Paper short abstract:

Paper asks how adoption of electronic IDs compounded by biometric data enacts, translates, reproduces or obscures struggles over identity, deliberate ambiguity, belonging and othering in Libya along cleavages of ethnicity, mobility, and loyalty, based upon qualitative evidence.

Paper long abstract:

The identity of Libyans has long been a thorny issue, linked to (post-)colonial legacies as well as territorial and distributive access rights. Under the Gaddafi regime, the politics of identity was shaped by arbitrariness and authoritarianism, which allowed for flexibility and ended in a constant legal grey area. Since the 2011-revolution, the new Libyan authorities backed by foreign partners resolved to address the issue by technocratic means. These included the planned adoption of electronic IDs, compounded by biometric data, stored in a digital database and connected to border authorities, migration management, health services as well as electoral and civil registries (ElAswad & Jensen 2016; Abdullah et alii 2019). Amidst a fragile transition to a liberal state order, such a technological and legal infrastructure sits at the intersection of several contentious governance domains, including border controls, migration management, electoral systems. The paper explores the inherent tensions between the governance of infrastructure and governance by infrastructure (Pelizza 2023) of this unended process of state-building. It asks how the infrastructure enacts, mediates, translates, reproduces or obscures struggles over identity and deliberate ambiguity, as well as belonging and othering, most notably along the cleavages of ethnicity, mobility, and loyalty. To this end, the paper discusses qualitative evidence (to be) collected through interviews with international and domestic actors in Italy and in Libya.