- Morphy, Frances. “Indigenising demographic categories: a prolegomenon to indigenous data sovereignty.” Indigenous Data Sovereignty: Toward an agenda, pp. 99-116. Canberra, Australia: Australian National University (ANU).
- Abstract：
In engagement with quantification inevitable for indigenous peoples who seek sovereignty over data that describe them? A radical response would be to resist the hegemony of quantification and reject quantitative science, and demography in particular, as a “way of knowing”—about anything. The least radical would be simply to accept the status quo and continue to allow others to frame indigenous identities and futures—to accept what I have elsewhere termed “enforced commensurability” (Morphy 2007a: 40). But the ubiquity of quantification as a technology of power (see Scott 1998; Anderson 2006), at the state level and how increasingly on the world stage (see Espeland & Stevens 2008; Davis et al. 2012; Davis, this volume), seem to make engagement a strategic imperative if people are to act for themselves rather than merely be acted on.