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- Convenor:
-
Claire Walkey
(University of Oxford)
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- Stream:
- Identities and Subjectivities
- Location:
- Julian Study Centre 1.03
- Sessions:
- Tuesday 3 September, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
This panel engages with the production, uses and meaning of identity documents for people on the move, including refugees and migrants. It explores the everyday practice of how identity documents are produced and distributed; and interrogates the meaning ascribed to and uses of identity documents.
Long Abstract:
Identity documents hold legal significance in attesting to the 'identity' of an individual. The production, uses and meaning of identity documents is however far more complex and contested than a legalistic interpretation suggests. This is especially the case for those who move across boundaries and borders - often disrupting and challenging norms of belonging.
Identity documents come about through a broad range of enumerative and bureaucratic activities, including visa applications, registration and headcounts in refugee camps. They can be produced in divergent ways - from hand-written registries to electronic, biometric databases. They have different issuing authorities, from diverse state departments and agencies to the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR). They also attest to different types of identities and corresponding rights, including asylum-seeker or economic migrant.
We invite papers that explore the everyday practices of state and non-state bureaucracies in the production and distribution of identity documents, including investigating the perspective of bureaucrats who carry it out and the socio-technical infrastructures they use.
We are also interested in interrogating the meaning ascribed to and uses of identity documents, and the diverse impacts on individuals and across societies. Moreover, we seek to explore how identity documents shape understandings of identities and relationships, including experiences of belonging and exclusion. Finally, we invite papers exploring the limits of what identity documents can mean. For example, for migrants who choose to remain undocumented and in situations when documents do not offer the intended or desired legal recognition.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Tuesday 3 September, 2019, -Paper short abstract:
The study explores Rohingyas' experience of documentary practices, the use and value of varied identity documents. The Rohingyas own multiple identity cards in Bangladesh.Access to varied documents depends on individual's migration history,class,kin network and access to formal/informal authorities.
Paper long abstract:
Since 1970s, Bangladesh has witnessed recurrent influx of the Rohingyas from Myanmar. In 2017, facing multiple outbreaks of Myanmar government-led violence, almost 800,000 Rohingyas were forced to migrate to Bangladesh. There are multiple categorizations of the Rohingyas in Bangladesh, as the state shifted its position in identifying them. Today, Rohingyas are identified by the state as -registered refugees (those who migrated in 1978 and 1991/2) living in the 'old' camps and Myanmar Nationals (those who migrated in 2012, 2016 and 2017) living in the 'new' camps. Within the context of varied identification of the Rohingyas by the state and non-state authorities, by employing an ethnographic method, this study explores the Rohingyas' experience of documentary practices, the use and value of varied identity documents among the Rohingyas. The study is being carried out among the population categorised as 'refugee' and 'new arrivals'/ 'Myanmar nationals' in Cox's Bazar in Bangladesh. The study finds that the identity documents owned by the Rohingyas include - Refugee Card provided by UNHCR, ghontar card/ Myanmar National Card provided by Bangladesh Govt, blue card/ WFP food assistance card and also Bangladesh National ID card. Some Rohingyas possess multiple documents and overlapping identities. The Rohingyas experience and employ various practices to obtain/retain multiple identity cards and use these strategically to access institutions and resources. Individuals' access to multiple identity documents depends on their migration history, class, kin network and access to formal and informal authorities at the local level.
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines the everyday registration practices of the Government of Kenya. Despite being a seemingly routine and mundane bureaucratic procedure, this paper reveals the complex paradoxes the 'street-level' work of bureaucrats can contain (Lipsky 1980).
Paper long abstract:
This paper explores the everyday registration practices of the Government of Kenya. It is based on observation within a government registration office at the public facing 'street level' (Lipsky 1980). It focuses on the practice of bureaucrats and role of technological infrastructure in the production of asylum-seeker passes - a document which grants asylum-seekers the right to reside in Kenya, pending determination of their claim for refugee status.
I show that registration practices were marked by a paradoxical procedural indifference or disinterest to the characteristics and profile of the individuals being registered - in tension with the enumerative purpose of registration. The biographical and biometric information collected from individuals was often limited in scope, marked by gaps and mistakes, and a technological set-up that made it difficult to utilise much of the information. It also did not meet the rights-bestowing purpose of registration as the asylum seeker pass was only valid for six months and could not be renewed, despite being needed by asylum-seekers for often eighteen months.
I argue that this was because of a deliberate desire by the Kenyan state to deny meaningful and on-going recognition to asylum-seekers; documents were given to asylum-seekers not to embrace or recognise them but instead as a performance to appease international donors who exerted significant financial and normative pressure on the government to carry out registration. Registration therefore did not take place to achieve its official or ostensive enumerative and rights-bestowing purpose but instead worked to deliberately undermine it.
Paper short abstract:
This paper explores the meaning of asylum seekers' IDs in relation to their vulnerability and mobility. It examines how asylum seekers contest their vulnerability categorisation, in order to change the mobility restrictions related to that status in pursuance of imagined future migration pathways.
Paper long abstract:
For migrants and refugees arriving at the shores of Lesvos, Greece since March 20, 2016 there is a 'simple' choice to be made: register as an asylum seeker, or be detained and sent back to Turkey. As a result of the practices surrounding the implementation of the EU-Turkey Statement and the EU's hotspot approach of containment, moving forward to mainland Greece undocumented has become practically impossible.
After the initial registration procedure, asylum seekers receive an ID card marked with either a red, blue, or black stamp. This paper explores the meaning and relationship of these ID card stamps to asylum seekers' perceived vulnerability and mobility, within a process of identification and assessment where the state apparatus has come into direct contact with the individual asylum seeker. It examines the ways in which asylum seekers in Lesvos employ different strategies to actively mobilise a vulnerability status in order to change the colour of their ID card stamp. With this process, they hope to get their geographical restriction lifted to (re)gain mobility, which opens up and sustains their possibilities for pursuing imagined future migration pathways to mainland Greece and beyond.
Paper short abstract:
Starting from fieldwork with institutions involved in citizenship procedures, EU27 citizens and Britons in the UK and Belgium, I show paradoxical situations in which being subject to lighter migration and ID controls can cause vulnerability.
Paper long abstract:
In this presentation I explore the registration and identification processes, through which IDs are produced, as both a repressive form of population management and as creation of formal identities that are useful for those holding them. In particular, starting from fieldwork with institutions involved in citizenship procedures in the UK and Belgium, and with EU27 citizens in the UK and Britons in Belgium, I explore the paradoxical cases in which being subject to lighter forms of migration control can become a source of vulnerability. EU27 citizens in the UK, if compared to non-EU migrants, have been exempt from migration control procedures, including visas and passport stamping. With Brexit and the increased interest in British citizenship, EU27 citizens discovered that these advantages make it harder to prove physical and legal residence in the UK for permanent residence and naturalisation purposes. Further, the relatively simplified settled status procedure has created anxieties about both the dematerialised nature of the procedure and the lack of physical ID proving the status. At the same time, the British personnel of the EU institutions in Belgium has enjoy an entitlement to quasi-diplomatic IDs, but discovered that residence based on such documents does not count towards the Belgian naturalisation requirements, a situation that created anxieties with the Brexit process going on.
Comparing the fieldwork data with other cases (the Windrush scandal, US citizens without IDs) I argue that being exempt from applying for and holding IDs creates vulnerabilities in increasingly ID-centric Global North states.