Overview of Identity Documentation as a Basis of Inclusion or Exclusion: Recent Trends in Latin America

• In Event: Identity Documents as a Determinant or Inclusion or Exclusion in Latin America

Abstract

Focusing on the birth certificate, this paper presents an overview of recent efforts by a wide variety of Latin American governments to document all citizens. For as much publicity as the issue of “undocumented immigrants” has received, the fact is that many low income Latin Americans have lacked a legal identity even in their countries of origin. Political science has paid scant attention to this topic. This paper presents an overview of the issue of legal identity in Latin America. It identifies the rise in documentation across a variety of countries, stemming in some instances from a logic of surveillance, tracking, and control, and in other instances from one of inclusion and incorporation.

Author

• Wendy A Hunter, University of Texas/Austin