ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the history of the population census in the West African country of Ghana. Combining archival with qualitative interviews, research for this chapter traced the Ghanaian census history from its colonial past to current ambitions of developing new measurement practices based on interoperability-based population data infrastructures. Approaching Ghana’s census history from the point of view of the method and infrastructural innovations – that is, the arrangements of devices, software, experts, and organizational knowledge – and their global circulations, the paper explores how quantitative methods run through societal and political transformations as forces of stabilization. Following Didier, these “marbling veins” of census and statistical conventions run through the bedrock of society, thus allowing to shed new light on the political transformations that have shaped Ghana’s history since the mid-19th century. Particular attention will be paid to changing quantitative forms in relation to nation-building, from the first post-independence enumeration in light of Pan-Africanist ideology to the recent contestations around identity and technology in Africa.
