Distant, opaque and seamful: seeing the state through the workings of Aadhaar in India

Chaudhuri, Bidisha

doi:10.1080/02681102.2020.1789037

Cited by 21 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…From a quantitative perspective, research in the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand found a 10% reduction in benefits for recipients (23% of the total) who had not linked Aadhaar credentials to benefits, with 2.8% receiving no benefits at all (Muralidharan et al 2020). Researching the same state, Dr eze et al 2017and Chaudhuri (2020) noted the uncertainties of biometric authentication for the poor, a finding that emerged across studies of the same scheme (cf. Hundal et al, 2020;Masiero, 2020).…”

Section: Datafied Social Protection: a Central Trade-offmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Dr eze et al, 2017; Khera, 2017;Muralidharan et al, 2020) and qualitative levels (cf. Chaudhuri, 2020;Hundal et al, 2020;Masiero and Prakash, 2019). From a quantitative perspective, research in the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand found a 10% reduction in benefits for recipients (23% of the total) who had not linked Aadhaar credentials to benefits, with 2.8% receiving no benefits at all (Muralidharan et al 2020).…”

Section: Datafied Social Protection: a Central Trade-offmentioning

confidence: 99%

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COVID-19: What does it mean for digital social protection?

Masiero

2020

Big Data & Society

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COVID-19 has hit a world in which social protection schemes are increasingly augmented with digital measures. Digital identity schemes are especially being adopted to match citizens’ data with social protection entitlements, enabling authentication through demographic and, increasingly, biometric data at the point of access. In this commentary, I discuss three sets of implications that COVID-19 has yielded on digital social protection, whose central trade-off – increasing the probabilities of accurate user identification, at the cost of greater exclusions – has become even more problematic during the crisis. I argue that three forms of data injustice – legal, informational and design-related, previously identified in datafied social protection schemes, will need to be monitored in the post-pandemic scenario. I finally observe that the crisis exposes the long-term need to place digitality within social protection schemes that expand user entitlements rather than constraining them. Implications of such reflections are drawn for the study of data-based social welfare interventions.

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Section: Datafied Social Protection: a Central Trade-offmentioning

confidence: 97%

Section: Datafied Social Protection: a Central Trade-offmentioning

confidence: 99%

COVID-19: What does it mean for digital social protection?

Masiero

2020

Big Data & Society

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“…Such experience continues to be marred by a struggle for adequate transparency and information. Drawing on recent research from Jharkhand, Chaudhuri (2020) further highlights how Aadhaarenabled technology in welfare delivery produced new opacities and eroded people's understanding of welfare schemes, while simultaneously removing older ways of negotiating relations of power and access. This left welfare recipients -as well as last mile delivery agents -with a sense of helplessness and vulnerability that emanated from the black box of technology (Chaudhuri, 2020, p. 9).…”

Section: Social Protection Digital Technology and E-governance In Indiamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The paper-tiger that is the Indian state rarely retreats in the face of novel technologies (Mathur, 2016). Rather, it is at the seams of overlapping layers of infrastructure that opacities emerge, leading to persistent forms of exclusion and an ongoing need for human mediation (Chaudhuri, 2020;Singh & Jackson, 2017). As such, a host of human and paper-based interventions continue to shape access and entitlement to welfare, and in what follows we show how registration for new smartcards in Tamil Nadu and classification under new priority/non-priority household (PHH/NPHH) categories remain highly mediated and, hence, ambivalent processes.…”

Section: Social Protection Digital Technology and E-governance In Indiamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Limited ownership of mobile phones amongst some sections of the rural population further impeded transparent flows of information. Particularly noteworthy is the considerable gender and age-gap, with women and older people less likely to own mobile phones while being responsible for collecting rations (see Chaudhuri, 2020). Instead, the smartcard of many women is linked to a relative's phone number, typically that of a husband, father, father-in-law, son or daughter-inlaw.…”

Section: Compromised Transparency?mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Transparency, exclusion and mediation: how digital and biometric technologies are transforming social protection in Tamil Nadu, India

Carswell

Neve

2021

Oxford Development Studies

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What are the effects of biometric and digital technologies on social protection for the poor in India? Drawing on ethnographic research from rural Tamil Nadu, this paper presents evidence of how new technologies are experienced by beneficiaries of the Public Distribution System (PDS), and analyses the impacts of technology innovations on transparency, exclusion and mediation. The authors focus on the implementation of 'smartcards,' new digitised and Aadhaar-enabled ration cards, introduced in ration shops across Tamil Nadu in 2017. They first document how digitised smartcards and mobile text messages transform transparency for beneficiaries by introducing new opacities and information gaps. They then demonstrate how a lack of transparency (re)produces forms of exclusion that remain a challenge under the automated PDS. Finally, the paper highlights how novel forms of kin and non-kin mediation play a mitigating role in accessing PDS, and constitute a vital part of the infrastructure underpinning social welfare delivery.

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Dark side of IT: A misleading expression?

Masiero

2023

E J Info Sys Dev Countries

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Research on the “dark side” of information technology (IT) is becoming diffused in the information systems (IS) field. Focused on the negative consequences of IT on individuals, organizations and the society, such a literature has, however, neglected the contribution of ICT4D research to the debate. This paper draws on two streams of research—respectively, on digital identity systems for social protection and biometric humanitarianism—to highlight the limits of the notion of a “dark side” of IT. Using a design justice lens, it illuminates how adverse features can be purposefully designed into technology, directly producing the detrimental outcomes that cause harm on its users. Through this perspective, the notion of a “dark side” of IT is contrasted with that of a “dark matter” pointing to the substantial, rather than accidental, nature of harm generated through IT. Implications are drawn for IS research, highlighting how existing works from the ICT4D field support the “dark matter” thesis.

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Distant, opaque and seamful: seeing the state through the workings of Aadhaar in India

Cited by 21 publications

References 23 publications

COVID-19: What does it mean for digital social protection?

COVID-19: What does it mean for digital social protection?

Transparency, exclusion and mediation: how digital and biometric technologies are transforming social protection in Tamil Nadu, India

Dark side of IT: A misleading expression?

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