What is 'Europe' and who are 'Europeans'? Data Practices approaches this contemporary political and theoretical question as a practical problem of counting and knowing populations. Its central argument is that this requires myriad data practices that are performative in two senses: they simultaneously contribute to enacting a European population and, by so doing - intentionally or otherwise - contribute to making up a European people. By demonstrating how politics happen in and through data practices, the book shows how new data sources and digital technologies are powerful stakes in the making up and governing of populations. Book jacket.