Organised by the Aberdeen Centre for Constitutional and Public International Law (ACCPIL) and the Centre for Citizenship, Civil Society & Rule of Law (CISRUL)
By Dr Eve Hayes de Kalaf, School of Advanced Study, University of London
18 February, 1-2.30pm
King's College G7 and on Teams
This talk will explore the concept of the ‘statelessness-like experience’ (Hayes de Kalaf, 2025, Hayes de Kalaf & Slaven, 2026) to consider how people can experience exclusion in ways that do not fit comfortably within the legal parameters of citizenship deprivation, yet that can have an overwhelmingly detrimental impact on an individual’s wellbeing and legal personhood. Drawing upon examples from extensive research across the Caribbean, this paper will highlight some of the legal, moral and bureaucratic considerations that states, such as the UK, should consider when introducing compulsory digital identity schemes. Of particular concern is the growing empirical data evidencing how biometric technologies are exacerbating citizenship-stripping practices, statelessness and other modes of exclusion, impacting not only migrants in their claims for settlement but also the migrant-descended and citizens in their claims to recognition. While international organisations, governments, the tech industry and banks argue that the ‘right’ form of ID guarantees universal access to public and private sector services, this paper will engage with the concerns of system ‘users’ (i.e. citizens) to highlight how, for the people who experience contemporary ID systems, historical forms of racial and ethnic exclusion remain very much embedded within these seemingly ‘new’ technological infrastructures and state architectures.
Dr Eve Hayes de Kalaf, lecturer at the Institute of Historical Research, was one of the first PhD students to graduate from the University of Aberdeen Centre for Citizenship, Civil Society and Rule of Law (CISRUL) on a Comparative Statecraft Studentship Award (2014-2018). Dr Hayes de Kalaf’s critically acclaimed monograph ‘Legal Identity, Race and Belonging in the Dominican Republic: From Citizen to Foreigner’, published with a Foreword by the Pulitzer Prize-winning Dominican American author Junot Díaz (2023), was based on her doctoral research at CISRUL. The book examines how states can manufacture, block or deny access to citizens – including the migrant-descended – to their documentation. Her recent work on the AHRC-funded project ‘The Windrush Scandal in a Transnational and Commonwealth Context’ included extensive empirical research and oral history interviews across Jamaica, Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago. In November 2025, Dr Hayes de Kalaf travelled to Lagos, Nigeria to give the keynote address at the 7th Privacy Symposium Africa (PSA 2025). PSA is premier platform for the most pressing issues in data protection and digital governance, bringing together leading experts, regulators, policymakers, civil society actors, legal professionals, and industry leaders.
- Speaker
- Dr Eve Hayes de Kalaf, School of Advanced Study, University of London
- Venue
- King's College G7
- Contact
-
Irene Couzigou (irene.couzigou@abdn.ac.uk)
