Spectrally shape-shifting

Biometrics, fintech and the corporate-state in India

Bibliographic Data

ID2181872
AuthorsKavita Dattani (0000-0002-1167-3740, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume17
Issue4
Pages470-488
Publication date2024-07-03
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Cultural Economy (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1753-0350 • E-ISSN: 1753-0369
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/17530350.2023.2176340
OpenAlexW4384663257
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited32

Through a hauntological frame, this article investigates how the ghosts of colonial pasts are re-emerging in India's national universal biometric identity system, Aadhaar, and a software infrastructure built on top of it, India Stack. It shows how Aadhaar and India Stack facilitate the extraction of data as a form of ‘data colonialism.’ Examining data colonialism through an enquiry of how the multifarious and unstable relations of colonialism are bound up with the extractive processes of digital data, the article uses a historical approach considering the shifting trajectories of identity ecologies in India to see what is dispossessed through Aadhaar and India Stack. In doing so it continues a trend in spectral writing – forcing an intervention between colonial pasts and presents. Detailing a specific chronology of events, the article reveals how ‘data relations’ have been co-produced by the Indian state and corporate fintech bodies over the last decade to coerce populations into a ‘digital financialisation.’ Using the metaphor of ‘structural-shape-shifting’, it shows how colonial relations continue within data relations

Aesthetics · Art · Colonialism · Linguistics · Media studies · Metaphor · Political economy · Political science · Sociology · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Computer Science · History · Law · Socioeconomic Development in Asia · Water Governance and Infrastructure

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