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2022
- handle: 10670/1.mlpsj1
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Georges Macaire Eyenga et al., « Being undocumented at home? The mishaps of biometric enrolment in Cameroon », Critique internationale, ID : 10670/1.mlpsj1
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Résumé
Crises of identification in postcolonial societies are not always about the definition of the foreigner, the marginal, or the passer-by. Nor do they refer to ethnic struggles or subjective experiences of self-definition. Instead, they are often the result of technical and structural problems, narrow public policies, and risky technological experiments, as the project of biometric identification in Cameroon demonstrates. Indeed, the launch of a programme to produce new biometric identity cards has resulted in many nationals becoming “undocumented” in their own country. The ensuing civil identity crisis results as much from the failure of the state’s modernisation project as from individual practices that oscillate between manipulation of identities and non-withdrawal of the documents produced. Faced with the lack of recognition of individuals, the dispossessed are mobilising to defend their right to a civil identity.