The Question Concerning Identification: A Tetradic Analysis of the Alberta Birth Certificate

• Author / Creator

  Buterman, Jan L.

• One little-noticed yet increasingly vital technology is the birth certificate. The existence of any technology transforms the environment, yet many technologies--just as the birth certificate--remain generally unnoticed or disregarded as neutral. Locating my research within a media ecology framework, I use McLuhan and McLuhan's Laws of Media to help us understand that instead of being neutral, technology is an active utterance of the human mind, transforming our entire environment. Following these Laws, I ask the fourfold question of what does the technology of the birth certificate enhance, obsolesce, retrieve and, when pushed to an extreme, reverse in to? To answer this question, I use the Tetrad of Media Effects to apply the Laws of Media to the technology of the birth certificate. In keeping with the complex nature of technologies and their environments, my research reveals that the technology of the birth certificate has a broad genealogy inclusive of documentation challenges for both transgender and cisgender individuals. Through exploring literature related these issues, as well as literature related to surveillance and documentation, records and archiving, and others, I begin to map some of this complexity to allow for closer examination. I uncover the history of birth registration and certification in Alberta, including an overview of the specifications and components used in this technology today, as well as the local, national, and international legal frameworks that comprise some of the literally-invisible aspects of this technology. Incorporating media reports also helps to flesh out the lived experiences of many different types of people and their interactions with birth certificates and related technologies. While my research was initially inspired by my experiences as a transgender person seeking to amend state-issued identification documents, my thesis uncovers the ongoing, universal effects of the technology of the birth certificate which applies to all. The birth certificate's active role in constructing modern citizenship means that identification technologies are a legitimate concern of adult education. Accordingly, my research demonstrates that identification technologies are an emerging site for adult education praxis.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Northwest Territories
  • Vital statistics
  • Official forms
  • Civil registrations
  • Alberta
  • Artefacts
  • Service Alberta
  • Legislative history
  • Birth certificates
  • Tetradic analysis
  • Official documents
  • Utterfacts
  • Human rights
  • Alberta registries
  • Laws of media
  • Administrative history
  • Technology
  • Adult education
  • Identity management
  • Images
  • Surveillance
  • Media ecology
  • NWT
  • Government documents
  • Technological history
  • McLuhan
  • Tetrad of media effects
  • Citizenship
  • Birth registrations
  • Government forms
  • Forms
  • Technological artefacts
  • Identification documents
  • Identification
  • Dataveillance
  • Identification systems

• Graduation date

  Spring 2017

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Master of Education

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R3ZC7S644

• License

  This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Libraries with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.