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The Biometric Imaginary: Bureaucratic Technopolitics in Post-Apartheid Welfare

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  • Kevin P. Donovan

Abstract

Starting in March 2012, the South African government engaged in a massive effort of citizen registration that continued for more than a year. Nearly 19 million social welfare beneficiaries enrolled in a novel biometric identification scheme that uses fingerprints and voice recognition to authenticate social grant recipients. This article seeks to understand the meaning of biometric technology in post-apartheid South African welfare through a study of the bureaucratic and policy elite's motivation. It argues that biometric technology was conceived of and implemented as the most recent in a series of institutional, infrastructural and policy reforms that seek to deliver welfare in a standardised and objective manner. This has, at times, been driven by a false faith in technical efficacy and has involved a playing down of the differential political implications of biometric welfare identification.

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  • Kevin P. Donovan, 2015. "The Biometric Imaginary: Bureaucratic Technopolitics in Post-Apartheid Welfare," Journal of Southern African Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(4), pages 815-833, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:cjssxx:v:41:y:2015:i:4:p:815-833
    DOI: 10.1080/03057070.2015.1049485
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