Documenting individual identity : the development of state practices in the modern world / edited by Jane Caplan and John Torpey.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Caplan, Jane.

Torpey, John, 1959-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Identification--History.

Identification.

Passports--History.

Passports.

Status (Law)--History.

Status (Law).

History.

Physical Description:

viii, 415 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, [2001]

Summary:

This book addresses one of the least studied yet most pervasive aspects of modern life -- the techniques and mechanisms by which official agencies certify individual identity. From passports and identity cards to labor registration and alien documentation, from fingerprinting to much-debated contemporary issues such as DNA-typing, body surveillance, and the catastrophic results of colonial-era identity documentation in postcolonial Rwanda, Documenting Individual Identity offers the most comprehensive historical overview of this fascinating topic ever published.

The nineteen essays in this volume represent the collaborative effort of historians, sociologists, historians of science, political scientists, economists, and specialists in international relations. Together they cover a period from the emergence of systematic practices of written identification in early modern Europe through to the present day, and a geographic range that includes Europe, the former Soviet Union, North and South America, and Africa. While the book is attuned to the nefarious possibilities of states' increasing capacity to identify individuals, it recognizes that these same techniques also certify citizens' eligibility for significant positive rights, such as welfare benefits and voting.

Unprecedented in subject and scope, Documenting Individual Identity promises to shape a whole new field of research that crosses disciplinary boundaries and is of broad public and academic significance. In addition to the editors, the contributors are Jon Agar, Peter Becker, Andreas Fahrmeier, Marc Garcelon, Andrea Geselle, Valentin Groebner, Anne M. Joseph, Martine Kaluszuynski, Timothy Longman, Leo Lucassen, David Lyon, Gary T. Marx, Gerard Noiriel, Kristin Ruggiero, Pamela Sankar, Charles Steinwedel, and Dita Vogel.

Contents:

Part 1 Creating Apparatuses of Identification 13

1. Describing the Person, Reading the Signs in Late Medieval and Renaissance Europe: Identity Papers, Vested Figures, and the Limits of Identification, 1400-1600 / Valentin Groebner 15

2. The Identification of the Citizen: The Birth of Republican Civil Status in France / Gerard Noiriel 28

3. "This or That Particular Person": Protocols of Identification in Nineteenth-Century Europe / Jane Caplan 49

4. Making Social Groups, One Person at a Time: The Identification of Individuals by Estate, Religious Confession, and Ethnicity in Late Imperial Russia / Charles Steinwedel 67

5. Colonizing the Subject: The Genealogy and Legacy of the Soviet Internal Passport / Marc Garcelon 83

6. Modern Horrors: British Identity and Identity Cards / Jon Agar 101

Part 2 Identification Practices and Policing 121

7. Republican Identity: Bertillonage as Government Technique / Martine Kaluszynski 123

8. The Standardized Gaze: The Standardization of the Search Warrant in Nineteenth-Century Germany / Peter Becker 139

9. Anthropometry, the Police Expert, and the Deptford Murders: The Contested Introduction of Fingerprinting for the Identification of Criminals in Late Victorian and Edwardian Britain / Anne M. Joseph 164

10. Fingerprinting and the Argentine Plan for Universal Identification in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries / Kristin Ruggiero 184

Part 3 Identification and Control of Movement 197

11. Domenica Saba Takes to the Road: Origins and Development of a Modern Passport System in Lombardy-Veneto / Andrea Geselle 199

12. Governments and Forgers: Passports in Nineteenth-Century Europe / Andreas Fahrmeir 218

13. A Many-Headed Monster: The Evolution of the Passport System in the Netherlands and Germany in the Long Nineteenth Century / Leo Lucassen 235

14. The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Passport System / John Torpey 256

Part 4 Contemporary Issues in Identification 271

15. DNA-Typing: Galton's Eugenic Dream Realized? / Pamela Sankar 273

16. Under My Skin: From Identification Papers to Body Surveillance / David Lyon 291

17. Identity and Anonymity: Some Conceptual Distinctions and Issues for Research / Gary T. Marx 311

18. Identifying Unauthorized Foreign Workers in the German Labor Market / Dita Vogel 328

19. Identity Cards, Ethnic Self-Perception, and Genocide in Rwanda / Timothy Longman 345.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [359]-396) and index.

ISBN:

0691009112

0691009120

OCLC:

47142095