Rajakishor Mahana, Negotiating Marginality: Conflicts Over Tribal Development in India

The fifth chapter, ‘The Document in the Digital’, brings us to the current regime of biometric and cloud-based identity. The chapter explores the implications of these technologies on discourses of citizenship, welfare and surveillance. The creation, legitimisation and universalisation of Aadhaar as the mobile ID that, like a parasite, has engulfed other genres of ID documents is the main theme of this chapter. This chapter is based on the ethnography of porters, their hopes and stakes associated with welfare claims in the making of this new ID genre. The book reflects a painstaking work from the part of the author. It provides a formidable base on which further researches can be undertaken on practices of identification in India.