Navigating the state from the margins: understanding the material and affective aspects of women’s engagement with identity documents in rural India

Purpose This paper explores the significance of identity documents (IDs) (paper-based and digital data) in state-citizen interactions from the point of view of rural and marginalized women in India, specifically in the southern state of Karnataka. Citizens obtain, hold on to, carry and produce IDs as receipts of their presence in the state’s population registries and proofs of their citizenship. This paper contributes to a deeper understanding of how women in rural areas – marginalized along the lines of gender, class, caste and rural-urban gap – manage and navigate the state’s documentary requirements to access social welfare. Design/methodology/approach The study employs a social constructionist framework comprising guided tours (Thomson, 2018) with 14 women selected using purposive sampling across 3 villages in Mysuru district, Karnataka, India. The data were analyzed using the qualitative research software ATLAS.ti. Findings The study shows that women’s engagement with documents and consequently their interaction with the state is shaped by their caste, class, gender and geographical location. Women found acquiring IDs exhausting as they incur immense financial, logistical and emotional costs. At home, they take up the majority of the responsibility of maintaining IDs of the family and find it burdensome. Women also expressed feeling obligated to provide paper-based IDs as well as biometric data to the state. The affective states prompt them to configure careful and elaborate document classification and storing practices. They also regularly forge formal and informal networks with each other, the government functionaries and local non-governmental organizations to help them navigate the state’s documentary requirements. Originality/value This paper focuses on rural and marginalized women’s practices around IDs, a population that is often not centered within the literature around information practices, personal information management and personal record-keeping. Furthermore, the paper makes a theoretical contribution by drawing upon the concept of emotion as “contact zones” (Ahmed, 2014) and developing it for Information Science. Specifically, the paper frames identity documents as “contact zones” wherein women encounter and negotiate with the state. By emphasizing the complexity and imperfectness that characterizes women’s engagement with IDs, the paper challenges the Indian state’s rhetoric of “seamless,” “paperless” and “contactless” welfare delivery.