Passport: the small book and the power to shape freedom of movement

Turning a familiar object into an evocative historical and political issue

Today's passport is so familiar that it is easy to view it as a neutral document. But looking historically, travel rights were much less standardized. The popularity of passports is associated with the process of the state building an identification apparatus, managing borders and determining who has the right to cross them.\n\nThe notable point of this topic is the shift from identifying a person to classifying their legal status. Name, photo, date of birth and nationality do more than just describe the individual; they also subject individuals to an administrative order that has the ability to permit, delay, or deny movement. So passports both open up the world and show that freedom of movement has never been equally distributed.\n\nTale24 argues that the best way to read passports is not to view them simply as administrative achievements or surveillance tools. It is the meeting point of security, sovereignty and individual rights. The value of the research lies in forcing readers to look at an ordinary object with a broader political question: who has the right to determine who we are and where we are allowed to go?