TY - JOUR
T1 - Voter Integrity, Trust and the Promise of Digital Technologies
T2 - Biometric Voter Registration in Solomon Islands
AU - Hobbis, Stephanie Ketterer
AU - Hobbis, Geoffrey
PY - 2017/4/3
Y1 - 2017/4/3
N2 - Drawing on the anthropology of technology, this article examines the introduction of a digital biometric voter registration for Solomon Islands 2014 national election. Four perspectives on biometric voting are brought into dialogue: (1) the technological particularities, strengths and shortcomings of biometric voting registration (BVR), (2) a global and international embrace of the technology for its perceived ‘universal’ tendency to secure identities, (3) efforts by the Solomon Islands state to showcase its political stability by means of BVR and (4) the ways village-based voters come to understand, interpret and re-imagine BVR as political technology. We show how, within the ethnographic context of North Malaita, debates surrounding BVR reveal a continued distrust and uncertainty in North Malaitans’ relationship with the Solomon Islands state and its representatives. Within the context of this uncertainty BVR is re-imagined as technology that aids voter integrity within rather than beyond patronage networks.
AB - Drawing on the anthropology of technology, this article examines the introduction of a digital biometric voter registration for Solomon Islands 2014 national election. Four perspectives on biometric voting are brought into dialogue: (1) the technological particularities, strengths and shortcomings of biometric voting registration (BVR), (2) a global and international embrace of the technology for its perceived ‘universal’ tendency to secure identities, (3) efforts by the Solomon Islands state to showcase its political stability by means of BVR and (4) the ways village-based voters come to understand, interpret and re-imagine BVR as political technology. We show how, within the ethnographic context of North Malaita, debates surrounding BVR reveal a continued distrust and uncertainty in North Malaitans’ relationship with the Solomon Islands state and its representatives. Within the context of this uncertainty BVR is re-imagined as technology that aids voter integrity within rather than beyond patronage networks.
KW - biometric voter registration
KW - Biometrics
KW - digital democracy
KW - elections
KW - Solomon Islands
U2 - 10.1080/00664677.2017.1324287
DO - 10.1080/00664677.2017.1324287
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85019076453
VL - 27
SP - 114
EP - 134
JO - Anthropological Forum : a journal of social anthropology and comparative sociology
JF - Anthropological Forum : a journal of social anthropology and comparative sociology
SN - 0066-4677
IS - 2
ER -