Addressability
Identification and Communicative Positions in Critical Sociological Perspective
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.37062/sf.62.27828Nyckelord:
addressability, identification, identification numbers, systems theory, surveillanceAbstract
In this article we develop the concept of addressability to help us unpack processes of identification. We start from a foundational sociological account of addressing as laid out by Simmel, and use Luhmann’s systems theory to identify tensions in the overlap between different systems. The dual character of addressing as reductive (in meaning) and constructive (of communicative positions) helps us understand a mode of knowledge production that generates its own recipients. By concentrating on the moment of addressing in this manner and developing the concept of addressability to explain its complexity, we seek to build an analytic concept that is useful for scholars who are interested in unpacking the construction of communicative positions in identification. We demonstrate the potential of this concept with an analysis of two moments of addressability in action that involve personal identification numbers. We conclude that the intersection and mutual challenge of these two approaches can help us connect different addressing moments while also moving beyond questions of surveillance and entitlement that routinely seek to capture the problem of identification.
Referenser
Ajana, B. (2013) Governing through biometrics: The biopolitics of identity. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Amaro, R. (2022) The black technical object: On machine learning and the aspiration of black being. London: Sternberg Press.
Banégas, R. & S. A. Dalberto (2021) Identification and citizenship in Africa: Biometrics, the documentary state and bureaucratic writings of the self. Milton Park: Taylor & Francis. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003053293
Beauchamp, T. (2019) Going stealth: Transgender politics and U.S. surveillance practices. Durham: Duke University Press.
Benjamin, R. (2019) Race after technology: Abolitionist tools for the new Jim Code. Cambridge, Medford: Polity Press.
Bennett, C. & D. Lyon (2008) Playing the identity card : Surveillance, security and identification in global perspective. London, New York: Routledge.
Blumenberg, H. (2015) Schriften zur Technik. Berlin: Suhrkamp.
boyd, d. & K. Crawford (2012) “Critical questions for big data: Provocations for a cultural, technological, and scholarly phenomenon”, Information, Communication & Society 15 (5):662–679. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2012.678878
Breckenridge, K. (2014) Biometric state : The global politics of identification and surveillance in South Africa, 1850 to the present. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Breckenridge, K. (2021) “Documentary government and mathematical identification: On the theoretical significance of African biometric government”, 49–64 in S. Awenengo Dalberto & R. Banégas (Eds.) Identification and citizenship in Africa. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003053293-2
Breckenridge, K. & D. James (2021) “Recentring the margins: Theorizing African capitalism after 50 years”, Economy and Society 50 (1):1–8. https://doi.org/10.1080/03085147.2021.1854540
Buolamwini, J. & T. Gebru (2018) “Gender shades: Intersectional accuracy disparities in commercial gender classification”, 77–91 in Conference on Fairness, Accountability and Transparency. Proceedings of Machine Learning Research (PMLR).
Cakici, B. (2024) “When nmbers run out. Civil registration and the performativity of methods”, Science & Technology Studies, preprint. https://doi.org/10.23987/sts.127395
Chaudhuri, B. (2020) “Distant, opaque and seamful: Seeing the state through the workings of Aadhaar in India”, Information Technology for Development 27 (1):37–49. https://doi.org/10.1080/02681102.2020.1789037
Eubanks, V. (2018) Automating inequality: How high-tech tools profile, police, and punish the poor. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Fuchs, P. (2005) “Adressabilität als Grundbegriff der soziologischen Systemtheorie“, 37–62, in M. Fuchs (Ed.) Konturen der Modernität: Systemtheoretische Essays. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783839403358-003
Hammar, A. (2018) “Certifications of citizenship: reflections through an African lens”, Contemporary South Asia 2018 (3):19. https://doi.org/10.1080/09584935.2018.1465024
Hayes, E. (2022) Legal identity, race and belonging in the Dominican Republic: From citizen to foreigner. London: Anthem Press.
Hunter, W. (2019) Undocumented nationals: Between statelessness and citizenship. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108568913
Jacobsen, K. (2021) “Biometric data flows and unintended consequences of counterterrorism”, International Review of the Red Cross 103:619–652.
Kitchin, R. (2014) The data revolution: Big data, open data, data infrastructures and their Consequences. London: SAGE.
Luhmann, N. (2002) Theories of distinction: Redescribing the descriptions of modernity. Edited by W. Rasch. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Lyon, D. (2003) Surveillance as social sorting : Privacy, risk, and digital discrimination. London, New York: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203994887
Manby, B. (2021) “Naturalization in African states: Its past and potential future”, Citizenship Studies 25 (4):514–542. https://doi.org/10.1080/13621025.2021.1926098
Marres, N. (2012) Material participation. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
O’Neil, C. (2016) Weapons of math destruction: How big data increases inequality and threatens democracy. New York: Crown.
Pelizza, A. (2020) “Processing alterity, enacting Europe: Migrant registration and identification as co-construction of individuals and polities”, Science, Technology, & Human Values 45 (2):262–288. https://doi.org/10.1177/0162243919827927
Reddy, E., B. Cakici & A. Ballestero (2019) “Beyond mystery: Putting algorithmic accountability in context”, Big Data & Society 6 (1):1–7. https://doi.org/10.1177/2053951719826856
Rieder, G. & J. Simon (2016) “Datatrust: Or, the political quest for numerical evidence and the epistemologies of big data”, Big Data & Society 3 (1):1–6. https://doi.org/10.1177/2053951716649398
Salem, Z.O.A. (2021) “Touche pas à ma nationalité: enrôlement biométrique et controverses sur l’identification en Mauritanie”, Politique africaine 152:77–99. https://www.cairn.info/revue-politique-africaine-2018-4-page-77.htm
Scott, J.C. (1998) Seeing like a state: How certain schemes to improve the human condition have failed. New Haven, London: Yale University Press.
Simmel, G. (1997) Simmel on culture: Selected writings. Edited by David Frisby and Mike Featherstone. London: SAGE.
Singh, R. & S. Jackson (2021) “Seeing like an infrastructure: Low-resolution citizens and the Aadhaar identification project”, Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction 5 (CSCW2):1–26. https://doi.org/10.1145/3476056
Søe, S. O. & J.-E. Mai (2022) “Data identity: Privacy and the construction of self”, Synthese 200 (6):492. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-022-03968-5
Statistiska Centralbyrån (SCB) (2016) ”Personnummer. Bakgrundsfakta – befolknings- och välfärdsstatistik 2016:1”. Solna: Statistiska Centralbyrån.
Thiel, A. (2024) “Biometric data doubles and the technicisation of personhood in Ghana”, 150–170 in R. Rottenburg and E. Riedke (Eds.) Translating Technology in Africa: Technicisation. Leiden: Brill.
Verran, H. (2001) Science and an African logic. University of Chicago Press.
Wagner, R. (1991) “The Fractal Person”, 159–173 in M. Godelier and M. Strathern (Eds.) Big men and great men: Personifications of power in Melanesia. Cambridge University Press.
Zakharova, Irina, Juliane Jarke and Anne Kaun (2024) “Tensions in digital welfare states: Three perspectives on care and control”, Journal of Sociology 60 (3): 540–559. https://doi.org/10.1177/14407833241238312.
Downloads
Publicerad
Referera så här
Nummer
Sektion
Licens
Copyright (c) 2025 Baki Cakiki, Alena Thiel
Detta verk är licensierat under en Creative Commons Erkännande-Ickekommersiell-IngaBearbetningar 4.0 Internationell-licens.
Allt material i Sociologisk Forskning publiceras med omedelbar öppen tillgång (open access), under Creative Commons-licensen CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.
Allt innehåll i tidskriften är fritt tillgängligt utan kostnad och får för icke-kommersiella syften fritt läsas, laddas ned, kopieras, delas, skrivas ut och länkas. Innehållet får dock inte ändras. När innehållet används måste författare och källa anges. Upphovsrätten till innehållet tillhör respektive författare. Inga publiceringsavgifter tas ut.
