Biometric coloniality: digital consensus and the biometric state in Africa

Title data

Iwuoha, Victor ; Doevenspeck, Martin:
Biometric coloniality: digital consensus and the biometric state in Africa.
In: Third World Quarterly. Vol. 46 (2025) Issue 12 . - pp. 1413-1438.
ISSN 1360-2241
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2025.2539731

Official URL:

Abstract in another language

This article frames the concept of biometric coloniality of power in the Global South – to explain how alliances of powerful global institutions, big tech companies and the compliant emerging biometric states operate on the basis of a lucrative digital consensus to carry out techno-­capitalist biometric ID interventions, which reproduce colonial relations of domination. We use Nigeria’s experience and examples from other African countries to demonstrate that the emergence of biometric states is linked to specific interconnected spaces of biometric data struggle and exploitation where the uses/abuses of biometric data are performed and contested. This article maps out new biometric orders of power at multiple levels/scales, and explicitly draws out ways biometric categories and social hierarchies are used to produce racialised and gendered subjects. The article argues that biometric coloniality inherently creates a biometric state with a peculiar character of biometric dysfunctionality and authoritarianism, both effectively institutionalised to the exclusion and disempowerment of the citizens/biometric subjects. We conclude that the chain of unbridled extraction of digital data, its commodification and dispossession, which is bounded by digital consensus, can only be broken by the conscious awakening of digital subjects.

Further data

Item Type:	Article in a journal
Refereed:	Yes
Keywords:	biometric coloniality; digital consensus; biometric ID system; biometric state; ID4D
Institutions of the University:	Faculties > Faculty of Biology, Chemistry and Earth Sciences > Department of Earth Sciences > Professor Political Geography Faculties > Faculty of Biology, Chemistry and Earth Sciences > Department of Earth Sciences > Professor Political Geography > Professor Political Geography - Univ.-Prof. Dr. Martin Doevenspeck Faculties Faculties > Faculty of Biology, Chemistry and Earth Sciences Faculties > Faculty of Biology, Chemistry and Earth Sciences > Department of Earth Sciences
Result of work at the UBT:	Yes
DDC Subjects:	300 Social sciences > 300 Social sciences, sociology and anthropology 900 History and geography > 910 Geography, travel
Date Deposited:	27 Aug 2025 06:07
Last Modified:	07 Nov 2025 07:47
URI:	https://eref.uni-bayreuth.de/id/eprint/94544