Call for Papers: Special Issue “Identification, Documents, and Records in Global History”

The journal Esboços: histórias em contextos globais, published by the Graduate Program in History at the Federal University of Santa Catarina (Brazil), invites researchers to submit articles for the special issue “Identification, Documents, and Records in Global History”, with a submission deadline of January 31, 2027.

This call for papers emerges from the activities of the Latin American Network for Interdisciplinary Studies, which brings together researchers from different countries across the region, on Identification. Through its regular meetings and workshops on identification practices, personal records, and associated technologies, a space for discussion has taken shape. These activities have contributed to consolidating an expanding field of study concerned with both historical and contemporary issues.

Over the past two decades, studies of identification have examined the historical development of identity documents, the expansion of systems for registering individuals, and the formation of identification regimes on a global scale. This field has made it possible to investigate both the capacity of states to identify and classify populations and the growing role of non-state actors in the production, management, and circulation of personal data.

From a historical perspective, these processes cannot be understood solely within national frameworks. The circulation of knowledge, techniques, and technologies—such as anthropometry, fingerprint identification, and, more recently, biometric systems—has followed transnational trajectories connecting different places, institutions, and actors.

In this context, Latin America offers particularly fertile ground for examining these issues. Far from occupying a secondary position, the region has played an active role in the appropriation, adaptation, and development of identification technologies, in constant dialogue with global networks. Moreover, the widespread adoption and mandatory use of identity documents, together with the early and sustained incorporation of biometric technologies, provide concrete opportunities to examine the relationships between identification, citizenship, social control, and access to rights.

The relevance of this special issue extends beyond the recent development of this field of study and reflects a context in which identification systems have acquired renewed prominence. The Smart Sampa program in São Paulo, which integrates facial recognition, artificial intelligence, and public and private databases in real time, demonstrates the extent to which identification practices have expanded beyond traditional documents, creating infrastructures of continuous surveillance. At the same time, its implementation has revealed persistent tensions: errors in identifying individuals, wrongful detentions, uses that exceed the stated objectives of public security, and difficulties in assessing potential biases in the functioning of algorithms.

Against this backdrop, the historical analysis of identification practices makes it possible to situate these developments within a long-term perspective, considering their antecedents, the circulation of knowledge and technologies, and the ways in which different actors have participated in the production, management, and use of personal data. Rather than representing a recent phenomenon, these systems form part of historical trajectories connecting technologies, institutions, and different scales of analysis, which are now taking on new configurations through the incorporation of biometric technologies and artificial intelligence.

This special issue seeks to bring together studies examining practices of identification and personal registration, considering both their technical dimensions and their social and political implications. It aims to foster dialogue among different disciplinary traditions and methodological approaches, covering a period extending from the nineteenth century to contemporary forms of identification.

We welcome contributions addressing, among others, the following themes:

• Identification practices and official records.
• Circulation of knowledge and identification technologies.
• Digital technologies, surveillance, and the control of mobility (borders and urban spaces).
• Forms of registration and identification beyond the state.
• Actors, experts, and institutions involved in identification.
• Algorithms, biases, and population classification in identification systems.
• Identity, rights, and citizenship.
• Resistance, uses, and appropriation of identification systems.

The special issue seeks to include studies that, working across different scales of analysis, situate these processes within broader frameworks of connection, circulation, and comparison, engaging with debates in Global History.

Guest Editors: Mercedes García Ferrari (Universidad Nacional de General Sarmiento / CONICET, Argentina) and Cristián Palacios Laval (Universidad Alberto Hurtado, Chile).

Submission deadline: January 31, 2027.