Dr Keren Weitzberg, MA & PhD, Stanford University

Profile

Keren Weitzberg joined the Department of Politics and International Relations in September 2022 as a senior lecturer and fellow at the Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences. She is now People, Culture and Environment (PCE) Lead in the Department of Sociology, Politics and International Relations. Working at the intersection of science and technology studies, migration and border studies, and African history, Keren examines the socio-political implications and historical antecedents of digital identity and biometric systems. She is particularly interested in how biometric infrastructures shape the lives of refugees, borderland populations, and marginalized citizens. She has almost two decades of experience conducting research in Kenya. 

Keren’s interest in the intersections between migration and digital identity evolved out of research for her first book, We Do Not Have Borders: Greater Somalia and the Predicaments of Belonging in Kenya, which was a finalist for the 2018 African Studies Association Book Prize for best scholarly work on Africa. Keren is now working on a new book project, tentatively entitled Fingerprint of Empire, which weaves together multi-sited archival research and fieldwork. Using Kenya as its lens, the project examines how the ‘unidentified’ became an object of global concern and care in recent decades. It also looks at Kenya’s fraught history with fingerprinting, which was first introduced by British colonial authorities in the early twentieth century. The project asks: How are those at the geographic and metaphorical margins of the nation, who have historically struggled to access identification documents, navigating the digital identity turn? 

Keren is also interested in the relationship between biometric systems, climactic crisis, and scarcity. Both proponents and critics of ‘green growth’ have tended to focus on technologies intended to replace fossil fuels, overlooking those aimed at rationing and managing its diminishing returns and supplies. Studying technologies like biometrics—which mediate people’s access to resources, services, and freedoms likely to become scarcer and more unequally distributed in the coming decades—allows us to think critically about the risks, possibilities, and pressing challenges of post-growth and post-carbon economies. This includes the future of migration and the politics of social welfare, rationing, and redistribution in an age of ecological and environmental breakdown. 

In recent years, Keren has applied insights gleaned from her time in East Africa to broader global questions. Keren has worked on projects for civil society organisations like Amnesty International, Privacy International, and Campaign Against the Arms Trade, which have explored the rights of refugees in the digital age; the growing use of digital technologies for border and immigration enforcement; and the use of biometrics in the humanitarian sector and counterterrorism industry. Keren has also been interviewed for The New York Times, the BBC World Service, and BBC News, and her research has been featured in media outlets such as The Washington Post and Quartz Africa. Between 2021 and 2024, she served as book reviews editor for the journal Africa, one of the premier journals devoted to the study of African societies and culture.  

Office hour booking link 

Teaching

Keren has taught on the following modules at SPIR: POL332 (Civil Society: Democracy, Activism, and Social Change); POL372 (Africa and International Politics); and POL303 (Technology, War, and Politics). 

Research

Research Interests:

• Borders and migration 
• Digital technologies (e.g., digital identity systems and fintech) 
• Political history of East Africa 
• Climate technology, degrowth, and low-carbon economies 
• Archival research 
• Oral history and ethnography (including elite ethnographies) 

Examples of research funding:

Currently funded research projects:

‘Digital Sovereignty: Mobility, Identification, Inclusion,’ funded by The Robert Bosch Stiftung (2025-7)

Previous work has been supported by the following funding bodies/grants:

The Robert Bosch Stiftung (2023-2025)

Human Sciences Research Council (2020-1)

The Alan Turing Institute, Trustworthy Digital Infrastructure for Identity Systems (2020-1)

Arts Council England Project Grant (2020-21)

UCL Trellis: Public Art Programme (2020-21)

UKRI GCRF Digital Innovation for Development in Africa, Research network on datafication in East Africa (2020-21)

Fulbright US Scholar Award (2019-20)

American Academy of Learned Societies (ACLS) Fellowship (2019-20)

Privacy International (2019-2022)

British Academy/Leverhulme Small Research Grant (2018-9)

Publications

Books 

(In progress) Fingerprint of Empire: Biometric Infrastructures and the Making of Postcolonial Kenya 

Weitzberg, K. (2017) We Do Not Have Borders: Greater Somalia and the Predicaments of Belonging in Kenya. New African Histories series, Athens: Ohio University Press. 

Peer reviewed articles and book chapters 

Weitzberg, K. (2025) ‘Keeping people out of camps: biometric technologies, contested sovereignty, and border practices within humanitarian spaces’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 15(2), pp. 3590-3609.  

Upadhyaya, R., Weitzberg, K. and Bonyo, L. (2025) ‘Digital credit providers, regulatory frameworks, and structural power: A case study of digital microcredit regulation in Kenya’, Finance and Society, 11(1), pp. 1-23. 

Martin, A. and Weitzberg, K (2025). ‘Verified human? Identity inversions in the AI era’, in Reia, J., Forelle, M.C., and Wang, Y. (eds.) Reimagining AI for Environmental Justice and Creativity: Collection of Essays, Digital Technology for Democracy Lab, University of Virginia Press, pp. 67-9. 

Schoemaker, E., Martin, A., and Weitzberg, K. (2023) ‘Digital Identity and Inclusion: Tracing Technological Transitions’, Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, 24(1), pp. 36-45. 

Young, A. and Weitzberg, K. (2021) ‘Globalizing Racism and De-provincializing Muslim Africa’, Modern Intellectual History, 19(30), pp. 912-33.  

Weitzberg, K., Cheesman, M., Martin, A. and Schoemaker, E. (2021) ‘Between surveillance and recognition: Rethinking digital identity in aid’, Big Data & Society, 8(1), p. 20539517211006744. 

Weitzberg, K. (2020) ‘Biometrics, race making, and white exceptionalism: The controversy over universal fingerprinting in Kenya’, The Journal of African History, 61(1), pp. 23-43. 

Akbari, S.C., Herzog, T., Jütte, D., Nightingale, C., Rankin, W. and Weitzberg, K. (2017) ‘AHR conversation: Walls, borders, and boundaries in world history’, The American Historical Review, 122(5), pp. 1501-1553. 

Weitzberg, K. (2016) ‘Rethinking the “Shifta War” Fifty Years After Independence: Myth, Memory, and Marginalization’, in Kithinji, M.M., Koster, M.M. and Rotich, J.P. (eds) Kenya after 50: Reconfiguring historical, political, and policy milestones. London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 65-81. 

Weitzberg, K. (2015) ‘The unaccountable census: Colonial enumeration and its implications for the Somali people of Kenya’, The Journal of African History, 56(3), pp. 409-428. 

Weitzberg, K. (2013) ‘Producing history from elisions, fragments, and silences: Public testimony, the Asiatic poll-tax campaign, and the Isaaq Somali population of Kenya’, Northeast African Studies, 13(2), pp. 177-206. 

Select blogs and media 

Cheesman, M., A. Martin, and K. Weitzberg. (2025) ‘The Britcard: “Progressive” or Concerning?’ British Politics and Policy at LSE (blog), 16 July. 

Weitzberg, K. (2023) ‘Carbon Fingerprints.’ London Review of Books Blog, 14 February. 

Martin, A., Schoemaker, E., Weitzberg, K., Cheesman, M. (2021) Researching Digital Identity in Times of Crisis. Workshop Report for the Alan Turing Institute. August. 

Weitzberg, K. (2020) ‘Machine-Readable Refugees’, London Review of Books Blog, 14 September. 

Weitzberg, K. (2020) ‘Countries Around the World are Using Border Surveillance Systems Against their Own Citizens’, The Conversation, 17 August. 

Weitzberg, K. (2020) ‘In Kenya, You Cannot Go Anywhere Without an ID. I Don’t Have One’, Mail & Guardian, 13 April. 

Weitzberg, K. (2019) ‘Mobile Credit Expands Mass Surveillance of Ordinary Kenyans’, Coda Story, 11 September. 

Weitzberg, K. (2019) ‘Kenya’s Controversial Biometric Project is Shrouded in Secrecy’, Coda Story, 3 May. 

Weitzberg, K. (2017) ‘Instead of Building a Big, Beautiful Wall, We Should Rethink Our Idea of Borders’, The Washington Post. Made By History section, 11 August. 

Weitzberg, K. (2017) ‘The politics of national sovereignty’, Africa is a Country, 13 December.

Weitzberg, K. (2017) ‘Jeffrey Gettleman’s tired tome’, Africa is a Country, 21 July.

Reports for civil society groups 

Keren Weitzberg, Saada Loo, and Asha Jaffar. Identification without Integration? Past and Present Challenges for Refugees and Migrants in Kenya. Caribou Digital, the Haki na Sheria Initiative, and the Robert Bosch Foundation. 

Amnesty International (2024). Primer: Defending the Rights of Refugees and Migrants in the Digital Age. Based on research by Keren Weitzberg and Roya Pakzad. 

Weitzberg, K. (2022) A Very British Problem: The Evolution of Britain’s Militarized Industrial Complex. Report for Campaign Against the Arms Trade. 4 August. 

Weitzberg, K. (2022) Biometrics Collection Under the Pretext of Counter-Terrorism: Case Study of Israel/Palestine and Case Study of Somalia. Reports for Privacy International. 28 May. 

Public art and multi-media projects 

H is for Hostile Environment (2022), made with filmmaker and artist Edwin Mingard and over a dozen participants/artists. Trailer: https://chisenhale.org.uk/event/h-is-for-hostile-environment. 

‘Humanitarian Biometrics: Gateway or Barrier?’, made with artist Mado and the Cartoon Movement. Funded by the UKRI GCRF Digital Innovation for Development in Africa (DIDA) Research Network on datafication in East Africa. 

Photo-video essay: ‘When ID leaves you without identity: the case of double registration in Kenya,’ made with Privacy International, the Haki na Sheria Institute, photographers Richard Klein and Rich Allela, and dozens of participants in Garissa, Kenya. 

Supervision

I am interested in supervising PhD students working on topics related to migration and borders, digital technologies, and/or East African politics.

Public Engagement

I have worked closely with a range of civil society groups, including Makan, Privacy International, Amnesty International, Access Now, and Campaign Against the Arms Trade. I am on the advisory board for Haki na Sheria Initiative, a non-governmental organisation based in Garissa, Kenya. I was previously a member of the steering committee for the Just Tech and Migration Community, spearheaded by Amnesty International. I was also a member of the 2023 program committee for RightsCon, one of the largest gatherings in the world focused on human rights in the digital age. I regularly engage with policymakers in the EU, UK, Kenya, and across the humanitarian sector and have recently submitted written evidence to a Home Affairs Committee Inquiry on digital ID. 

I have worked closely with a range of civil society groups including Makan, Privacy International, Amnesty International, and Campaign Against the Arms Trade. I am on the advisory board for Haki na Sheria Initiative , a non-governmental organisation based in Garissa, Kenya, and was previously a member of the steering committee for Just Tech and Migration Community, spearheaded by Amnesty International.