cfp: Panel on "Doing Digital Identities" at EISA 2026
Stephan Scheel
Dear all,
we hope this message finds you well. We are writing to you because together with my colleague Salah El-Kahil I am organizing a panel on digital ID at the upcoming EISA-Conference in Lisbon (1-4 September).
The panel’s full title is “Doing Digital Identities: Exploring Reconfigurations of Citizenship, Sovereignty and Digital Statecraft” and you can find the abstract below.
If you are interested in joining the panel, please send us a paper proposal with title, abstract and your affiliation and contact information by 16 February at the latest (more info in EISA submission requirements below) since we need to submit the panel proposal together with titles and abstracts of the individual papers to the "digital IR" section.
Please send you paper proposals or any question you may have to both Salah (salah.e...@leuphana.de) and me (stephan...@leuphana.de).
With best wishes,
Salah and Stephan
Doing Digital Identities: Exploring Reconfigurations of Citizenship, Sovereignty and Digital Statecraft
The move from paper-based to digital identification systems, such as biometric databases linked to eID cards or so-called ‘identity wallets that promise remote access to commercial and government services are transforming the ways state authorities recognize, interact with, and govern citizens as well as access to their territories. The move to digital identification also reconfigures existing regimes of proof and accountability, conceptions of official identity and the role of the private sector in producing and governing legible subjects. Moreover, the move to digital identification devices reshapes identification practices in the context of border controls as well as related regimes of government. Examples include how digital travel credentials affect the international passport regime, struggles over standards in official documents developed by the ICAO and other standardizing bodies and how state authorities try to mitigate concerns over digital sovereignty and vendor locking with the need to exchange data with other state authorities to anticipate and mitigate transnational security threats associated with cross-border mobility. However, digital identification technologies can also be used by state authorities to engage in exclusionary or oppressive practices of government, including the mass surveillance of citizens or targeted repression of political opponents and minority populations. This panel invites papers that explore how digital identities are (re-)done in practice and how the move to digital means of identification reconfigures relationships between state authorities and citizens, the public and the private sector as well as key parameters of statecraft across diverse geographical, political, social, and technical sites and contexts.
Abstract word length and format
Abstract titles should not exceed 150 characters and should be written in Title Case, please capitalize the first letter of each word, excluding prepositions, articles, and conjunctions. Abstracts should not exceed 1800 characters. No pictures, tables, charts, or additional files should be included with the abstract. According to the submission platform, all submissions must include a title, abstract, and full list of co-authors or participants with their affiliations and e-mail addresses.