Biometric State

Keith Breckenridge is an historian and the deputy director of the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. He has published widely on the cultural and economic history of South Africa, particularly the gold mining industry, the state and the development of information systems. His writing on biometrics has appeared in Africa, History Workshop, the Journal of Southern African Studies, Public Culture and some of the most influential comparative anthologies on systems of identification. In 2012 he co-edited Registration and Recognition: Documenting the Person in World History, with Simon Szreter, a volume of essays for the British Academy examining the workings and failures of civil registration in twenty different regions and periods around the world.

'This fascinating and deeply researched study of the transnational politics of biometric measurement and surveillance places South Africa in a global field force of scientific and technological experimentation. Beginning with Galton and Gandhi, it shows how the power of technology can be deployed for many different reasons, and often with surprising outcomes.' Saul Dubow, Queen Mary, University of London

• Introduction: the global biometric arena; 1. Science of empire: the South African origins and objects of Galtonian eugenics; 2. Asiatic despotism: Edward Henry on the Witwatersrand; 3. Gandhi's biometric entanglement: fingerprints, Satyagraha and the global politics of Hind Swaraj; 4. No will to know: biometric registration and the limited curiosity of the gatekeeper state; 5. Verwoerd's bureau of proof: the Apartheid Bewysburo and the end of documentary government; 6. Galtonian reversal: apartheid and the making of biometric citizenship; Epilogue: empire and the mimetic fantasy; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.