Interview with Richard Ban\u00e9gas and Armando Cutolo<\/p>\n
While it is well acknowledged that identity documents provide rights to citizenship and social inclusion, they can also generate violence and conflicts. In their recently published book entitled ID Wars in C\u00f4te d’Ivoire. A Political Ethnography of Identification and Citizenship<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>(Oxford University Press), Richard Ban\u00e9gas<\/a> and Armando Cutolo<\/a> explore C\u00f4te d’Ivoire’s ‘ID war’ as a paradigmatic case of a citizenship crisis, centered on the access to national identity cards and certificates. <\/strong>They answer our questions in this interview.<\/strong><\/p>\n Can you remind us of the general context of what you call the Ivorian ID war, and what special status the national identity card held in this conflict?<\/em><\/p>\n The war that broke out in C\u00f4te d’Ivoire in September 2002 and officially ended in April 2011 with Alassane Ouattara’s victory was described as an \u00ab\u00a0identification war\u00a0\u00bb, a \u00ab\u00a0war for papers\u00a0\u00bb, by the rebels who took up arms against Laurent Gbagbo’s regime. They demanded full recognition for citizens from the north of the country, who were violently discriminated against. The radicalisation of the ethnonationalist ideology of \u00ab\u00a0Ivoirit\u00e9\u00a0\u00bb under B\u00e9di\u00e9’s regime in the 1990s, the excesses of the junta that constitutionally enshrined this \u00ab\u00a0Ivoirit\u00e9\u00a0\u00bb in 2000, and the Gbagbo government’s questioning of civil status and identification in the name of autochthony ignited a powder keg of identity issues. These events reshuffled the national question in C\u00f4te d’Ivoire.<\/p>\n The conflict, however, was not limited to this dimension alone. It was largely constructed as a justification by rebels who had other political and economic power objectives. Nonetheless, the national identity card held a particular status: it was not just a legal identification document. Possessing or lacking it determined one\u2019s civic inclusion or exclusion from the national community. It was also seen as an object one needed to be socially recognised as a legitimate subject in Ivorian society, where certain segments of the population were deemed to have \u00ab\u00a0suspicious nationality\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n Our book studies the genealogy of this crisis and the politicisation of \u00ab\u00a0papers\u00a0\u00bb in C\u00f4te d’Ivoire’s history, which from the 1960s to the 1990s was built on a form of informal documentation. This reflected a kind of economic citizenship, where immigrants in particular were included in the single party’s patronage networks. The opening to multiparty politics and the economic crisis of the 1990s radicalised the debates on national belonging, excluding entire segments of the population in the name of an ethnonationalist concept of citizenship. This was symbolized by the ideology of \u00ab\u00a0Ivoirit\u00e9\u00a0\u00bb, developed by President Henri Konan B\u00e9di\u00e9 for political reasons, notably to exclude Alassane Ouattara from power.<\/p>\n National suspicion materialised in identity documents, which acquired a totemic status in public debate. The politicisation of identity papers intensified further after General Gue\u00ef’s coup in December 1999 and Laurent Gbagbo’s rise to power in October 2000. Gbagbo sought to overhaul civil status and identification based on an even more autochthonous perspective. During the decade of war, all peace negotiations prominently featured the issue of papers as a solution to end the crisis, albeit unsuccessfully. After the conflict, in 2011, Ouattara’s government initiated reforms with significant support from donors and multinational corporations to address the identity issue.<\/p>\n Post-war C\u00f4te d’Ivoire presented itself as a vast \u00ab\u00a0identity adjustment plan\u00a0\u00bb under the influence of new biometric technologies, which were touted as a panacea to solve civil status deficiencies, prevent conflicts, and promote development, with the clear intention of depoliticising the issue. Our book challenges this technopolitical narrative of post-conflict liberal emergence, revisiting the war and post-war periods by considering identity papers as empirical and analytical tools for a better understanding of citizenship.<\/p>\n But beware! The title of the book, ID Wars, is plural because our work is not limited to the crisis and armed conflict that lasted about ten years. Beyond this \u00ab\u00a0war for papers\u00a0\u00bb, the book also focuses on everyday battles for identification at civil registry counters, as well as the mundane and daily struggles of ordinary citizens to obtain their identity documents, status, and recognition.<\/p>\n