Keren Weitzberg

I am a researcher and educator with extensive, on-the-ground expertise in East Africa. Working at the intersection of migration studies, critical race studies, and science and technology studies (STS), I examine problematics related to mobility, border-crossing, race-making, and biometrics. I have over a decade of experience carrying out archival research, fieldwork, and interviews in East Africa and collaborating with African scholars and practitioners.

My current project, tentatively entitled "Marketized Identities: A History of ID Cards, Biometrics, and Registration in Kenya", asks: How have East Africans harnessed, transformed, and subverted biometric technologies since they were first introduced in the early twentieth century? Can an identification and registration technique long associated with colonial extraction be a means of accelerating political and financial inclusion for the world’s poor, as many proponents suggest?