Birth of identification

As soon as it is part of a long -term perspective, of the revolution of XVIII^e And XIX^e A centuries to recent debates around September 11, 2001, the history of identity and personal identification is an area of ​​research with numerous and important implications. At the same time, she suffers from her unstable contours, which are constantly susceptible to political, administrative and cultural revision.

To evoke such a quantity of implications, both historical and imaginary, Vincent Denis begins his book with two appropriate literary references: the history of Martin War XVI^e century, masterfully reconstructed by the historian Natalie Zemon Davis, and the novel by Honoré de Balzac Colonel Chabert (1832). From the end of XIX^e A century, works inspired by the theme of the identity dilemma are multiplying throughout Europe (let’s think of Dostoyevski, Stevenson, Wilde, Pirandello), thus giving off a crucial area for the definition of collective consciousness. More specificly, the two examples chosen by the author, one real and the other falling under fiction, represent exactly the chronological terminals which delimit the object of his study, namely the process of transformation of the concept of personal identity in France.

The book successfully focuses on reconstructing the historical framework (1715-1815) which makes the variety of phenomena intelligible to the development of a new identity model. Inspired by the work of Michel Foucault, Norbert Elias, Pierre Bourdieu, as well as recent historiographical production on the subject – Gérard Noiriel in prisimo -, and always looking for interactions between institutions and society, the author travels the genesis of new “ state knowledge »Without the concept of identification. Political and administrative changes between XVIII^e and the XIX^e century touched on crucial aspects of the existence of individuals and it is precisely within the dialectic between identifiers and identified that the thesis formulated in the book is located.

THE XVIII^e century, historical turning point

Vincent Denis, following a current of study now very present, sees in the XVIII^e century when the techniques and instruments of individual identification are still unpublished. By leaning over the old regime and the close correlation between the notions of identification and citizenship, the author stands out from historiography, especially contemporary, which even in this area insists on the role of caesura played by the French Revolution. The criterion of belonging to a national community defined by the Revolution, with the rights and duties that derive from it, is actually grafted on a substrate of already existing knowledge and practices. Two major events stand out from a historic situation – the first years of the reign of Louis XV – characterized by the demobilization of the huge army of Louis XIVthe fight against begging and vagrancy and the plague epidemic which rages from 1720 to 1723: the invention of passports and that of reporting methods.

Through a careful formal and material analysis of the documents, Vincent Denis highlights the slow evolution of the passport which, of simple provisional permit conceded by an authority in exceptional situations (health bulletins, war passports, authorizations for beggars), is transformed into a lasting certificate issued by an office created for this purpose: it is a paper support on which is annotated more and more detailed information on the identity of the possessor. Much later, this informative framework will be completed by a photo.

Such a change necessarily implies the development of a code making it possible to describe an individual on the basis of aesthetic and moral criteria shared both by those who describe and those which are described. In the incessant pursuit of maximum objectivity of such criteria, it is above all the physical characteristics that end up playing a privileged role to report people. Worked for a long time by the army, this technique becomes during the XVIII^e century the most widespread practice thanks to which “ The papers grab bodies ».

A sociology of identifiers

All these cognitive instruments developed during the XVIII^e century, however, remains a “ Practice without speech », Being the subject of a stable theoretical development only from the second half of XIX^e century. The only discursive production noted by the author before this time is reduced to a few preparatory documents, the memories of civil servants and, more generally, to the gray literature carried out by the administrative elites assigned to this mission. Only the social history of bureaucratic devices therefore makes it possible to understand the transmission of knowledge which leads to the development of a common model, conveyed by the continuity of the staff employed since the Regency.

Although the interpretation of V. Denis insists on this element of substantial continuity which would be supported by the chosen sources, these same sources show, however, that the revolution undoubtedly represents a moment of strong break, especially within the institutions responsible for identification. Indeed, measures recommended during parliamentary debates, it appears that the establishment of a profound legislative and administrative reorganization is essential. These changes, underlines V. Denis, are however not likely to question the process of approval of the personnel carried out by new bureaucracy and police devices.

In addition to the almost unanimous recognition of the results that the identification had produced under the old regime, the centralization of the functions previously dispersed between several local magistrates introduces, it seems, an element of rupture. One of the most significant examples, in this sense, is represented by the dissemination of the state of citizens and the complete expulsion of the parish clergy of the usual registration functions and census of the population.

Identification practices

V. Denis then moves the look at the mixture of archaic practices and modern procedures that characterizes this process of transformation. The research method as well as the choice of archive sources delimiting the object is justified more here. First of all, the geographic selection which attests to the complexity of French territory: Besançon, Bordeaux, Clermont-Ferrand and Paris. Then, the highlighting of certain precise points of application of the new methods of identification: the army and the fight against desertion, the campaign against begging and vagrancy, control of travelers and migrants – national and foreign -, and finally the particular domain of the identification of anonymous corpses.

With this methodological pragmatism, attentive to always distinguish the urban context and the rural context, Denis links legislative production (in particular the reform of the “ Citizens’ State In 1736 and the obligation to possession of passport approved in 1792) with the verbal capture trials highlighting the challenges of identification for each of the social actors. Thanks to this variety of sources and points of view, the study shows the growing importance of personal documents in the identification and control strategies which of specific social groups gradually extends, in general, to each individual.

Social legitimation

Finally, Denis addresses the always fleeting question of the social response to the reforms adopted in this area. It paints a table with complex dynamics, where the appearance of the rules generates the most varied conducts, including forms of resistance, real offenses, but also adaptation to standards as well as their manipulation in the form of counterfeiting and falsification of identity documents which are now widespread. In the passage of a company face to face to a company “ mass “, Based on a” paper citizenship There is thus a hybrid model of cohabitation of very different systems. The always current use of identification forms linked to the confession, self-declaration and recognition from a third party testifies to the permanence of oral identity certificates and not certified or validated by bureaucratic organizations.

Conclusion

The richness of sources and the multiplicity of perspectives, far from condemning the study to the lack of homogeneity which has often marked the work on identification techniques, ultimately give us a systematic vision of the phenomenon.

A reading also attentive to the relationships between standards and practices could however be exposed to the danger of not sufficiently valuing the role of institutions which articulate the first and seconds. Vincent Denis clearly shows the permanence of the concepts and techniques developed during the Regency, as well as the continuity of the administrative staff which serves as a backdrop for this process. The changes that have occurred in the management and application of these techniques are far from insignificant. The relative inertia of the instruments does not prevent a profound change in the institutions responsible for implementing them, institutions which are largely the outcome of the French Revolution.

In addition, the revolutionary and post-revolutionary years mark both the peak and the police crisis “ classic “And the birth of a police” modern “Which centralizes a lot of” state knowledge »Based on identification and whose XVIII^e century had drawn major features. In this perspective, it is possible to restore a fair measure to the experience of XIX^e century, not only in terms of the more stable theoretical development of an already existing model (the contribution of Bertillon and Lombroso is far from remaining purely repetitive Cf. D. Pick, Faces of Degeneration: A European Desorder. 1948-1918Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1989.), but also as an unprecedented institutional articulation of police tasks, within the new emerging administrative model.

The book by V. Denis, even in his most advanced hypotheses, therefore has the merit of updating an important track on which subsequent contributions can easily be grafted. From the solid reference points characterizing your work, it is now possible to follow the successive avatars linked to the problem of individual and collective identification, which will not cease to be debated at critical moments, such as wars, massacres or mass migratory movements.