ISBN:
9781139939546
Language:
English
Pages:
1 online resource (xi, 252 pages)
Parallel Title:
Erscheint auch als
Parallel Title:
Erscheint auch als
DDC:
323.44830968
Keywords:
Geschichte 1900-2000
;
Geschichte 1800-1900
;
Geschichte 1850-2014
;
Geschichte
;
Politik
;
Citizenship / South Africa / History
;
Biometric identification / Government policy / South Africa / History
;
Biometric identification / Political aspects / South Africa / History
;
Politische Kontrolle
;
Biometrie
;
Südafrika (Staat)
;
South Africa / Politics and government / 19th century
;
South Africa / Politics and government / 20th century
;
Südafrika
;
Südafrika
;
Biometrie
;
Politische Kontrolle
;
Geschichte 1850-2014
Abstract:
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
Description / Table of 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
Note:
Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015)
DOI:
10.1017/CBO9781139939546
URL:
Volltext
(URL des Erstveröffentlichers)
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