In the Global South, sociotechnical systems such as digital national identification are expanding rapidly. States are using these systems to govern populations in the context of security and e-governance, with support from financial donors. As the debate about the promise of biometric identification intensified in the Global South, Nepal, a South Asian country, began considering introducing the digital national Identification system. This initiative was prompted by foreign aid from a multilateral bank through an e-governance project. During the project period (2008–2018), Nepal not only planned and designed the national ID system but also implemented it as smart cards. The government portrayed the system as a solution to inefficient governance and the lack of secure identification. This study investigates the situated and grounded nature of the digital ID system within the context of global impetuses. Using Nepal as a case study, this paper asks: How does foreign aid condition the development of digital identification systems in the Global South? The paper examines the assemblage of expertise, materiality, and interests, as well as the political economy, in the making of digital Identification.
WISER Seminar Papers
- WISER's TRUST seminar is hosted on-line every Monday afternoon from 16:00 - 17:00 SA time during the teaching semester. Forthcoming seminars are available here, and past events are detailed in our archive.
- Please register on Zoom in advance of the meeting on this link.
- Participants should please read the paper (below) prior to the seminar; it will typically be available by the Friday preceding the seminar.
In this semester, the Trust seminar will explore questions of credit and debt on the African continent. In contrast with the argument that trust and confidence are synonymous (most evident in the Edelman Trust Barometer and the reporting around it), some of the most convincing scholarship argues for the direct association of trust with credit. Other researchers, studying informal African institutions, have found credit everywhere on this continent, but little that can be associated with trust. Some state institutions (like SACCOs in Kenya) and simpler penalties, like efficient bankruptcy laws, seem also to be instrumental in shaping the politics of credit. One key driver of credit systems is a secondary market, which depends in part on institutions and information that derive from (and support) fiduciaries. These are especially important in the contemporary tensions between firm-based and individualised credit systems. The seminar series this semester will explore some of these dynamics, examining how they have shaped the cultures and politics of debt and credit from the precolonial to the contemporary period.