ABSTRACT

For the first time, Scotland’s 2022 census will ask a question about sexual orientation. Correspondence between National Records of Scotland, the Scottish Parliament’s Culture, Tourism, Europe and External Affairs Committee and campaign groups present insights into decisions made, the uneasy relationship between queer identities and state data collection practices, and the question of who is counted when we count LGBTQ people. Building on Foucault’s critique of projects that construct population knowledge, the census is framed primarily as a tool to facilitate the state’s capacity to govern. My engagement in the design process enabled me to critically examine decisions made about the exclusion of non-binary identities and the use of predictive text technology. These decisions demonstrate how the design process constructed a queer population that ‘made sense’ to the heteronormative majority and ‘designed-out’ queer lives that the state did not wish to bring into being.

摘要

苏格兰 2022 年人口普查将首次提出有关性取向的问题。苏格兰国家记录、苏格兰议会文化、旅游、欧洲和对外事务委员会和竞选团体之间的通信提供了对决策的见解、酷儿身份与国家数据收集实践之间的不安关系，以及当我们计算时谁被计算在内的问题LGBTQ 人。基于福柯对构建人口知识的项目的批评，人口普查主要是作为促进国家治理能力的工具。我参与设计过程使我能够批判性地检查有关排除非二进制身份和使用预测文本技术的决策。