ABSTRACT
This chapter attempts to explore the contingent process of ordering identification. It considers material culture as a starting point to better understand the workings of early modern identification. Police committee records attest not only to policies of identification but also to the cat-and-mouse game between migrants and officials. Attachments to things, places, and other people were integral in defining migrants and their role in society. Migrants constantly put pressure on the limits of social cohesion and community. The screening process of migrants took place when they were already in Stockholm, and there they were difficult to separate from the city's own poor and labouring population. When documents, chests, life stories, and social bonds were pieced together, and when migrants had successfully found their way into living spaces of the city, the ordering of identification looks less concerned with establishing individual identity than it is with work.
