An estimated 500 million people in Sub Saharan Africa have no legal proof of their identity – be this a national ID, passport or birth certificate. People without legal ID may struggle to enroll in school, to access healthcare or register for elections, and they can’t open a bank account or formally own property.
In the last decade, African countries have increasingly transformed their national ID-systems. The new digitised and biometric ID systems are represented as neutral technical solutions, yet they are far from neutral. They are situated in already-existing systems of class, gender, ethnic and other forms of differentiation and discrimination. Ironically, many people struggle to gain access to IDs within the new, seemingly improved systems and suddenly find themselves outside the provisions of citizenship. What are the consequences of this? Why do the new ID systems systematically fail to fulfil the promise of legal identity for ALL?
Based on well-grounded empirical research mainly in Ghana and Uganda, the episodes in the ID-ology series address the contradictory logics that underpin the introduction of the new systems and the complex effects they are generating. This podcast is a production of the research project CERTIZENS – Certifications Citizenship in Africa, which was funded by the Danish Fellowship Centre in collaboration with the University of Copenhagen, the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana, and Makerere University in Uganda.
“Concept Development, Script, and Production by Susann Heidecke, Amanda Hammar
Hosted by Susann Heidecke
Concept and distribution advice by Jonas Nielsen
Edited by Susann Heidecke
Recorded by René Lindkrone at KU Studio