The role of data in aligning the 'unique identity' infrastructure in India

We present findings from a qualitative field study of a national e-infrastructure project currently underway in India. We study how this large and complex infrastructure for issuing unique biometric-based identification numbers to the 1.2 billion residents of India was aligned across various stakeholders engaged in the project. We find that the focus on 'data' kept the entire infrastructure together and working. However, this narrow focus also made the design team view the people applying for IDs as numbers whose management could be standardized. In reality, the infrastructure encountered people with differing experiences and expectations of state-issued IDs, expectations that had to be managed by agents on the ground. With our focus on the nation state as a site for studying e-infrastructure, we extend the domains in which CSCW research takes place and contribute to the theory of infrastructure building in a context where state-citizen relations are at stake.

[1]  D. Kapoor,et al.  Seeing the State: Governance and Governmentality in India , 2007 .

[2]  D. Dennis,et al.  Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed , 1998 .

[3]  R. Yin.  Case Study Research: Design and Methods , 1984 .

[4]  Elihu M. Gerson,et al.  Reach, Bracket, and the Limits of Rationalized Coordination: Some Challenges for CSCW , 2008, Theory in CSCW.

[5]  Eric A. Brewer,et al.  The case for technology in developing regions , 2005, Computer.

[6]  James C. Scott,et al.  Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed , 1999 .

[7]  A. Strauss.  THE ARTICULATION OF PROJECT WORK: AN ORGANIZATIONAL PROCESS , 1988 .

[8]  H. Wagenaar,et al.  Meaning in action : interpretation and dialogue in policy analysis , 2011 .

[9]  Steven J. Jackson,et al.  Why CSCW needs science policy (and vice versa) , 2013, CSCW.

[10]  R. Weiss.  Learning from strangers : the art and method of qualitative interview studies , 1995 .

[11]  Aradhana Sharma,et al.  The anthropology of the state : a reader , 2006 .

[12]  Geoffrey C. Bowker,et al.  Introduction: An Agenda for Infrastructure Studies , 2009, J. Assoc. Inf. Syst..

[13]  Renee Kuriyan,et al.  E for express1: “Seeing” the Indian State through ICTD , 2009, 2009 International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development (ICTD).

[14]  Harry F. Wolcott,et al.  Writing Up Qualitative Research , 1990 .

[15]  Richard Heeks,et al.  Analyzing e-government research: Perspectives, philosophies, theories, methods, and practice , 2007, Gov. Inf. Q..

[16]  Harry F. Wolcott.  The Art of Fieldwork , 1995 .

[17]  Nandan Nilekani,et al.  Imagining India: Ideas For The New Century , 2008 .

[18]  Charlotte P. Lee,et al.  Synergizing in Cyberinfrastructure Development , 2010, Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW).

[19]  S. L. Star,et al.  The Ethnography of Infrastructure , 1999 .

[20]  D. Yanow,et al.  Interpretation and Method : Empirical Research Methods and the Interpretive Turn , 2006 .

[21]  R. Khera.  The UID Project and Welfare Schemes , 2011 .

[22]  Richard O. Mason,et al.  Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed , 2000, Inf. Soc..

[23]  Claudio Ciborra,et al.  Interpreting e-government and development: Efficiency, transparency or governance at a distance? , 2005, Inf. Technol. People.