LAUSR

If sociology is ‘missing’ from the Aadhaar debate, to take Reetika Khera’s provocation seriously, the absence may reflect a disciplinary reluctance to accede to normative terms of contest in which the biometric identity platform must be rendered as boon or blight. Though a refusal of such normative formulations may be necessary, it carries its own ethical limit. Beyond the question of normative assessment, Aadhaar raises multiple additional questions. Several are noted here, questions on Aadhaar as regime of de-duplication; on database as emergent social imaginary; on the immateriality of Aadhaar; and on the collapse of welfare, wage, credit and product into ‘service’ as the emergent form of value.