Nobles M
Department of Political Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge 02139, USA.
Am J Public Health. 2000 Nov;90(11):1738-45. doi: 10.2105/ajph.90.11.1738.
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.
种族类别（族裔、肤色或两者兼有）已经出现在包括美国和巴西在内的众多国家的人口普查中，并且仍在出现。直到最近，这种分类在很大程度上都未受到严格审查，被视为一种几乎不需要概念清晰或历史解释的技术程序。近期的政治发展以及方法上的变化，尤其是在美国人口普查中，引发了对分类的比较维度和历史维度的批判性重新审视。作者对美国和巴西人口普查中种族/肤色分类的历史进行了比较分析，并表明种族（和肤色）类别在这些普查中出现是因为关于种族的观念不断变化，以及这些观念作为两国政治、经济和社会生活组织者的持久影响力。这些类别并非仅仅作为人口统计学标志出现。作者证明，人口普查是国家可支配的工具，而不仅仅是人口和表现的独立记录。
