Data and the State: How Governments See People and Places

Catalog description

In order to regulate and govern, states must marshall data: the whos, whats, and wheres of a nation get rendered in records and statistics, at least approximately, and they tell us a lot about identity and values. In this course we will use Census data as a jumping-off point for an investigation of data practices of governance. Students will learn tools for geospatial data science in Python/Geopandas and will learn principles of mapping. Readings include selections from geography, anthropology, science and technology studies, and urban sociology.