ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the rationalities, methods, and actors of colonial demography. The categories used to classify and subdivide populations like natives, half caste, ethnicity, or nationality was produced in particular social and political contexts. Colonized populations were construed by Europeans as being in need of civilization, biomedical health care, or hygiene standards. The census and the numerical representation of populations were important for the formation of postcolonial states. To encourage stabilization and the local reproduction of the workforce, companies also established maternal and infant welfare services for the workers' families. In the African and Pacific island contexts, doctors, researchers, missionaries, and colonial administrators observed both high mortality and low fertility. A predominant feature of colonial demography, apparent in broad discourses and in rationalities and methods, is the presence of race as taken for granted category which describes populations. The main problem in colonial states' demographic management was the scarcity of reliable demographic data.
