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Paper short abstract

Drawing on multi-sited fieldwork on digital ID systems conducted in Estonia, Germany, Indonesia, Malawi and Sierra Leone, this co-authored paper develops a framework for studying the doing, undoing and redoing of official identities through data practices.

Paper long abstract

Statist registration and identification regimes play a key role in the material enactment of citizenship as a legal status and a form of (national) belonging as they facilitate the production of official identities. This paper combines insights from critical data and citizenship studies with STS-inspired works on the un/doing of differences to study how official identities are done, undone and redone in practice. This is particularly relevant as we currently witness significant changes in statist identification regimes due to a move from paper-based to digital means of identification. The doing of official identities refers to the enactment of official identities through sociotechnical data practices like defining, registering, fingerprinting etc. which feature inscription devices like biometric registration kits or mobile phone apps. These inscription devices are elements of data assemblages featuring specific regimes of proof. Re-doing comprises three different logics: (1) modification of existing identity records (for example in change of name procedures); (2) the re-doing of existing official identities through new identification technologies (for example the replacement of traditional ID-cards through a digital copy stored in a wallet); or (3) the subversion of official identity records through practices usually criminalized as ‘identity fraud’. Undoing refers either to the unmaking of existing official identities or to the non-doing of identities through the non- or mistranslation of identity claims. Drawing on fieldwork on digital ID systems in Estonia, Germany, Indonesia, Malawi and Sierra Leone, the paper develops a framework for studying this important dimension of material citizenship politics.