Bureaucratic Portraiture and Practices of Citizenship

Abstract

AbstractIn lay and academic discourse, bureaucracy almost seems coterminous with the production and circulation of paper, writing, and type. Indeed, the flows of bureaucratic paperwork and documentation weigh heavy, but how are other media and material forms implicated in bureaucratic relationships and encounters? This Special Section considers the photographic portrait as an enduring bureaucratic technology across different histories and geographies. How are people's likenesses key media of social recognition and aspirational performances of citizenship? Given that making and circulating images is now widely accessible across the globe, how has photography become a significant means through which subjects struggle for recognition in the contemporary moment? Focusing on state borders and categories, we argue that bureaucracy's demand for identification documents has not only sustained photographic practices but also shaped the ways people in liminal positions advance claims of citizenship.