ABSTRACT
Population censuses are a leading data source for sociodemographic research in Latin America and play a fundamental role in public decisions while representing the most complex and complete statistical operation carried out by national states. Can we build independent statistical literacy for a broad circle of data users? This chapter sets the theoretical and historical backgrounds of a specialized effort that explores the census processes and socializes information and news on methodological resources. We portray the Latin American Observatory of Population Censuses (OLAC), a self-financed, independent, and collaborative networking project. OLAC promotes dialogues on demography and public policy issues and seeks to monitor the procedures around national census taking across an academia-civil society network, exploring ways to improve census through process evaluation and feedback. Seven years after its foundation, we review the group’s development context and proposal, some of its achievements, challenges, and future possibilities.
