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VERSION:2.0
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X-WR-CALNAME:Individuating Identity in Postcolonial Pakistan
X-WR-TIMEZONE:Eastern Time (US & Canada)
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260617T002948Z
UID:tag:localist.com\,2008:EventInstance_48223681040243
DTSTART:20250428T161500Z
DTEND:20250428T171500Z
DESCRIPTION:Talk by Zehra Hashmi (History and Sociology of Science\, Univer
 sity of Pennsylvania)\n\n \n\nThis talk examines how and why Pakistan’s 
 national biometric-based identification regime came to use an individual
 ’s blood relations to construct and track uniquely identified individual
 s. Through the concept of datafied kinship\, it proposes that the uses of 
 kin networks in Pakistan’s identity database\, as information\, can reco
 nfigure our understanding of contemporary identification practices at larg
 e: individual identity is generated and tracked through relatedness\, not 
 unique bodily characteristics\, or biometrics alone. To demonstrate this\,
  it first examines how the database design works to construct identity thr
 ough kin\, and specifically how it excludes individuals on the basis of th
 eir kin through technological categories such as that of the “family int
 ruder.” Second\, it shows how this mode of individual identification dif
 fers and departs from the longstanding classificatory schemas that were so
  foundational to taxonomizing identity along the lines of caste\, tribe\, 
 and religion in South Asia. It traces this diverging logic—between class
 ification and individuation—to the emergence of individuating technologi
 es in 1970s Pakistan\, in the aftermath of the civil war between East Paki
 stan and West Pakistan\, and during the escalating Cold War in the region.
  In so doing\, it illustrates how the political stakes of Pakistan’s ide
 ntification regime lie not only in its new possibilities for surveillance\
 , a function of its individuating and tracking technology\, or its classif
 icatory refusal\, but also in their interconnections.\n\n \n\nZehra Hashmi
  is an assistant professor in the History and Sociology of Science at the 
 University of Pennsylvania. She is an anthropologist and historian who wor
 ks on identification technologies in South Asia. Her research explores the
  everyday workings of securitization and surveillance in Pakistan through 
 the intersection of identification\, migration\, kinship\, and postcolonia
 l and colonial governance. She received her PhD from the Interdepartmental
  Program in Anthropology and History at the University of Michigan.
GEO:42.447296;-76.482254
LOCATION:Uris Hall\, G08
SUMMARY:Individuating Identity in Postcolonial Pakistan
URL;VALUE=URI:https://events.cornell.edu/event/individuating-identity-in-po
 stcolonial-pakistan
CATEGORIES:Lecture
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