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.