Doctoral Dissertation Research: Biometric Identification Technologies and the Citizenship Document Validation Process

在旨在更新国家身份识别技术的加强安全措施的背景下，数千名美国公民被要求证明其出生的有效性。这个博士论文项目旨在了解更新生物识别安全系统的努力如何影响公民的生活，特别是那些生活在经常必须依靠文件技术来证明自己身份的地区的人。除了促进人类学研究生的社会科学培训外，该项目还将制作政策简报、互动讨论会议、简短纪录片和其他多模式工作，以帮助公众和政策制定者了解新形式的生物识别技术和治理的影响。该项目还扩大了代表性不足的群体对科学的参与。本项目通过在线研究、《信息自由法》要求以及与州政府官员的半结构化访谈，调查了哪些社会政治进程加速了新形式的生物识别安全。实地工作包括在美国地方法院听证会上的观察方法，以及在公民通过国家官僚机构确定其文件真实性的过程中与他们进行参与观察。其他方法包括与律师、法官、辩护律师和其他官员进行半结构化访谈，以及对文件、法庭和笔录进行分析。这项研究将有助于理解生物识别技术和文件监控的新模式如何帮助产生新的身份不稳定形式。该研究将进一步探讨文件、技术和治理在塑造成员界限方面的作用，重点是了解诸如官僚化和监督等生物政治过程在社会科学对公民身份的理解中所起的作用。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

In the context of heightened security measures aimed at updating state identification technologies, thousands of U.S. citizens have been asked to prove the validity of their birth. This doctoral dissertation project aims to understand how efforts to update biometric security systems impact the lives of citizens, particularly those living in regions where they frequently must rely on document technology to prove their identity. In addition to furthering the social scientific training of a graduate student in anthropology, this project will generate policy briefs, interactive discussion sessions, a short documentary, and other multimodal work to help inform the public and policy makers about the impact of new forms of biometric technology and governance. This project also broadens the participation of underrepresented groups in science. Through online research, FOIA requests, and semi-structured interviews with state officials, this project investigates what socio-political processes have accelerated new forms of biometric security. Fieldwork includes observational methods at U.S. District Court hearings and participant observation with citizens as they navigate state bureaucracies to establish the veracity of their documents. Other methods include semi-structured interviews with attorneys, judges, advocates and other officials, as well as document, court, and transcript analysis. This research will contribute to an understanding of how new modes of biometric technology and document surveillance help to produce new forms of identity precarity. The research will further theoretical debates concerning the role of documents, technology, and governance in shaping membership boundaries, with an emphasis on understanding what role biopolitical processes such as bureaucratization and surveillance have in social scientific understandings of citizenship.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.