Afterword: The Future of Identification’s Past: Reflections on the Development of Historical Identification Studies

Abstract

As the chapters in the present collection show, the history of the techniques and technologies of identification is a young and vigorous field of research. The present volume is a worthy sequel to Caplan and Torpey’s groundbreaking collection of 2001, Documenting Individual Identity: The Development of State Practices in the Modern World, and the pioneering work of Gérard Noiriel on France and beyond. It also follows in the wake of substantial recent monographs by Pierre Piazza and Vincent Denis, among others, on the history of identification in France, Simon Cole and Chandak Sengoopta on fingerprinting, Valentin Groebner on identification in Renaissance Europe, Edward Higgs on England, Craig Robertson on the US passport, and the sociological works of David Lyon and Claudine Dardy.¹ In the wake of 9/11 and the development of the new biometrics industries, knowing who is who is a live political, commercial and intellectual issue. The question arises, therefore, as to where this collaborative research project should go next. Futurology is a justly suspect activity, and it would not be appropriate for us to attempt to set agendas, or stake out ground, for others to follow or explore. However, some comments on areas of the subject of identification that have not yet been fully examined might encourage others to develop their own research agendas.