ABSTRACT
This short chapter examines the process by which the French West African identity card was established in the colony of Senegal. Introduced in October 1949 to enable the identity of itinerant individuals to be checked, the federal identity card was a response to the broader project of universal documentary identification of Africans in the context of the end of the régime de l'indigénat and the extension of imperial citizenship. This chapter shows that the rise of the identity card in Senegal was the product of a collective affair. Not only was the card the instrument of a new mode of imperial control and a bureaucratic tool granted to empower rights holders, it was also an object of political demand and a mode of experiencing the social, political, and intimate worlds.
