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.