Limit search to available items
Book Cover
E-book
Author Breckenridge, Keith, author.

Title Biometric state : the global politics of identification and surveillance in South Africa, 1850 to the present / Keith Breckenridge, University of the Witwatersrand
Published New York : Cambridge University Press, 2014

Copies

Description 1 online resource
Contents Introduction: the global biometric arena -- Science of empire: the South African origins and objects of Galtonian eugenics -- Asiatic despotism: Edward Henry on the Witwatersrand -- Gandhi's biometric entanglement: fingerprints, Satyagraha and the global politics of Hind Swaraj -- No will to know: biometric registration and the limited curiosity of the gatekeeper state -- Verwoerd's bureau of proof: the apartheid bewysburo and the end of documentary government -- Galtonian reversal: apartheid and the making of biometric citizenship -- Epilogue: empire and the mimetic fantasy
Summary Biometric identification and registration systems are being proposed by governments and businesses across the world. Surprisingly they are under most rapid, and systematic, development in countries in Africa and Asia. In this groundbreaking book, Keith Breckenridge traces how the origins of the systems being developed in places like India, Mexico, Nigeria and Ghana can be found in a century-long history of biometric government in South Africa, with the South African experience of centralized fingerprint identification unparalleled in its chronological depth and demographic scope. He shows how empire, and particularly the triangular relationship between India, the Witwatersrand and Britain, established the special South African obsession with biometric government, and shaped the international politics that developed around it for the length of the twentieth century. He also examines the political effects of biometric registration systems, revealing their consequences for the basic workings of the institutions of democracy and authoritarianism
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes Print version record
Subject Citizenship -- South Africa -- History
Biometric identification -- Government policy -- South Africa -- History
Biometric identification -- Political aspects -- South Africa -- History
POLITICAL SCIENCE -- Political Freedom & Security -- Civil Rights.
POLITICAL SCIENCE -- Political Freedom & Security -- Human Rights.
Citizenship
Politics and government
Biometrie
Politische Kontrolle
Biometrisk identifikation -- historia.
Politiska förhållanden -- historia.
SUBJECT South Africa -- Politics and government -- 19th century
South Africa -- Politics and government -- 20th century. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85125489
Subject South Africa
Südafrika Kontinent
Genre/Form History
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9781316129395
9781316130483
1316130487
131612939X
9781139939546
1139939548