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.