2019
Statelessness & Citizenship Review
1(2)
LEGIBILITY TOOLS AND TECHNOLOGY OF GOVERNING
James Scott argues that legibility is a central problem in statecraft; a modern state
seeks to ‘see’ and ‘know’ its population using various legibility tools in order to
assert control; population registration and identification are among the key tools.57
From the first identity card issued to residents of Bangkok and Thonburi in 1943
until today, the Thai state’s legibility practices have evolved to be more tightened,
integrated and sophisticated. 58 Since 1983, the Thai state has employed the 13digit personal identification number to document the subjects in its territory. 59
Each digit contains specific information about the person such as the province at
which they were registered and, to an extent, reveals their relationship to the state
(Thai citizen or non-citizen). 60 In principle, the same personal identification
number appears across all official documents, suggesting a coherent system that
tracks and traces a person’s documentary records. 61 While the database
connectivity makes the state appear omnipresent, ‘knowing’ and ‘seeing’ all its
populations, there are still identity discrepancies and loopholes in the bureaucracy
as shall be demonstrated by one of the ethnographic accounts later.
In the case of Thailand, the national identification system — in the forms of an
identification card and a 13-digit number — is among key practices to make
society legible. It has been historically set up not for universal allocation of rights,
but for ethnological classification, surveillance and differentiation . 62 The personal
identification number and the identification card not only demarcate scopes of
physical and social mobility but also a pathway toward citizenship. 63 The first
digit, in particular, suggests how a person is categorised by the state. A Thai citizen
born after 1984, for example, is assigned number one as the first digit in their
personal identification number, while those classified as ‘hill tribes’ and ‘[o]ther
highlanders who are not hill tribes’ are usually assigned number six, suggesting
their status as long-term alien residents. 64 An offspring of a number six card holder
is usually issued a number seven card. The number six and seven card holders may
be able to apply for Thai citizenship through s 7 bis (2) given that they satisfy other
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James C Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition
Have Failed (Yale University Press 1998) 2.
Pinkaew Laungaramsri, ‘Contested Citizenship: Cards, Colors and the Culture of
Identification’ in John A Marston (ed), Ethnicity, Borders, and the Grassroots Interface with
the State: Studies on Southeast Asia (Silkworm Books 2014) 143. Laungaramsri has also
published a book in Thai in 2018 that explores in depth the history and bureaucratic practices
of the Thai state with regards to population registration, identification card and other identity
documentation: Pinkaew Laungaramsri, Identity Documents: Genealogy of Population
Control in Thailand (Research Administration Centre Chiang Mai University 2018) in Thai:
ปิ่ นแก้ว เหลืองอร่ ามศรี อัตลักษณ์เอกสาร: วงศาวิทยาการควบคุมประชากรของรัฐไทย (ศูนย์บริ หารงานวิจยั มหาวิทยาลัยเชียงใหม่ 2561).
Archavanitkul (n 55) 186.
ibid. See also ระเบียบสํานักทะเบียนกลาง วาดวยการจัดทําทะเบียนราษฎร [Regulations of the National
Registration Office on Civil Registration] (Thailand) Statute No 151–52, 125 Royal Thai
Government Gazette 46, 26 November 2008, art 152(2).
Passports and driver licenses have their own series numbers but still display the 13 digit
identification numbers.
Laungaramsri, ‘Contested Citizenship’ (n 58) 148; Toyota (n 14) 111, 120.
Stateless highlanders and other persons without legal status are physically confined to a
province under which they are registered. Until 2016, they were only elgibile to hold one of
27 specified occupations. See ‘Thailand’ United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
(Web Page) <https://www.unhcr.org/ibelong/imvisible-thailand/>. See also Grisada
Boonrach, Statelessness Situation and Thailand’s Solutions, tr Bongkot Napaumporn (Report,
Ministry of Interior 2017) 9 n 23 (‘Statelessness Situation and Thailand’s Solutions’).
Cheva-Isarakul (n 10).
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