“We Are Not a Failed State, We Make the Best Passports”: South Sudan and Biometric Modernity

Abstract

Abstract:In January 2012, six months after the declaration of independence, South Sudan introduced a state-of-the-art biometric identity management system to handle its citizenship and passport databases. Scholars have shown that despite the remarkable failures of biometric schemes, states maintain their belief in high-modernist technologies. This article argues that South Sudan introduced biometrics to convey an image of a “non-failed” state to the international community, while effectively doubling the bureaucracy to keep all important decisions about inclusion and exclusion in the hands of the military elites. This duplication of the office reveals a great deal about the fundamental nature of the South Sudanese state. Citizens of any state tend to imagine the nation through their relations to bureaucracy, and identity documents act as a new kind of evidence of a successful negotiation between them and state agents. This situation creates a constant state of citizenship limbo for the South Sudanese.