ID Wars in Côte d'Ivoire. Interview with Richard Banégas and Armando Cutolo

While it is well acknowledged that identity documents provide rights to citizenship and social inclusion, they can also generate violence and conflicts. In their recently published book entitled ID Wars in Côte d'Ivoire. A Political Ethnography of Identification and Citizenship (Oxford University Press), Richard Banégas and Armando Cutolo explore Côte d'Ivoire's 'ID war' as a paradigmatic case of a citizenship crisis, centered on the access to national identity cards and certificates. They answer our questions in this interview.

Can you remind us of the general context of what you call the Ivorian ID war, and what special status the national identity card held in this conflict?

The war that broke out in Côte d'Ivoire in September 2002 and officially ended in April 2011 with Alassane Ouattara's victory was described as an "identification war", a "war for papers", by the rebels who took up arms against Laurent Gbagbo's regime. They demanded full recognition for citizens from the north of the country, who were violently discriminated against. The radicalisation of the ethnonationalist ideology of "Ivoirité" under Bédié's regime in the 1990s, the excesses of the junta that constitutionally enshrined this "Ivoirité" in 2000, and the Gbagbo government's questioning of civil status and identification in the name of autochthony ignited a powder keg of identity issues. These events reshuffled the national question in Côte d'Ivoire. (...)

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