Abstract
This chapter focuses on the premises underlying one of the main instruments that states have used to “embrace” their populations, viz. the modern population census. In many nation-states, statisticians opt for the household in its résidence habituelle or “habitual place of residence” as the census’ basic unit of observation. By analyzing the residential categories in the Belgian census, this chapter seeks to illuminate governmental and societal expectations regarding membership and belonging. Its focus is on the period between the first Belgian population census (1846) and the tenth, which was taken shortly after the Second World War (1947), a time frame within which de jure specifications of residence and resident populations have come to define the state-istical representations of the nation-state.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
See, e.g., Courtney (1895).
- 2.
Hentsch (2000, 484).
- 3.
- 4.
Igo (2007, 261–262).
- 5.
Igo (2007, 282).
- 6.
- 7.
- 8.
Hacking (1982, 280).
- 9.
- 10.
- 11.
- 12.
Headrick (2000, 76).
- 13.
- 14.
- 15.
Hacking (1982).
- 16.
- 17.
See Desrosières (2008, 41–45); see also Hawgood (1964). I use the term “state-istics” to denote population statistics in its relation to both the Queteletian idea of a social body as a field of scientific observation and the reification of this social body through the exercise of state-power. In consequence, the social body is also a field of governmental intervention.
- 18.
I refer to the census reports by the letter B followed by the year the census. I refer to the reports of the sessions of the International Statistical Congress by the letters CIS followed by the year of the session. For the sessions of the Belgian Chamber of Representatives, I use the letters BCR followed by the year of the session. Until 1920, the Belgian census reports were only published in French, which was the dominant language of administration during that time period. The enumeration sheets were sent out in French, Flemish, or German, depending on the language most spoken in the municipality (see, e.g., B 1846, X). All the English translations are my own. The italics in the original text passages were maintained.
- 19.
- 20.
BCR, Session of 25 January 1847, 583. A few years after the first Belgian census, the application of the de facto principle was also promulgated at the first International Statistical Congress in 1853: “the population censuses should be nominal and based on the principle of the de facto population.” However, it was at the same time stated that “special information may be requested to establish, depending on the circumstances, the de jure population” (CIS 1853, 107).
- 21.
BCR, Session of 25 January 1847, 583.
- 22.
B 1846, L–LII.
- 23.
B 1846, L, see also CIS 1872B, 440.
- 24.
BCR, Session of 25 January 1847, 583.
- 25.
“A law of June 2, 1856 contains the following related provisions: A general population census is carried out, every ten years, in all municipalities in the kingdom. It will be the basis for the distribution of the members of the Legislative Chambers (whose number must, according to the Constitution, be proportional to the size of the population). There are population registers in every municipality. These records are corrected and completed according to the results of the census” (CIS 1872B, 431; B 1856, VIII). The same law also authorized the municipal administrations to charge individuals who did not respond on time or refused to give the requested information. On ‘offenders’, a fine could be imposed “of which the amount could raise to 100 francs.” However, the instructions “invited agents only to invoke this criminal clause after having exhausted all means of persuasion” (CIS 1872B, 433; B 1856, VII).
- 26.
B 1856, VII; BCR, Session of 15 April 1856, 1164–1165; see also Bracke (2008).
- 27.
B 1856, XXXVIII–XXXIX, XLI–XLII.
- 28.
B 1856, XLVIII, LVI, LXXII.
- 29.
B 1866, XLV; see also CIS 1872B, 440.
- 30.
Against this background, the instructions to the census-takers time and again reiterated the point that each individual could only be member of one household at any given time (B 1866, VII–VIII, XI–XII, XXXVI, XLII).
- 31.
B 1866, XXXIX; see also CIS 1872B, 434.
- 32.
B 1866, XLIV–XLV; see also CIS 1872B, 436.
- 33.
For example, B 1880, IX; B 1900, LXXXII; B 1920, 18–21; B 1930, 4; B 1947, 108–113. Following a recommendation made during the 8th session of the International Statistical Congress in 1872, the Belgian statistical authorities started to conduct censuses in years ending on a 0. Therefore, the fourth Belgian census, which was originally scheduled for 1876, ended up taking place in 1880 (see also Quetelet 1873, 121). It also became the first census of the post-Quetelet era (Quetelet died in 1874).
- 34.
For example, B 1856, LXXII; B 1880, CVI, CVIII; B 1900, LXXXIX; B 1930, 27; B 1947, 50.
- 35.
CIS 1867, 54.
- 36.
See, e.g., B 1900, XC; B 1947, 64.
- 37.
B 1890, CXXXV.
- 38.
See Weber (1978).
- 39.
Alternatively, it is common in legal discussions to describe the habitual residence as a situation of fact. The habitual residence is “a factual notion and needs no connection with any given law system” (de Winter 1969, 428). At the International Statistical Congress, the connection between statistics and ‘fact-gathering’ was stressed on many occasions: “The goal [of statistics] is […] to record the facts, either for the administration or for the public” (CIS 1853, 32); “statistics is not a science of conjectures and assumptions, but a science of facts” (CIS 1853, 103).
- 40.
In addition, for individuals with more than one habitual residence, the statisticians argued that the legal domicile had to be recorded as the habitual residence (see B 1866, LXXXVII; B 1890, CXVII). From the 1900 census onwards, the term “domicile” was replaced in this context by “principal residence” or “principal home” (see B 1900, CXLVI; B 1910, 3; B 1930, 7, 27; B 1947, 50). People who had neither habitual residence nor domicile had to be counted as members of the de facto population (see B 1890, CLXXVIII).
- 41.
- 42.
B 1866, LXXV, LXXXIII–LXXXIV.
- 43.
B 1900, CXLIV; B 1910, 95; B 1920, 8; B 1930, 5, 27; B 1947, 50.
- 44.
For example, B 1846, LI; B 1866, XXXIX; B 1880, X; B 1890, LXX; B 1900, CXLV; B 1910, 2, 28; B 1930, 5; B 1947, 50.
- 45.
For example, B 1856, XXXVIII, LXXXII; B 1866, VIII, LXXXII; B 1890, CXXXI; B 1900, CXLIII; B 1910, 48; B 1920, 10; B 1930, 6; B 1947, 50.
- 46.
For a detailed socio-historical analysis of the representation of the household in the Belgian state-istics, see Louckx and Vanderstraeten (2015).
- 47.
For example, B 1866, XLI, LXXXII; B 1890, CXXXIII; B 1900, V; B 1910, 28; B 1930, 7; B 1947, 51.
- 48.
Warnier and De Vos (2010).
- 49.
B 1846, L; B 1856, LXXII.
- 50.
B 1866, XL; B 1880, X, XI.
- 51.
B 1890, IV, LXX, CXVII.
- 52.
B 1890, CXVII, CXLI.
- 53.
B 1900, XC.
- 54.
B 1900, IV; see also B 1910, 3; B 1930, 6. It was, at that time, frequently contended that the possibility of purchasing exemptions by obtaining substitutes (cf. supra) placed the burden of the conscription system on the poor (see Warnier and De Vos 2010). Significantly, however, the statisticians defined the time spent by substitutes in military service as a “voluntary choice”.
- 55.
For example, B 1856, LXXII; B 1866, XLI; B 1880, XLIII–XLIV, CIX; B 1890, CXXXIV; B 1900, LXXXIX–XC.
- 56.
See, e.g., B 1856, LXXII. In the 1900 census, the statisticians argued that it would be “illogical” to treat a hospital as a habitual place of residence, because hospitalization was “by nature” a temporary event. Following the same reasoning, hospital stays had to be compared with hotel stays. B 1900, V, LXXXIV, XCI; see also B 1910, 3, 36; B 1930, 7; B 1947, 50.
- 57.
B 1866, XLI, LXXXII.
- 58.
For example, B 1890, LXX, CXXXIII; B 1900, LXXXIII; B 1910, 28; B 1947, 50, 99.
- 59.
For a detailed sociological study of “total institutions” and processes of “institutionalization”, see Goffman (1961).
- 60.
B 1900, XC, CXLV; B 1910, 28, 36; B 1947, 84.
- 61.
B 1900, XC.
- 62.
For example, B 1900, XCI, CXXXVIII; B 1910, 36. As mentioned before, as of 1900, conscripted soldiers who had no family household could also be registered as habitually residing in their military barracks (see B 1900, XCV).
- 63.
- 64.
B 1846, LXVI.
- 65.
B 1856, LXXIX.
- 66.
For example, B 1866, LXX; B 1880, X, CXXXV; B 1890, LXX, CXVII, CXXXIII.
- 67.
B 1880, X; B 1900, XXIV; B 1910, 3, 28; B 1930, 6–7; B 1947, 50.
- 68.
B 1890, CXVII.
- 69.
- 70.
B 1866, X; see also B 1880, CVIII; B 1890, LXXI; B 1910, 33; B 1930, 5, 27.
- 71.
B 1866, XLV vs. B 1890, LXX; B 1900, V, LXXXIII, LXXXV; B 1910, 3; B 1930, 10; B 1947, 52.
- 72.
See, e.g., B 1900, LXXXIII; B 1910, 3; B 1930, 8.
- 73.
B 1890, CLXXVIII.
- 74.
B 1890, CXVIII; B 1900, CXLV–CXLVI; B 1910, 36.
- 75.
B 1900, CXXXVIII; B 1910, 89. Related to this, it was specified that some buildings, which were fixed on the ground, could not serve as habitual places of residence because individuals were not allowed to live there. For the 1900 census, the examples provided in the census report included administrative buildings, post or telegraph offices, churches, museums, factories, mills, workshops, railway stations, and so on. Exceptions were possible if parts of these buildings were designed and constructed for dwelling purposes, i.e. for janitors or wardens, but only on condition that these inhabitants had no other habitual place of residence. See, e.g., B 1900, CXLII; B 1947, 69.
- 76.
B 1920, 8.
- 77.
B 1947, 51–52.
Bibliography
Source Material
B 1846: Population. Recensement Général 15 Octobre 1846. Bruxelles: Le Ministre de l’Intérieur, 1849.
B 1856: Population. Recensement Général 31 Décembre 1856. Bruxelles: Le Ministre de l’Intérieur, 1861.
B 1866: Population. Recensement Général 31 Décembre 1866. Bruxelles: Le Ministre de l’Intérieur, 1870.
B 1880: Population. Recensement Général 31 Décembre 1880. Bruxelles: Le Ministre de l’Intérieur, 1884.
B 1890: Population. Recensement Général de 1890. Tome I. Bruxelles: Le Ministre de l’Intérieur et de l’Instruction Publique, 1893.
B 1900: Population. Recensement Général du 31 Décembre 1900. Tome I. Bruxelles: Le Ministre de l’Intérieur et de l’Instruction Publique, 1903.
B 1910: Recensement Général de la Population au 31 décembre 1910. Tome I. Bruxelles: Le Ministre de l’Intérieur, 1916.
B 1920: Population. Recensement Général du 31 Décembre 1920. Tome I. Bruxelles: Le Ministre de l’Intérieur et de l’Hygiène, 1926.
B 1930: Population. Recensement Général au 31 Décembre 1930. Tome I. Bruxelles: Ministère de l’Intérieur, 1934.
B 1947: Algemene Volks-, Nijverheids- en Handelstelling op 31 December 1947. Deel 1. Brussel: Ministerie van Economische Zaken, 1949.
BCR: Belgian Chamber of Representatives. Proceedings of the Plenary Sessions, Session of 25 January 1847. Last accessed March 12, 2019. https://sites.google.com/site/bplenum.
CIS 1853: Congrès Général de Statistique. Session de 1853. Compte Rendu des Travaux du Congrès Général de Statistique Réuni à Bruxelles les 19, 20, 21 et 22 Septembre 1853. Bruxelles: M. Hayez, Imprimeur de la Commission Centrale de Statistique, 1853.
CIS 1867: Compte-rendu des Travaux de la VIe Session du Congrès International de Statistique Réuni à Florence les 29, 30 Septembre, 1, 1, 3, 4 et 5 Octobre 1867 Publié par les Ordres de S. E. M. De Blasiis Ministre de l’Agriculture de l’Industrie et du Commerce Sous la Direction du Doct. Pierre Maestri Chef du Bureau de la Statistique Générale d’Italie. Florence: Imprimerie de G. Barbèra, 1868.
CIS 1872A: Congrès International de Statistique à St-Pétersbourg. Huitième Session du 10 (22) au 17 (29) Aout 1872. Programme. St-Pétersbourg: Imprimerie Trenké & Fusnot, 1872.
CIS 1872B: Congrès International de Statistique. Compte-rendu de la Huitième Session à St-Pétersbourg. Publié par les Ordres de S. Exc. M. Le Ministre de l’Intérieur Sous la Direction de S. Exc. M. P. Séménow, Directeur du Comité Central de Statistique de Russie. Troisième Partie. Travaux Présentés au Congrès. St-Pétersbourg: Imprimerie Trenké & Fusnot, 1874.
Proudhon, Jean-Baptiste-Victor. 1798. Cours de Législation et de Jurisprudence Françaises. Première Partie. Sur l’État des Personnes, Tome Premier. Besançon: Tissot.
Quetelet, Adolphe. 1873. Congrès International de Statistique. Sessions de Bruxelles (1853), Paris (1855), Vienne (1857), Londres (1860), Berlin (1863), Florence (1867), La Haye (1869) et St-Pétersbourg (1872). Bruxelles: Académie Royale de Belgique.
Sirey, Jean-Baptiste. 1808. Recueil Général des Lois et des Arrêts: En Matière Civile, Criminelle, Commerciale et de Droit Public. Tome VIII. Paris: Sirey.
Sirey, Jean-Baptiste. 1809. Recueil Général des Lois et des Arrêts: En Matière Civile, Criminelle, Commerciale et de Droit Public, Depuis l’Avènement de Napoléon. Tome IX. Paris: Sirey.
Other References
Anderson, Benedict. 1983. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso.
Anderson, Margo J. 1988. The American Census: A Social History. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Bracke, Nele. 2008. Een Monument voor het Land. Overheidsstatistiek in België, 1795–1870. Ghent: Academia Press.
Brian, Eric. 1989. “Y a-t-il un Objet Congrès? Le Cas du Congrès International de Statistique (1853–1876).” Cahiers Georges Sorel 7: 9–22.
Brian, Eric. 2002. “Transactions Statistiques au XIXe siècle.” Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales 5: 34–46.
Courtney, Leonard Henry. 1895. “To My Fellow-Disciples at Saratoga Springs.” The National Review 26: 21–26.
Curtis, Bruce. 2002. The Politics of Population: State Formation, Statistics, and the Census of Canada, 1840–1875. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Desrosières, Alain. 1998. The Politics of Large Numbers. Harvard: Harvard University Press.
Desrosières, Alain. 2000. “Histoire de la Statistique: Styles d’Écriture et Usages Sociaux.” In L’Ère du Chiffre. Systèmes Statistiques et Traditions Nationales, edited by Jean-Pierre Beaud and Jean-Guy Prévost, 37–57. Québec: Presses de l’Université du Québec.
Desrosières, Alain. 2008. Gouverner par les Nombres: L’argument Statistique II. Paris: Presses de l’École des Mines.
de Winter, Louis I. 1969. Nationality of Domicile? The Present State of Affairs. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.
Donnelly, Michael. 1998. “From Political Arithmetic to Social Statistics: How Some Nineteenth-Century Roots of the Social Sciences Were Implanted.” In The Rise of the Social Sciences and the Formation of Modernity, edited by Björn Wittrock, Johan Heilbron, and Lars Magnusson, 225–239. Dordrecht and Boston: Kluwer Academic.
Foucault, Michel. 2007 [first published Paris: Seuil/Gallimard, 2004]. Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1977–1978. London: Palgrave.
Goffman, Erving. 1961. Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates. New York: Anchor Books.
Hacking, Ian. 1982. “Biopower and the Avalanche of Printed Numbers.” Humanities in Society 5: 279–295.
Hawgood, John A. 1964. “Liberalism and Constitutional Developments.” In The New Cambridge Modern History, Volume 10: The Zenith of European Power, 1830–1870, edited by John P. T. Bury, 185–212. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Headrick, Daniel R. 2000. When Information Came of Age: Technologies of Knowledge in the Age of Reason and Revolution, 1700–1850. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hentsch, Thierry. 2000. “Compter et Conter: Le Dire de la Statistique.” In L’Ère du Chiffre. Systèmes Statistiques et Traditions Nationales, edited by Jean-Pierre Beaud and Jean-Guy Prévost, 483–486. Québec: Presses de l’Université du Québec.
Igo, Sarah E. 2007. The Averaged American: Surveys, Citizens, and the Making of a Mass Public. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Jasanoff, Sheila. 2004. States of Knowledge: The Co-production of Science and the Social Order. New York: Routledge.
Krebs, Klaus. 2011. Internationales Privatrecht. Heidelberg: C.F. Müller.
Louckx, Kaat. 2017a. “Parameters of Nation-ness and Citizenship in Belgium (1846–1947).” In Science Shaping the World of Tomorrow: Scientific Imagination and Development of Society, edited by Gert Verschraegen et al., 169–185. London: Routledge.
Louckx, Kaat. 2017b. “The Nation‐state in Its State‐istics (Belgium, 1846–1947).” Nations and Nationalism 23 (3): 505–523.
Louckx, Kaat, and Raf Vanderstraeten. 2014. “State-istics and Statistics: Exclusion Categories in the Population Census (Belgium, 1846–1930).” The Sociological Review 62 (3): 530–546.
Louckx, Kaat, and Raf Vanderstraeten. 2015. “Household and State-istics: Cornerstones of Society in Population Censuses (Belgium, 1846–1947).” Social Science History 39 (2): 201–215.
Meyer, John W., John Boli, George M. Thomas, and Francisco O. Ramirez. 1997. “World Society and the Nation-State.” American Journal of Sociology 103 (1): 144–181.
Patriarca, Silvana. 1996. Numbers and Nationhood: Writing Statistics in Nineteenth-Century Italy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Poovey, Mary. 1998. A History of the Modern Fact: Problems of Knowledge in the Sciences of Wealth and Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Porter, Theodore M. 1986. The Rise of Statistical Thinking. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Prévost, Jean-Guy, and Jean-Pierre Beaud. 2012. Statistics, Public Debate and the State, 1800–1945: A Social, Political and Intellectual History of Numbers. London: Pickering & Chatto.
Randeraad, Nico. 2011. “The International Statistical Congress (1853–1876): Knowledge Transfers and Their Limits.” European History Quarterly 41 (1): 50–65.
Scott, James C. 1998. Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Stamhuis, Ida H. 1989. ‘Cijfers en Aequaties’ en ‘Kennis der Staatskrachten.’ Statistiek in Nederland in de Negentiende Eeuw. Amsterdam and Atlanta: Rodopi.
Starr, Peter. 1987. “The Sociology of Official Statistics.” In The Politics of Numbers, edited by Peter Starr and William Alonzo, 7–57. New York: Russell Sage.
Tihon, André. 1976. “Les Religieuses en Belgique du XVIIIe au XXe siècle.” Revue Belge d’Histoire Contemporaine 7: 1–53.
Vanderstraeten, Raf. 2014. “Religious Activism in a Secular World: The Rise and Fall of the Teaching Congregations of the Catholic Church.” Paedagogica Historica 50 (4): 494–513.
Vanderstraeten, Raf, and Kaat Louckx. 2018. Sociology in Belgium: A Sociological History. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Wargon, Sylvia T. 2000. “Demography and Official Statistics in Canada. The Case of Demolinguistics.” In L’Ère du Chiffre. Systèmes Statistiques et Traditions Nationales, edited by Jean-Pierre Beaud and Jean-Guy Prévost, 325–356. Québec: Presses de l’Université du Québec.
Warnier, Dave, and Luc De Vos. 2010. “De Dienstplicht in België Historisch Bekeken: Een Politieke en Militaire Evolutie (1830–2010).” Volkskunde 111 (4): 339–357.
Weber, Max. 1946. Essays in Sociology. New York: Oxford University Press.
Weber, Max. 1978. Economy and Society. Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Acknowledgements
This paper benefited significantly from the input and support provided by many. I would like to thank the organizing committee of the research project, “Science, Numbers and Politics”, and the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities for providing funding for the project. I want to thank the participants of the two project-workshops in Heidelberg for sharing their time, thoughts and expertise with me. I thank Ida Stamhuis and Wolfgang Drechsler in particular for their oral and written feedback on my paper. And last but not least, I would like to give special thanks to the organizers and moderators of the book’s section on “Historical Genesis”, Kelly L. Grotke and Stephen Hastings-King. They provided invaluable insights and served as a sounding board for the work presented in this paper—challenging me to make it better through their thoughtful feedback, discussions, and additional background information. The paper has benefited greatly from their guidance!
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Louckx, K. (2019). “Lies, Damned Lies and State-istics”: Counting “Real Inhabitants” in the Census (Belgium, 1846–1947). In: Prutsch, M. (eds) Science, Numbers and Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11208-0_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11208-0_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-11207-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-11208-0
eBook Packages: Political Science and International StudiesPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)