Paper short abstract:

This paper shows the different citizen identification and certification regimes in post-independence Uganda. It analyses the impact of identification and certification on the positioning, identity, lives and livelihoods of groups like the different waves of Banyarwanda immigrants and refugees.

Paper long abstract:

Uganda's post-independence governments, over time, applied different regimes of citizen identification and certification that impacted various categories of people, especially immigrants and refugee groups. This paper explores these changing identification and certification processes and analyses their impact specifically on the Banyarwanda immigrants and different waves of refugees from 1959 to the post digitization era in the 2020s. Selectively restrictive citizen formation involved identification and certification practices, which led to particular forms of citizen making and unmaking, and engendered new forms of social and political hierarchies. These relegated the Banyarwanda to lower forms of revocable citizenship by naturalization and registration, rather than allowing the inalienable substantive citizenship by birth. Consequently, many Banyarwanda were - and still are - vulnerable to exploitation, denigration, denial of opportunities and expulsions. Many have had to continuously navigate challenging processes of citizen identification, classification and recognition, which has compelled some to disguise themselves through denial of their original identity or assimilate, which ramified their rights, lives and livelihoods.

Paper short abstract:

This paper demonstrates how a pan African ideology pursued by Ghana's first president, Kwame Nkrumah, deparochialized the state and structured a citizenship recognition and identification system which differed significantly from standardized notions and practices of citizenship

Paper long abstract:

This paper throws light on how political governance and ideology shaped a distinctive citizens' identification and recognition system in Ghana's first republic. In attempting to realize African unity, Ghana's Republican Constitution of 1960 envisaged, and made way constitutionally, for a Pan-African future in which individual state sovereignty would be "surrendered to a Union of African States". The direct implication of such a constitutional provision was that, by law, every Ghanaian would be an African, and every African would be a Ghanaian. This view by Nkrumah and the Republican Constitution of Pan-Africanist citizenship and nationhood "encouraged many non-Ghanaians to move into and settle in Ghana without obtaining any valid documents" (Adjei Adgepong, 2012). Nkrumah's vision was of all Africans, regardless of country of origin, able to move freely and reside anywhere on the continent, without being regarded as an immigrant or 'alien' (ibid). Consequently, from 1960 to 1966, many non-Ghanaian Africans from Nigeria, Togo, Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali, Liberia etc., qualified for and enjoyed the full rights of Ghanaian citizenship. Whilst this practice effectively deparochialized the state and citizenship, it departed significantly from standardize ideas of citizenship as knotted to the nation-state, and also to traditional Ghanaian conceptions of autochthony, belonging and citizenship. Reversing this vision, the second republic, declared the non-autochthonous population as 'aliens' to be excluded from the benefits of citizenship. The paper concludes that it is from the first and second republics that we can understand the contradictions, ambiguities and malleability of citizen identification in contemporary Ghana.

Paper short abstract:

The paper sheds light on core institutional actors that constitutes the global policy environment on legal identity and national and civil registration. It examines interactions and tensions around different priorities and approaches to the development of national registration systems.

Paper long abstract:

This paper is focused on the story of the international policy community related to national identification documents, registration, and legal identity, with reference to Ghana and Uganda. It draws on a travelling policy models approach, arguing for the importance of not only understanding the movement of a policy between different geographical and institutional sites but also within sites, and the unfolding momentum and dynamics within each policy space. The paper argues that understanding these policy travels is important in order to comprehend modifications derived from frictions and negotiations among different actors in terms of priorities, mandates and interests. Such frictions are linked, for example to civil registration and legal identity versus national and digital IDs, functional versus foundational ID systems, and a development versus a human rights focus. It is important to recognise frictions within the policy environment, but also to understand each specific history and context. This can be assisted by emphasising the dynamic life of a policy and the movements and adjustments that occur, within a changing political economy of policy, and how both individuals and significant political and structural influence the policy ecosystem. The article is based on both in-person and digital fieldwork especially with multilateral organisations such as the United Nations and the World Bank.

Paper short abstract:

South Sudan adopted a complex identity management system in 2011. While it promised inclusion for the citizens, the high costs deterred the majority to acquire ID cards. The civil war from December 2013 however turned the citizenship regime into an active sphere of exclusion.

Paper long abstract:

South Sudan adopted an extremely complex identity management solution following independence in 2011. The promises of the centralized, high-modernist system were plentiful: security, automation, ease, and first and foremost, inclusion. The paper looks on these promises a decade, and a brutal civil war later. Two, previously antagonistic elite classes captured the state after independence, the gun class and the salaried class. The gun class consists of military veterans of the Sudanese Civil War, who became the leaders of South Sudan overnight. The salaried class describes the educated career professionals, who sought civil servant positions in the burgeoning state administration. The two classes developed a symbiotic relationship to achieve their goals. The gun class sought to extend their political power to be able to grow their patronage networks. The salaried class wanted to increase their monthly income and other resource exploitations of the state. The biometric identity-management system offered by a European company seemed perfect for both classes. The complexity of the system allowed the military veterans to keep questions of inclusion and exclusion in their own hands, in the form of citizenship interviews. The complexity also justified the increase of salaries and the exploitation of development assistance for the salaried class. The main adversary of inclusion was the extreme costs of the documents, a price out of reach for the majority of the South Sudanese. However, the civil war and the subsequent peace deal turned the citizenship regime into an active form of exclusion and corruption.

Paper short abstract:

In Kenya's borderlands, the ID vetting procedure has not only been applied as a security strategy, but also to reshape hybrid borderland identities. Locals today have to proof their national citizenship infront of state representatives, whereby citizens are made - and others are excluded.

Paper long abstract:

National identification documents and digital citizen services are increasingly important in Kenya, where the ID has become one of the main tools for social participation. This paper shares insights in a research project at the country's margins, far from new Huduma Centres and their services. This border regime ethnography analyses the role of enforcement officers and ID application in Kenya's borderlands.

At Kenya's borders, ID vetting has become a central security strategy in the context of anti-terror measures and national intelligence. It is also used to counter hybrid borderland identities (e.g. Bhabha 1994) and to reshape binational realities. As in other African borderlands, IDs as markers of national membership have so far been flexibly used to access state services on both sides of the border (Bakewell 2007). Borderlands have thus been called "sites of extreme anxiety of the state" (van Schendel & Abraham 2005).

Through ID vetting, populations have to proof their citizenship in front of representatives of the central government through a multitude of practices and documentation. The initiation ceremony makes state and citizen making observable, but also indicates national exclusion. Cases of discrimination against ethnic Somali show how "second-class citizens" are co-produced (Dorman et al. 2007), while other cross-border communities can be perceived as trustworthy by the evaluating state agents. Again, when the model "travells" to other areas (Behrends et al. 2014), local circumstances can stand in the way of its smooth implementation, e.g. in the northern parts of the country, with a troubled relationship towards the state.

Paper short abstract:

This study examines how the introduction of advanced biometric identification and registration technologies in Ghana are redefining the citizen-state relationship because of the highly bureaucratic character of the registration and identification processes associated with the Ghana Card.

Paper long abstract:

The lack of comprehensive national identification system in Ghana results in a lack of citizen registration and information systems on the population. This is reflected during elections in accusations that the political parties mobilize 'aliens' from across national borders to win elections. This creates many challenges in governance and difficulties for government to regulate and support the wider population that lie outside the formal sector. Consecutive governments have undertaken various projects since 2003 to introduce an all-inclusive national biometric identification system. This includes a failed initiative that resulted in three sector-level biometric systems for elections, health insurance, and government payroll respectively. In response to emerging problems with Ghana's fragmented identification system, the national biometric identification system project was relaunched in 2019 in the form of the Ghana Card. Even though previous registration and identification systems necessarily implied a particular kind of relationship between citizens and the state, this was not based on well informed administrative system. This paper examines the dynamics of citizen identification, registration, and certification in connection to the Ghana Card as it plays out among citizens and state bureaucrats in the district of Ketu North, situated on the Ghana-Togo border. It draws on ethnographic research into the relevant local bureaucracy on the one side and varied local citizens as ID customers on the other. The objective is to investigate the bureaucratic tendencies in registration and identification practices, and citizen contestations, as a means to understand citizen-state relationships in the geographic frontiers of the state.

Paper short abstract:

The paper empirically explores the discriminatory and exclusionary experiences among second and third-generation non-pastoral Fulani and their descendants at Agogo (a town in the southern part of Ghana) in trying to access Ghana's biometric national ID (the Ghana Card) and voter ID

Paper long abstract:

Digitized methods of certifying citizenship have increased in Africa. The embrace of biometric technology-based ID systems has been justified as a means of eradicating citizenship documentation deprivation among marginalized groups, as well as a way to ensure a future of equal engagement in the state's social, economic and political processes, and guarantee inclusive development. In contrast, this paper argues that the introduction of biometric ID systems as an integral part of national citizenship infrastructure further exacerbates existing institutionalized and social exclusions. The paper draws on empirical research to explore the discriminatory and exclusionary experiences among second and third-generation non-pastoral Fulani and their descendants, particularly at Agogo—in the southern part of Ghana—in trying to access Ghana's biometric national ID - the Ghana Card - and voter ID. The case of the Fulani goes beyond existing technical and regulatory explanations for marginalized groups' continuous exclusions in the face of biometric ID systems. The paper argues for a more complex historical and social-political analytics to explore what shapes persistent Fulani discrimination and exclusion more broadly. It examines how colonial and post-colonial constructions of differentiated citizenship, and othering of Fulani, have long defined their relations with the state, sustaining continuous marginality and inequality of Fulani as a minority group in Ghana. Such historical and social-political dynamics of institutional and procedural discrimination, alongside new forms of politicization of IDs, continue to affect second and third-generation Fulanis and their descendants in their attempts to access IDs.

Paper short abstract:

This paper analyses the crisis of citizen identification in Uganda due to the introduction of biometric national identity cards. It focuses on the implications of this new system for citizens' engagement in development, of those whose identification is not properly documented at the centre.

Paper long abstract:

Recently, the biometric identity card has become crucial in citizenship studies. It is believed to offer 'a technical solution' for mass identification, with the ability to minimise deficiencies in existing citizen identification systems. Prompted by the Word Bank's Identification for Development (ID4D) programme initiated in 2014, many African countries have adopted digital identification technologies which are shaping new state-citizen relations. The new digitised biometric card makes citizens visible to the state for security and surveillance, increasing its power to control its citizens.

In 2015, the government of Uganda introduced the centralised national biometric identity card, making it a primary identification document to access both public and private services. Despite its recognised official importance, there remains a crisis of identification for instance for people with disabilities or whose finger prints cannot be captured by machines. The current system disproportionately affects certain citizens' freedoms, coupled with the risks of intergenerational exclusion. This raises questions about how undocumentable citizens will live without proper identity documents, and what the government will do to reverse this crisis.

This paper aims to critically examine the crisis resulting from the introduction of biometric identity cards in Uganda, particularly analysing the implications for citizens' participation in economic and political life, and accessing social services. The paper argues that the adoption of the biometric identity card, while reducing citizen identification deficiencies in some senses, makes identification very complex and worsens marginalisation of selective citizens in Uganda.

Key words: biometric identity card, identification, crisis, Uganda

Paper short abstract:

This paper explores how a new hierarchy of legal IDs in Uganda, topped by the National Identification Document, has diminished the value of a much wider range of forms of recognition. This has generated structural discrimination and escalated selective inequalities among citizens. (286 characters)

Paper long abstract:

The range of IDs within Uganda's overall national registration ecosystem over time have included but are not limited to: birth registration cards, local council village cards, residence IDs, baptism cards, voter's card, tax payment slip, driver's license, citizens' passport and others acceptable in various formal and informal spaces. Together they have all contributed to shaping Uganda's citizenship identification journey, with each ID serving a unique and distinct function for the legitimate owner.

However, there is distorted interpretation of citizen identification based on the overlapping legal identification systems and an ever increasing anxiety especially among vulnerable social groups such as the Ghetto youths. This is triggered by the hierarchization of different forms of identification documents, that has come to position the recently introduced National Identification Document (NID) as the most prominent, and now a prerequisite for acquisition of the majority other legally recognized IDs.

The main argument of this paper therefore, is that the hierarchization of legal IDs has disenfranchised many among the vulnerable groups of citizens and escalated the already existing inequalities and exclusions. In turn, some have resorted to illegal activities to survive, but also in a bid to project a tough outlook and conceal their vulnerabilities. 'Twebereremu' slogan is chanted to inspire resilience and hard work among the neglected. This is based on eight months of fieldwork in Kamwokya and Bwaise slums, with the ghetto youths as my primary respondents. ( 232 words)

Paper short abstract:

In Uganda, the National ID card has become indispensable for participating in many aspects of public life. While the benefits of obtaining legal identity documents is apparent for most individuals these documents and the bureaucratic procedures for obtaining them also constitute a source of anxiety.

Paper long abstract:

Since the introduction of the mandatory National ID in Uganda in 2014, an ID-centric infrastructure has widened drastically in the country. ID-cards have become indispensable for participating in many aspects of public and everyday life. Thereby, the benefits of possessing legal identity documents is apparent for many individuals who have gained easier access to loans and public services.

For others, however, the enhanced significance of the National ID in everyday life is associated with insecurity and 'registration anxiety': For ethnic minorities very particular challenges have emerged as many have been denied access to the registration processes due to their "questionable citizenship status". This has triggered different strategies amongst minority groups including registering as a different ethnicity and using made-up names. While this strategy has led to some groups receiving IDs the small card has also become a source of insecurity and anxiety as many dread to present their ID with the manipulated data to state authorities.

As the expiry date of nearly 16 million National IDs is approaching and a 'mass renewal' exercise is unfolding, many people are anxious to re-engage with the registration offices. In this context, the paper explores how registration-related anxieties translate into individual and collective strategizing and more specifically what this means for the country's transition from mass informality to formalized national registries. Furthermore, the paper argues that dominating development discourses presenting formalization as a solution to poverty and insecurity fail to consider differentiated anxieties often associated with bureaucratic encounters such as obtaining a legal identity.