The Biometric Imaginary

Bureaucratic Technopolitics in Post-Apartheid Welfare

Datos Bibliográficos

ID4603722
AutoresKevin P Donovan (0000-0002-3922-236X, University of Michigan, autor de correspondencia)
Año2015
Volumen41
Número4
Páginas815-833
Fecha de publicación2015-07-04
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaJournal of Southern African Studies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0305-7070 • E-ISSN: 1465-3893
EditorialInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/03057070.2015.1049485
OpenAlexW2116043466
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas21

Starting in March 2012, the South African government engaged in a massive effort of citizen registration that continued for more than a year. Nearly 19 million social welfare beneficiaries enrolled in a novel biometric identification scheme that uses fingerprints and voice recognition to authenticate social grant recipients. This article seeks to understand the meaning of biometric technology in post-apartheid South African welfare through a study of the bureaucratic and policy elite's motivation. It argues that biometric technology was conceived of and implemented as the most recent in a series of institutional, infrastructural and policy reforms that seek to deliver welfare in a standardised and objective manner. This has, at times, been driven by a false faith in technical efficacy and has involved a playing down of the differential political implications of biometric welfare identification

Biometrics · Bureaucracy · Computer security · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Welfare · Computer Science · Law · Legal Issues in South Africa · Public Administration