A Roundtable Discussion on Collecting Demographics Data

Abstract

Identifying this natal link between statistical identities and distanced control does not of course mean that we should reject statistically “enumerated identities” tout court in favor of some more “fuzzy identities.”62 To do so would be to lapse into an ahistorical fantasy of return. This is where our third key theme, difference, comes into play—difference not merely in the sense of something that is disciplined and contained but, rather, as an ethical project. As Burton points out, whatever value the demographic project may or may not have, we have to think of alternatives that will tackle the “leaky pipeline” by which difference is leached off and diversity carefully curated in ways that sustain and reproduce existing patterns of privilege and consensus. Counting diversity, in other words, has to be wedded to a commitment to making our journal, our Society, and our field different.