Hassan H. Kochore, PhD Candidate, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology
During my recent PhD fieldwork researching aging in northern Kenya, older residents often asked whether I was interested in their ‘government age’ or ‘gaan d’alota’, one’s biological age. The government age is the date of birth captured on the government-issued kipande, identity card while gaan d’alota is (re-) counted through a local age system. There are often glaring numerical discrepancies between the two different ages individuals invoke. This paper draws on an (il) legibility ontology to unpack the complex ways these temporal systems intersect and compete. In particular, the talk locates this clash at the center of the Kenyan state’s byzantine and problematic history of colonial, postcolonial and contemporary registration and control regimes.