Colonial officials substituted rehearsed moral impressions for missing survey data

Evidence

But if one-third of those scheduled to be counted and questioned did not comply with the survey, this did not get in the way of the local reports. Of- ficials who could not fill in the numbers could still, as they did in Batavia, do the political arithmetic that allowed them to fill in the interpretive slots. When statistics were absent, local officials were encouraged to impart their “impressions.” Some refrained. Others did so with relish, and with rehearsed phrases of what “everyone knew” characterized Indos and the causes of their demise: lack of “will power,” “energy,” “initiative,” “perseverance,” “parental love” made up the ritualized litany from one district to another. — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 956

Categorization

• QUESTION: This is a striking case of data resilience — how far did officials’ ‘impressions’ substitute for and override actual numbers across the empire?