In this episode of the IDS podcast Between the Lines, IDS Research Fellow Tony Roberts interviews Eve Hayes de Kalaf, author of the book Legal Identity, Race and Belonging in the Dominican Republic: From Citizen to Foreigner.
The author examines the complex and contradictory ways of ID systems and challenges the assumption that the provision of ID to everyone, everywhere will lead to the inclusion of all citizens.
Listen to the episode
About the book
Over the next ten years, states are carrying out large-scale registrations in alignment with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs aim to provide more than one billion people around the world with evidentiary proof of their legal and, increasingly, digital existence by 2030.
This book identifies a connection between the role of international actors, such as the World Bank and the United Nations, in promulgating the universal provision of legal identity and links these with arbitrary measures to restrict access to citizenship paperwork from migrant-descended populations.
The book provides the definitive analysis of the events leading up to the controversial 2013 Constitutional Tribunal ruling that rendered the Dominican plaintiff Juliana Deguis Pierre stateless. Hayes de Kalaf illustrates how measures that purposely blocked people of Haitian ancestry from accessing their legal identity not only affected undocumented and stateless populations – persons living at the fringes of citizenship – but also had a major impact on documented people; Dominicans already in possession of a state-issued birth certificate, national identity card and/or passport.
The book illustrates the complex and contradictory ways in which ID systems are experienced, thus challenging the assumption within current development policy that the provision of ID to everyone, everywhere will lead to the inclusion of all citizens.
You can purchase the book here.
About the author
Eve Hayes de Kalaf is a research fellow based at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies (ICwS) and a Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CLACS), University of London.
About the interviewer
Dr. Tony Roberts is a Research Fellow in the Digital and Technology cluster at the Institute of Development Studies. He has been working at the intersection of digital technologies, international development and social justice since 1988 as a volunteer, lecturer, practitioner, trustee and researcher.
About Between the Lines
Discussing the latest ideas shaping development.
This podcast series explores books with ideas for positive social and environmental change. Each month we feature a book and an interview with its author. The discussions give an insight on the themes covered in the book, exploring the challenges and discoveries, and why the issues matter for progressive and sustainable development globally.
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