it also redistributes them into a more bounded institutional setting, limiting active forms of citizen participation and postponing debates on data ownership and long-term governance. Preliminary findings indicate that, despite the availability of data, the uptake of ICOT still remains limited beyond specialist circles, raising questions about its policy impact and broader public engagement. These dynamics point to a persistent tension between institutional logics of data stewardship and emerging claims for data justice and collective agency over ethnoracial information. The project argues that ICOT should be understood not as a definitive solution to the controversies surrounding the 2021 Census, but as a diagnostic intervention within a broader process of institutional learning. By analysing how political demands for recognition are reframed as methodological and procedural challenges, the research contributes to understanding how official statistics negotiate statistical authority and statistical citizenship between democratic expectations and the structural constraints of data production. In doing so, it advances ongoing debates on the role of official statistics in addressing inequality, fostering trust, and shaping inclusive forms of governance in contemporary Europe. Outputs will include a peer-reviewed article, contributions to a co-edited special issue and book, and the development of visualisation tools translating research findings into accessible formats to the public, alongside the preparation of competitive funding applications building on the project's results.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Kopper Moisés
• Fellow: Linkevicius De Andrade Daniela

Research team(s)

• Development processes, actors and policies

Funding

• BOF

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

Large-scale household surveys, such as population censuses, are crucial knowledge infrastructures shaping inequality measures and perceptions. However, the conditions under which these numbers are produced—and their impact on making inequality visible, measurable, and actionable—remain understudied. In the Global South, inequality data is shaped by both high-level policy controversies surrounding household survey design and the nuanced, on-the-ground interactions between enumerators and respondents during data collection. We analyze how these interlinked dimensions of "number politics" (controversies and practices) have given shape to measures and perceptions of ethnoracial inequality in Brazil—where high statistical capacity and multiple forms of inequality and exclusion coexist. Blending insights from the political economy of development data, social studies of quantification, and critical data studies, we explore how numbers produced under unequal conditions inform increasingly technical definitions of inequality. Using historical-ethnographic methods to capture the numeric contingencies and infrastructures sustaining the visibility of Brazil's ethnoracial inequalities, we ultimately reveal how unequal data politics shape development interventions and metrics. The project will culminate in innovative visualization tools that challenge conventional representations of inequality and foster more nuanced understandings of its socio-political construction in the Global South.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Kopper Moisés

Research team(s)

• Development processes, actors and policies

Funding

• FWO

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

In the age of datafication, scholars have repeatedly shown that the counting of people is as much a political act as it is an enumerative one. As a result, grassroots initiatives are increasingly appropriating the art of statistics, transforming numbers into instruments of political and social resistance in the quest for a more authentic representation of society. Through an intersectional lens and attention to data politics, data infrastructures, and affective narratives, this project aims to delve into the nature and implications of bottom-up datafication, considering data an active agent in shaping social constructs. Drawing upon Actor-Network Theory and employing a qualitative mixed-methods approach, it seeks to unpack bottom-up datafication as a socio-technical phenomenon, exploring its networks, ontologies, ethics, and politics. By turning an ethnographic eye to two initiatives that collect data on and with marginalized citizens in Brazil and Germany from the bottom up, this project sheds light on the technopolitical infrastructure, the political impact, and the affective implications that engagement in the production and circulation of data from the bottom up has on identity, subjectivity, and imaginaries of citizenship. Finally, situated within critical data studies, this interdisciplinary project aims to develop an ethnographic theory of bottom-up datafication that contributes to the production of intersectional and inclusive data practices.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Kopper Moisés
• Fellow: Kiel Alina

Research team(s)

• Development processes, actors and policies

Funding

• FWO

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

Data is being touted as the new frontier of development. Across the Global South, grassroots schemes have already been championing big data to promote citizen rights, increase state accountability, and reduce inequality. Yet despite the overwhelming evidence of the use of data as a token of development, we know very little about the everyday realities of those making and circulating their own numbers. Recent scholarship focuses either on the politics of official statistics or on the activist use of statistics to denounce domination. We need granular and interlinked accounts of how, why, and when people engage with numbers to grasp their impacts on identity, subjectivity, and public policy. This requires a systematic and interlinked study of the top-down and bottom-up dimensions of data-for-development initiatives that seek to involve both citizens and experts in their design and implementation. This project explores how datafication is changing the means and meanings of sociocultural and political-economic belonging through local and everyday engagements with information in the Global South. In the context of data for development, it asks: how are datafication tools being mobilized by private and philanthropic actors (the politics of datafication)? And how are grassroots actors being involved in and using these tools to redefine their terms of citizenship (the poetics of datafication)? Empirically, the project investigates how multi-scalar partnerships between private donors and social impact businesses are marshaling technology in innovative ways to promote participatory and transformative forms of monitoring and evaluation. It critically examines how these organizations are refashioning the meaning and measuring of "social impact" by leveraging local knowledge via participatory technologies and citizen-generated data. The project also probes the grassroots epistemologies and quantification tools of bottom-up data ecosystems, the transnational networks of expertise and action unfolding from the intersection of top-down and bottom-up data, and the distinctive datafied subjectivities of engaged citizens involved in bottom-up data. Such a multidimensional focus on datafication is crucial to grasp the knowledge regimes and legibility politics generated by bottom-up quantification tools, but also the affective impacts of these tools in daily exchanges between grassroots experts and engaged citizens. The project will thus also assess the extent to which these data ecosystems are effectively filling data gaps, creating public recognition, galvanizing participation, and engaging decolonial development. This project is part of a broader ERC-funded Starting Grant, which studies the citizenship practices and technologies coalescing around model initiatives to produce and circulate data in the Global South. The broader project blends insights from the social studies of quantification, the anthropology of data, and citizenship studies to grasp data produced by experts and citizens across top-down and bottom-up data ecosystems. Via the concept of informational citizenship, it sheds light on the politics (infrastructures, epistemologies, visibilities) and poetics (experiences, socialities, and affects) of datafication, their impacts on law- and policymaking, and their effects on individuals, communities, and institutions in Brazil, Portugal, Germany, Tanzania, and Kenya. The individual project maximizes its societal and academic impact by taking part in the activities and results of this umbrella research. It will participate in the generation of applied outputs (such as policy-oriented reports, networking conferences, a video documentary, and a podcast) and analytical outputs (such as an interactive database to visualize and communicate results to non-academic audiences) aimed at critically probing the imaginaries, contingencies, materialities, and spaces of data for radical democratic change today.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Kopper Moisés
• Fellow: Queiroz Alves Guilherme

Research team(s)

• Development processes, actors and policies

Funding

• BOF

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

Data has been extolled as the new frontier of development. Whereas western elite actors have contested big data for its flattening of social life and information extraction, grassroots initiatives have been championing big data to promote citizen rights, improve state accountability, and reduce inequality. InfoCitizen will: (1) study the citizenship practices and technologies coalescing around model initiatives to produce and circulate data in the Global South. We contend that for favela residents in Brazil, ethnic minorities in Portugal and Germany, and poor citizens in Tanzania and Kenya, far from splintering and prying, data has the potential to promote cultural change, political identity, and economic wellbeing via "better," "faster," and "more reliable" public and private statistics. (2) blend insights from the social studies of quantification, the anthropology of data, and citizenship studies to grasp data produced by experts and citizens across top-down and bottom-up data ecosystems. Via the concept of informational citizenship, we will illuminate the politics (infrastructures, epistemologies, visibilities) and poetics (experiences, socialities, and affects) of datafication, their impacts on law- and policymaking, and their effects on individuals, communities, and institutions in Brazil, Portugal, Germany, Tanzania, and Kenya. (3) combine archival, digital, audiovisual, and quanti-qualitative methods to unpack the tools—censuses, smartphones, policy reports—and actors—NGOs, data labs, legal commissions—crystallizing in the wake of grassroots numbers. We propose a global and comparative ethnography of datafied subjectivities and their interplay with transnational networks of expertise—such as think tanks, governments, and businesses. (4) generate applied and analytical research and a unique database of quantification tools and practices to critically probe the imaginaries, contingencies, materialities, and spaces of data for radical democratic change today.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Kopper Moisés

Research team(s)

• Development processes, actors and policies

Funding

• EU-KADER

Project website

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

Data has been extolled as the new frontier of development. Whereas western elite actors have contested big data for its flattening of social life and information extraction, grassroots initiatives have been championing big data to promote citizen rights, improve state accountability, and reduce inequality. InfoCitizen will: (1) study the citizenship practices and technologies coalescing around model initiatives to produce and circulate data in the Global South. We contend that for favela residents in Brazil, ethnic minorities in Portugal and Germany, and poor citizens in Tanzania and Kenya, far from splintering and prying, data has the potential to promote cultural change, political identity, and economic wellbeing via "better," "faster," and "more reliable" public and private statistics. (2) blend insights from the social studies of quantification, the anthropology of data, and citizenship studies to grasp data produced by experts and citizens across top-down and bottom-up data ecosystems. Via the concept of informational citizenship, we will illuminate the politics (infrastructures, epistemologies, visibilities) and poetics (experiences, socialities, and affects) of datafication, their impacts on law- and policymaking, and their effects on individuals, communities, and institutions in Brazil, Portugal, Germany, Tanzania, and Kenya. (3) combine archival, digital, audiovisual, and quanti-qualitative methods to unpack the tools—censuses, smartphones, policy reports—and actors—NGOs, data labs, legal commissions—crystallizing in the wake of grassroots numbers. We propose a global and comparative ethnography of datafied subjectivities and their interplay with transnational networks of expertise—such as think tanks, governments, and businesses. (4) generate applied and analytical research and a unique database of quantification tools and practices to critically probe the imaginaries, contingencies, materialities, and spaces of data for radical democratic change today.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Kopper Moisés
• Fellow: Kopper Moisés

Research team(s)

• Development processes, actors and policies

Funding

• BOF
• BOF

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

I propose to conduct both collaborative and individual research at the University of Antwerp's Institute of Development (IOB) where I will join the scholar team of Informational Citizenship, an interdisciplinary, ERC-funded group investigating informational citizenship. I will develop an interactive database and other media showing how citizens engage with truth-making, science, epistemic health and misinformation. I will also coauthor an article with the project director, and participate in lectures, workshops and dissertation reviews, sharing my research on transdisciplinary approaches to divisive communications and disinformation surrounding climate change.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Kopper Moisés

Research team(s)

• Development processes, actors and policies

Funding

• BOF

Project type(s)

• Research Project