A Paper Trap. Exiles versus the Identification Police in France during the Interwar Period

Abstract

Typically, an identity document appears as a portable object displaying parts of the self, as recorded and archived by public or private administrative agencies. However, rather than simply standing as a material object replicating an individual identity, it tends to become another self, detached from the body and matching an identity that has been instituted in a stable, unalterable form. This piece of paper, protected as it is by the law and a set of more or less efficient techniques, defies any alteration and can only be modified by authorized individuals.¹ The legal apparatus protecting the material object is usually accompanied by a desire to ensure the recurring renewal of the ID, so that it may follow the evolution of individuals—their physical transformation, changes of residence and potential modifications of the individual’s status over time. Hence, once allocated, these documents cannot be detached from the body, and possessing this power of embodiment they act to bind the identified and the identifiers.² The belief that gives ID papers their value as replicas is a basic foundation of trust that ties these two parties.³ All the parties involved acknowledge the ability of these artefacts to stand for an actual identity, and their relationship is built on this shared knowledge, which recognizes the secret power of ID papers.