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Undocumented Citizens in the Age of Legibility: Indifference, Exclusion and the Limits of the State's Will to Know

Hidalgo, Javier Crespan. 2018. "Undocumented Citizens in the Age of Legibility: Indifference, Exclusion and the Limits of the State's Will to Know"

While the lack of identity documents has been widely discussed in the context of international migration, political scientists have generally ignored the millions of undocumented people who have never crossed an international border. They are undocumented citizens, legal citizens of the countries in which they reside who do not possess the official documents necessary to adequately establish their personal identities. At times, those lacking documents keenly feel their second class status. In other instances, the undocumented do not perceive particular deprivation and consider identity documents dispensable. Similarly, modern states, which have been presented in the academic literature as determined to enumerate, record, and document their populations, sometimes demonstrate indifference to the fact that many of their citizens remain undocumented. How can we explain this double ambivalence? Why do some states pursue remarkably erratic policies that combine mandatory birth registration and identity cards with documentation systems that put them beyond the reach of many citizens? Why do citizens of the same country oftentimes differ in their desire to acquire documents? I argue in this dissertation that the academic literature tends to exaggerate the enthusiasm of the modern state for documenting individual identity. That in reality, many contemporary states show little interest in building comprehensive and reliable documentation systems. I argue, moreover, that when states decide to improve their documentation systems, it often has more to do with international trends, raising revenue, electoral considerations, or empowering historically marginalized groups, than with a drive to improve the ability to monitor and control the population. I also argue that, although issues of citizenship and rights inform the evolution of documentation policies, populations considered dangerous by the incumbent state are not necessarily the preferred target of its documentation efforts. Neither is the active resistance of these populations the main reason why their members sometimes display high undocumentation levels. Rather, confronted with states and citizenship regimes not built with them in mind, suspect populations frequently face high barriers to secure identity documents that offer them little in return in terms of access to rights and services. As a result, documentation can be for them a little-known obligation, an unintuitive choice, an unreasonable investment, and a hard to achieve goal. The empirical focus of my work will be on the South American nations of Peru and particularly Bolivia. However, the arguments I develop are likely to have theoretical purchase for the study of undocumentation in other countries as well.

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