ABSTRACT
Identification and registration schemes are key to consolidating and legitimising state power. Identification, enumeration, and categorisation were key technologies for British colonial powers to extract labour, dominate through racial hierarchies, control movement, and quell dissent. For Burmese nationalists and independence fighters, registering ‘foreigners’ and establishing the boundaries of citizenship were integral to their resistance to colonial rule. These factors also were key to establishing and legitimising independent state power at the dawn of independence. In exploring these themes, Chapter 4 provides historic background to the use and misuse of ID schemes in British India and Burma with a focus on the multi-ethnic region of Rakhine, which was at the centre of economic and cultural exchange and was deeply impacted by warring imperial powers.
