The ex-combatant ID card: peacebuilding and bureaucratic identity in Liberia

Abstract

Disarmament demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) programmes have the specific objective of facilitating the transition of combatants into civilian life. Paramount to their functioning is the certification of combatants by means of bureaucratic documentation: the ex-combatant identification card (ID). In the Liberian case, the ex-combatant category came to embrace a wider segment of the population, thus undermining the basic principle pivotal to all DDR programmes that a dichotomy exists between civilians and combatants. The article argues that documents, as exemplified by the ID card, are not simply bureaucratic instruments used by organisations in charge of peacebuilding, but are also constitutive of knowledge, practices and subjectivities themselves. Absolutely essential in the construction of the ex-combatant subject, the ID card was at the core of bureaucratic practices for managing this group after the end of the war. The Liberian case is of wider relevance and importance, since the techniques for screening and registration developed there modelled other contemporary DDR processes in Africa.