As well as its two lead investigators and the facilitator, IdentiNet comprises a core network of twenty international experts; eight invited participants to the 2009 public conference; and eight postgraduate and recent postdoctoral participants who joined the group by competitive application.
Core Network
Professor Margo Anderson
History, University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee [USA]
Margo Anderson is a specialist in the social history of data collection, with special reference to the historical and analytical distinctions between identification technologies and systems designed to maintain the records of the identities of individuals (registration systems) and those designed to maintain, classify and analyze information on groups of individuals (statistical data systems). She is the author of The American Census: A Social History (New Haven, 1988).
Professor Ross Anderson
Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge [UK]
Ross Anderson is a leading expert in security engineering, and has published widely on the economics of information security; peer-to-peer systems; cryptographic protocols and algorithms; system reliability; information hiding; clinical databases; and issues surrounding privacy and the freedom of information. He regularly advises governments, policymakers and the media, and is the chair of the Foundation for Information Policy Research. The second edition of his landmark text Security Engineering: A Guide to Building Dependable Distributed Systems was published in 2008, while he led the 2009 Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust report on the Database State.
Professor Peter Becker
History, Johannes Kepler University Linz [Austria]
Peter Becker is a historian with a research focus on the cultural history of criminology, police techniques, and public administration. More recently, he has become interested in the media representation and the political use of the neurosciences. His publications include Dem Täter auf der Spur. Eine Geschichte der Kriminalistik (2005), The Criminals and their Scientists: The History of Criminology in International Perspective (edited together with Richard Wetzell in 2006), and Little Tools of Knowledge: Historical Essays on Academic and Bureaucratic Practices (edited with William Clark in 2001).
Professor Didier Bigo
Political Science, Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris [France]
Didier.Bigo.Conflits(at)gmail.com
Didier Bigo has wide-ranging interests in the field of international relations, and has published extensively on security and liberty; biometric identifiers and databases; migrants and refugees; frontiers and visas; the relationship between internal and external security; and most recently on the development of illiberal practices within liberal regimes in the wake of 9/11. He edits the journal Cultures & Conflits and co-edits the journal International Political Sociology, and is the scientific coordinator of the FR5 program of the EC Commission European Liberty and Security (ELISE) and the 6PCRD (CHALLENGE).
Professor Keith Breckenridge
History, University of KwaZulu-Natal [South Africa]
Keith Breckenridge teaches history and internet studies, and has interests in the history of biometric identification technologies in nineteenth- and twentieth-century South Africa. His articles on the control of migration, practices of state documentation and the promise and peril of new forms of digital government have appeared in the Journal of South African Studies, Comparative Studies of Society and History and the History Workshop Journal.
Professor Simon Cole
Criminology, University of California, Irvine [USA]
Simon Cole specializes in the historical and sociological study of the interaction between science, technology, law, and criminal justice. His current interests are the sociology of forensic science and the development of criminal identification databases and biometric technologies. He is the author of Suspect Identities: A History of Fingerprinting and Criminal Identification (Harvard University Press, 2001), and also writes for general interest publications. He is a member of the American Judicature Society Commission on Forensic Science and Public Policy, and has been consulted and testified as an expert witness on the validity of fingerprint evidence.
Dr Claudine Dardy
Sociology, University of Paris 12 [France]
Claudine Dardy is interested in the symbolic, social and cultural aspects of writing in a wide range of administrative, institutional, professional and domestic contexts. She has published extensively on record-keeping, identity documents and archive management, and is the author of Identités de Papiers (Paris, 1990).
Professor Khaled Fahmy
History, New York University [USA]
Khaled Fahmy is a specialist in the social and cultural history of modern Egypt. He has published widely on military culture, surveillance and policing, forensic medicine and criminal law, and is the author of All the Pasha’s Men: Mehmed Ali, His Army and the Making of Modern Egypt (Cambridge, 1997).
Professor Béatrice Fraenkel
Anthropology, L’Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales [France]
Béatrice Fraenkel has wide-ranging interests in the anthropology of writing, and has published extensively on literacy, graffiti, semiology and the theory and practice of written communication within organisations. She is the author of La Signature: Genèse d’un Signe (Paris, 1992).
Professor Valentin Groebner
History, University of Lucerne [Switzerland]
Valentin Groebner specialises in the cultural history of medieval and Renaissance Europe. He has published widely on identity papers and modes of disguise in predindustrial contexts, and is the author of Who Are You? Identification, Deception and Surveillance in Early Modern Europe (New York, 2007).
Professor Steve Hindle
History, University of Warwick [UK]
Steve Hindle specialises in the social and economic history of early modern England. He has published extensively on poor relief, social relations and the character and development of the early modern state, and has recently authored pioneering articles on pauper badging and related technologies of identification introduced under the old poor law. His latest monograph On the Parish? The Micro-Politics of Poor Relief in Rural England c. 1550-1750 was published by Oxford University Press in 2004.
Professor David Lyon
Sociology, Queen’s University [Canada]
I have been working on identification issues in relation to surveillance for the past two decades. I am currently completing a book on Identifying Citizens: Surveillance, Social Sorting and the Other (Polity) and am co-editor with Colin Bennett of Playing the Identity Card: Identification and Surveillance in Global Perspective (Routledge, 2008). I direct The Surveillance Project at Queen’s University, which puts me in touch with a number of researchers working on ID issues from sociological, technical, legal and policy perspectives. I am also pursuing specific identification issues – historical, comparative, ethical – in a project for which I hold a Killam Research Fellowship 2008-2010. I am focusing on systems in Southeast Asia, selected Latin American countries and Israel/Palestine.
Professor Emilio Mordini
Bioethics and Psychoanalysis, Centre for Science, Society and Citizenship (CSSC) [Italy]
Emilio Mordini is a practicing psychiatrist and leading expert in the ethical and policy issues surrounding biomedical research and biometric identification. He has published extensively on the ethical, legal and social implications of emerging technologies in specialist and general publications, and has coordinated various research projects investigating bioethics at both Italian and European levels. He is managing director of the Centre for Science, Society and Citizenship (CSSC), and is a certified scientific expert of the Italian Ministry of Universities and Research.
Dr Takeshi Onimaru
Policy Studies, National Graduate Institute of Policy Studies (GRIPS) [Japan]
Takeshi Onimaru is a specialist in area studies with an emphasis on Southeast Asia. His current research interests include the British security systems implemented in the region in the 1930s, and a comparative study of the governmental systems designed to monitor the spread of infectious diseases (with special reference to Avian Flu). Since 2006 he has been a research fellow of the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS).
Professor Naomi Pfeffer
Sociology, London Metropolitan University [UK]
Naomi Pfeffer is a historian and sociologist working on controversial developments in medicine, especially those which raise questions about the ownership and commodification of the human body. She has written extensively on the history and politics of the new reproductive technologies and is currently working on the development and regulation of human cadaver tissue collections in both the USA and the UK. She recently completed a project on fetal stem cells sponsored by the ESRC Stem Cell Initiative.
Dr Pierre Piazza
Political Science, Cergy-Pontoise University [France]
Pierre Piazza is a specialist in the social history of state identification systems and techniques in modern France. After defending his PhD thesis on ‘The French National Identity Card: Politics and Identity’ in 2002 (Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University), he worked as research fellow at IHESI (now INHES) between 2003 and 2006. He has published several papers on the Bertillon system (anthropometry), fingerprinting (dactyloscopy), identity cards and biometrics, and is the author of Histoire de la Carte Nationale d’identité (Paris, 2004).
Professor Pamela Sankar
Bioethics, University of Pennsylvania [USA]
Pamela Sankar specialises in bioethics, and has research interests in medical privacy and confidentiality; the ethical and cultural implications of genetic research; and genetics and race. Her articles on these themes have appeared in Neurology, Science, Nature Genetics and the Annual Review of Medicine.
Dr Radhika Singha
History, Jawaharlal Nehru University [India]
Radhika Singha teaches history at the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Her research themes focus on the social history of crime and criminal law, and on identification practices in relation to colonial governmentality. The mobilisation of human resources from India for world war one has become a second, often intersecting, track of interest. She has published a book entitled A Despotism of Law: Crime and Justice in Early Colonial India (Oxford University Press, 1998), and in relation to the themes of this network articles on identification practices, law and infrastructural power, and colonial travel documents.
Dr Simon Szreter
History, University of Cambridge [UK]
Simon Szreter is a specialist in the economic and social history of modern Britain. He has interests in history and public policy, especially in relation to comparative demographic, social and economic change, and is currently researching the comparative history of civic registration systems. He is the author of Fertility, Class and Gender in Britain, 1860-1940 (Cambridge, 1996), and is a founding co-editor of the History & Policy website.
Professor John Torpey
Sociology, The Graduate Centre CUNY [USA]
John Torpey specialises in modern German society and history and is the author of The Invention the Passport: Surveillance, Citizenship and the State (Cambridge, 2000). This pioneering text has been widely influential for its discussion of the role of identity documents in the rise of modern states and their control over the movements of both citizens and outsiders. He is currently working on comparative voter ID requirements.
Invited 2009 Conference Participants
Professor Irus Braverman
Law, University at Buffalo SUNY [USA]
irusb(at)buffalo.edu
Dr Vincent Denis
History, University of Paris 1 [France]
vjdenis2(at)yahoo.fr
Professor Uma Dhupelia-Mesthrie
History, University of the Western Cape [SA]
umesthrie(at)uwc.ac.za
Mercedes García Ferrari
History, University of San Andrés [Argentina]
mgarciaferrari(at)gmail.com
Dr Karl Jakob Krogness
History, Ritsumeikan University [Japan]
karljakob(at)gmail.com
Professor Adam McKeown
History, Columbia University [USA]
amm2009(at)columbia.edu
Dr Anton Tantner
History, University of Vienna [Austria]
anton.tantner(at)univie.ac.at
Dr Ian Watson
Sociology, Bifröst University [Iceland]
ian(at)bifrost.is
Postgraduate & Postdoctoral Participants
Dr Ilsen About
History, Centre Marc Bloch Berlin [Germany]
ilsen.about(at)gmail.com
Melanie Griffiths
Anthropology, University of Oxford [UK]
melanie.griffiths(at)sant.ox.ac.uk
Stephan Gruber
History, University of Vienna [Austria]
stephan.gruber(at)identifizierung.org
Dr Julia Laite
History, Memorial University Newfoundland/McGill University [Canada]
julia.laite(at)gmail.com
Dr Gayle Lonergan
History, University of Oxford [UK]
gayle.lonergan(at)wolfson.ox.ac.uk
Anna Masoner
History, University of Vienna [Austria]
Daniel Messner
History, University of Vienna [Austria]
daniel.messner(at)identifizierung.org
Massimiliano Pagani
Sociology, University of Exeter [UK]
mp230(at)exeter.ac.uk
