The Documentality of the American Passport

Authors

Melissa Adler, Western University, CanadaFollow

Abstract

This paper outlines an agenda for examining the passport in its emergence in the United States. In the earliest U.S. passports, there is already a paradox that mirrors American liberal democracy itself—a nation founded, in Thomas Jefferson’s words, in the vision of an “empire of liberty.” It lays the groundwork for working through the concept of and processes associated with documentality and what documents do, as well as for understanding the extraordinary conditions and implications associated with the inscription of human lives into documentary systems. Studying the emergence of passports within a broader documentary regime of American surveillance and capture helps to understand how the U.S. passport functions in the present.

Recommended Citation

Adler, Melissa (2025) "The Documentality of the American Passport," Proceedings from the Document Academy: Vol. 12 : Iss. 2 , Article 16.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.35492/docam/12/2/20
Available at: https://ideaexchange.uakron.edu/docam/vol12/iss2/16

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

10.35492/docam/12/2/20