Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: This article proposes a mixed-method approach to examine historical censuses with regard to race. It does so by exploring various kinds of demographic records from nineteenth-century Buenos Aires in order to test the conventional hypothesis of a significant census underenumeration of the city’s population of African descent. Starting from the overall progression of census results, the article is divided into three parts. The first of these deals with potential under-coverage, the second with the possibility of classificatory changes, and the third with vital statistics, largely derived from parish books. With special attention to two censuses of the 1850s, it concludes that Buenos Aires’s Afro-descendant population likely did suffer serious demographic decline between 1840 and 1890.
Source: Social Science History
Author: Michael Goebel
Institution: Freie Universität Berlin
Language: English
Subfield: Demography
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Reduced inequalities
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $3,550
OpenAlex ID: W4417145642