Formative encounters: Colonial data collection on land and law in German Micronesia

Area of Science:

• History of Science
• Colonial Studies
• Sociology of Quantification

Background:

• Colonial empires utilized data collection techniques in overseas dominions.
• The German colonial administration in Micronesia implemented surveys on Pohnpei around 1910.
• These surveys involved land and indigenous law, impacting local encounters.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate two specific data collections on Pohnpei: a land survey and an indigenous law survey.
• To analyze the peculiar contact between the colonizing administration and the colonized population during data collection.
• To explore the formative effects of data collection on Pohnpeian society and property concepts.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of preserved cadastral lists and spreadsheets from Pohnpei.
• Focus on data practices to understand the encounters underlying data collection.
• Examination of the self-reporting mechanism for land measurement by the Pohnpeian population.

Main Results:

• Pohnpeians were prompted to define their homesteads in new terms, shifting towards two-dimensional plots.
• The surveys facilitated the introduction of a new regime of private property.
• This legal change is interpreted as a continuation of colonial violence, following the Pohnpei Rebellion.

Conclusions:

• Data collection can have significant formative effects on society, altering social structures and legal concepts.
• Measurement and quantified information serve as sites of conflict, reflecting power dynamics.
• The installation of metric regimes transformed Pohnpei's patterns of justification, resource management, and its unwritten constitution.