The politics of mediation: subjectivity, value and power in the digital grid of Aadhaar

ABSTRACT

Digital data infrastructures act as mediating technologies that shape and manipulate flows and visibilities. Focusing on the case of the Indian digital ID Aadhaar, this article proposes a theory of mediation as a conceptual framework for understanding the role of digital technology in projects for datafication of state governance and national economy. In 2016, the Indian biometric ID Aadhaar was instrumentalised in a nation-wide move towards digital monetary transfers, a campaign launched under the banner of ‘demonetisation’. The digital state ID was integrated into Know Your Customer (KYC) systems of financial identification complicating government practices of recording and subjectivation. This process, during which government discourse explicitly drew parallels between political subjectivation and financial control, indicates the growing significance of the digital medium in shaping the relationship between states and their subjects. The notion of mediation proposed here addresses the mutual articulation between monetary transfers, practices of government recording and data valorisation in a context where state projects for digitalisation are increasingly integrated in global digital networks and data platforms.

KEYWORDS:

• Digital data
• economies
• biopolitics
• money
• citizenship

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Gay Hawkins, Rolien Hoyng, Neda Genova and Andrea Pollio for commenting on earlier versions of this text. I would also like to thank the Centre for Digital Cultures, Leuphana University, where I started this text during my short fellowship there.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 I refer here to the compelling account of on-the-ground work and research during the first weeks of demonetisation, given at a public talk at the CPI(M-L) office in Bangalore, by Kavita Krishnan from AIPWA on 14th December 2016. Krishnan gave a talk ‘Demonetization – Economic Crisis – People’s Resistance’ during which she described the efforts for organising resistance against the demonetisation and the work of her group among small vendors and manual workers in Delhi. One of the extremely interesting experiences she discussed was the power of media and the spoken narratives of wealthy people losing thousands and millions of rupees as a result of demonetisation. These stories reinforced the representation of demonetisation as a means of redistribution and class justice and made the work of progressive political groups much harder by perpetuating an interpretation of the events in progressive political terms, namely that this period of hardship, loss of jobs, loss of cash, and bankruptcy for small businesses was seen as a necessary struggle on the pathway to economic justice as the wealthy lose their unjust riches.

2 A collective denomination for the various native communities and tribes on the territory of India, who have existed for centuries outside of the caste Hindu system and, if subsequently assimilated in it, were treated as lower caste untouchables.