Read the next installment: “ID Systems: A Reading List“
Identity isn’t a binary, though it’s often discussed that way. You hear people singling out one interpretation and vociferously arguing for or against it–but it’s important to recognize that identity is a multi-hued subject. Our online data shouldn’t be cast in black-and-white terms of just, for example, security versus privacy: nationality, gender, health, education, and employment all factor in. There are many pieces to the jigsaw.
Towards the end of 2016, we began working with Caribou Digital and the Omidyar Network on a project about identity in the modern age. The Identities Project was based on original fieldwork that the Caribou team conducted in rural and urban parts of India in 2017.
Over the past decade, India has been implementing Aadhaar, the largest biometric identity program in the world. The Identities Project explored how people across the country are dealing with this new system, and how they experience its life-changing benefits–or problems–day-to-day. Their stories exposed identity issues that we thought deserved a platform of their own–particularly how the most vulnerable people fall through gaps in the system.
We wanted to explore this topic in greater depth and give it the attention it deserves, and the result is The ID Question. This is a globalized world where events in one country can easily impact those in others: think about Estonia, and the number of people who have rushed to become e-citizens, or how 20 countries are lining up to learn from India’s Aadhaar experience. We’d like to encourage a broader and deeper exploration of the issues.
Over the course of this series, we’ll travel around the world with writer Padmaparna Ghosh, examining identity in the modern age from India to Ireland to Japan to our global digital networks. Follow along, and keep the discussion going on Facebook.
Read the next installment: “ID Systems: A Reading List“
How We Get To Next was a magazine that explored the future of science, technology, and culture from 2014 to 2019. The ID Question is a five-part series that asks: Who and what defines us in the digital age? The series follows The Identities Project, field research that looked at the real-life impact of identity systems on individuals in India. It was conducted by Caribou Digital and Storythings and commissioned by the Omidyar Network.
