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The border is everywhere: ID cards, surveillance and the other

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... Another feature of identification systems that may contribute to attenuated warmth is that they can used for social sorting and categorization purposes (Lyon, 2013). In the UK, for example, national identification systems have been used to enable military authorities to identify eligible people to be called up for military service and to distinguish to which strata of the population an individual belongs (Thompson, 2013). ...
... Typically, in the literature on identification issues, it is not the act of identifying oneself per se (e.g., showing an ID card) that poses a threat to privacy. Identification provides a connection to a database with information about the individual (Cofta, 2008;Lyon, 2004), and it is such databasesin which personal data are concentrated and can be subject to attacks and misuse that pose the real privacy threat (Cofta, 2008;Lyon, 2004Lyon, , 2010Lyon, , 2013Rule et al., 1983;Whitley & Hosein, 2010). A related and frequently mentioned possible threat to privacy is labelled "functional creep", which refers to a setting in which identification was originally used for a specific purpose, but this purpose is lost in incremental extensions of its scope (Cofta, 2008;Kent & Millett, 2002;Lyon, 2013;Martin & Taylor, 2021). ...
... Identification provides a connection to a database with information about the individual (Cofta, 2008;Lyon, 2004), and it is such databasesin which personal data are concentrated and can be subject to attacks and misuse that pose the real privacy threat (Cofta, 2008;Lyon, 2004Lyon, , 2010Lyon, , 2013Rule et al., 1983;Whitley & Hosein, 2010). A related and frequently mentioned possible threat to privacy is labelled "functional creep", which refers to a setting in which identification was originally used for a specific purpose, but this purpose is lost in incremental extensions of its scope (Cofta, 2008;Kent & Millett, 2002;Lyon, 2013;Martin & Taylor, 2021). That is to say, sometimes there are irresistible temptations to expand the use of an identification system (and the data that it accumulates) once it is established in one area (Davies, 1994). ...
Article
In the not-so-distant future, when we are expected to be increasingly engaged in interactions with service robots, it can also be expected that such interactions will require that we identify ourselves. That is to say, given that identification demands occur frequently when we use computers, mobile telephones and websites, it is expected that this will be the case also for service robots. So far, however, the effects of such demands have not been examined in existing research on human-to-robot interactions. Yet, identification is an issue with potentially profound implications, and demands for identification appear to have mainly a negative charge in many settings beyond human-to-robot interactions. Therefore, the purpose of the present study is to explore what happens when a user of a service robot is asked by the robot to identify him/herself. To this end, two experiments were conducted in which a service robot’s demand for user identification was manipulated (no demand for identification before usage vs. demand for identification before usage). The results indicate that the robot’s demand for identification attenuated perceived robot warmth, usefulness, and trust; enhanced privacy concerns; and reduced the overall evaluation of the robot. A proposed mechanism behind these outcomes, priming, was assessed empirically. The results with respect to the latter indicate that a robot’s request for identification makes accessible mainly negatively charged material about identification in other contexts than human-to-robot interactions, and that this material informs responses to the robot.
... The concepts of borderlands and frontiers have become less prominent because they are still grounded in what scholars (Agnew, 1994(Agnew, , 2008Newman, 2006aNewman, , 2016Paasi, 2012Paasi, , 2014 call the classical notion of territorialism that assumes border as "fixed" and a material "thing." Additionally, it is argued that bordering practices can also be found in places not necessarily located at the international border line; the argument is that borders can be found "everywhere" (ÓTuathail, 1999;Balibar and Williams, 2002;van Houtum and van Naerssen, 2002;Lyon, 2005;Rumford, 2006) in places such as airports, highways, etc. ...
... A new emerging approach is "borderscapes" (Brambilla, 2015) and "borderities" (Amilhat-Szary and Giraut, 2015) which, unlike territorialism, place the emphasis on the intersection of State/security/mobility. These studies rely on Foucault's concepts of biopolitics, and governmentality as spatial practice aimed at controlling, punishing, and disciplining bodies. 1 The body or mobility of bodies (e.g., international migrants) is the subject of study, particularly how biometric technology has merged the border and the body to create data and algorithms for risk analysis (Lyon, 2005). Some studies (Balibar and Williams, 2002;Lyon, 2005;Rumford, 2006) have put forward the notion that borders are "everywhere," arguing that borders have become a-territorial/a-spatial; this is, functions traditionally thought to take place at the border (e.g., passport control, customs, surveillance, etc.) now happen in any location, such as airports, and city streets and become part of everyday life (Amilhat-Szary and Giraut, 2015), and how these bordering practices are resisted and subverted (Anderson and O'Dowd, 1999;Kraudzun, 2012). ...
... These studies rely on Foucault's concepts of biopolitics, and governmentality as spatial practice aimed at controlling, punishing, and disciplining bodies. 1 The body or mobility of bodies (e.g., international migrants) is the subject of study, particularly how biometric technology has merged the border and the body to create data and algorithms for risk analysis (Lyon, 2005). Some studies (Balibar and Williams, 2002;Lyon, 2005;Rumford, 2006) have put forward the notion that borders are "everywhere," arguing that borders have become a-territorial/a-spatial; this is, functions traditionally thought to take place at the border (e.g., passport control, customs, surveillance, etc.) now happen in any location, such as airports, and city streets and become part of everyday life (Amilhat-Szary and Giraut, 2015), and how these bordering practices are resisted and subverted (Anderson and O'Dowd, 1999;Kraudzun, 2012). ...
... The concepts of borderlands and frontiers have become less prominent because they are still grounded in what scholars (Agnew, 1994(Agnew, , 2008Newman, 2006aNewman, , 2016Paasi, 2012Paasi, , 2014 call the classical notion of territorialism that assumes border as "fixed" and a material "thing." Additionally, it is argued that bordering practices can also be found in places not necessarily located at the international border line; the argument is that borders can be found "everywhere" (ÓTuathail, 1999;Balibar and Williams, 2002;van Houtum and van Naerssen, 2002;Lyon, 2005;Rumford, 2006) in places such as airports, highways, etc. ...
... A new emerging approach is "borderscapes" (Brambilla, 2015) and "borderities" (Amilhat-Szary and Giraut, 2015) which, unlike territorialism, place the emphasis on the intersection of State/security/mobility. These studies rely on Foucault's concepts of biopolitics, and governmentality as spatial practice aimed at controlling, punishing, and disciplining bodies. 1 The body or mobility of bodies (e.g., international migrants) is the subject of study, particularly how biometric technology has merged the border and the body to create data and algorithms for risk analysis (Lyon, 2005). Some studies (Balibar and Williams, 2002;Lyon, 2005;Rumford, 2006) have put forward the notion that borders are "everywhere," arguing that borders have become a-territorial/a-spatial; this is, functions traditionally thought to take place at the border (e.g., passport control, customs, surveillance, etc.) now happen in any location, such as airports, and city streets and become part of everyday life (Amilhat-Szary and Giraut, 2015), and how these bordering practices are resisted and subverted (Anderson and O'Dowd, 1999;Kraudzun, 2012). ...
... These studies rely on Foucault's concepts of biopolitics, and governmentality as spatial practice aimed at controlling, punishing, and disciplining bodies. 1 The body or mobility of bodies (e.g., international migrants) is the subject of study, particularly how biometric technology has merged the border and the body to create data and algorithms for risk analysis (Lyon, 2005). Some studies (Balibar and Williams, 2002;Lyon, 2005;Rumford, 2006) have put forward the notion that borders are "everywhere," arguing that borders have become a-territorial/a-spatial; this is, functions traditionally thought to take place at the border (e.g., passport control, customs, surveillance, etc.) now happen in any location, such as airports, and city streets and become part of everyday life (Amilhat-Szary and Giraut, 2015), and how these bordering practices are resisted and subverted (Anderson and O'Dowd, 1999;Kraudzun, 2012). ...
... The concepts of borderlands and frontiers have become less prominent because they are still grounded in what scholars (Agnew, 1994(Agnew, , 2008Newman, 2006aNewman, , 2016Paasi, 2012Paasi, , 2014 call the classical notion of territorialism that assumes border as "fixed" and a material "thing." Additionally, it is argued that bordering practices can also be found in places not necessarily located at the international border line; the argument is that borders can be found "everywhere" (ÓTuathail, 1999;Balibar and Williams, 2002;van Houtum and van Naerssen, 2002;Lyon, 2005;Rumford, 2006) in places such as airports, highways, etc. ...
... A new emerging approach is "borderscapes" (Brambilla, 2015) and "borderities" (Amilhat-Szary and Giraut, 2015) which, unlike territorialism, place the emphasis on the intersection of State/security/mobility. These studies rely on Foucault's concepts of biopolitics, and governmentality as spatial practice aimed at controlling, punishing, and disciplining bodies. 1 The body or mobility of bodies (e.g., international migrants) is the subject of study, particularly how biometric technology has merged the border and the body to create data and algorithms for risk analysis (Lyon, 2005). Some studies (Balibar and Williams, 2002;Lyon, 2005;Rumford, 2006) have put forward the notion that borders are "everywhere," arguing that borders have become a-territorial/a-spatial; this is, functions traditionally thought to take place at the border (e.g., passport control, customs, surveillance, etc.) now happen in any location, such as airports, and city streets and become part of everyday life (Amilhat-Szary and Giraut, 2015), and how these bordering practices are resisted and subverted (Anderson and O'Dowd, 1999;Kraudzun, 2012). ...
... These studies rely on Foucault's concepts of biopolitics, and governmentality as spatial practice aimed at controlling, punishing, and disciplining bodies. 1 The body or mobility of bodies (e.g., international migrants) is the subject of study, particularly how biometric technology has merged the border and the body to create data and algorithms for risk analysis (Lyon, 2005). Some studies (Balibar and Williams, 2002;Lyon, 2005;Rumford, 2006) have put forward the notion that borders are "everywhere," arguing that borders have become a-territorial/a-spatial; this is, functions traditionally thought to take place at the border (e.g., passport control, customs, surveillance, etc.) now happen in any location, such as airports, and city streets and become part of everyday life (Amilhat-Szary and Giraut, 2015), and how these bordering practices are resisted and subverted (Anderson and O'Dowd, 1999;Kraudzun, 2012). ...
Book
Full-text available
The Routledge Handbook of Smuggling offers a comprehensive survey of interdisciplinary research related to smuggling, reflecting on key themes, and charting current and future trends. Divided into six parts and spanning over 30 chapters, the volume covers themes such as mobility, borders, violent conflict, and state politics, as well as looks at the smuggling of specific goods – from rice and gasoline to wildlife, weapons, and cocaine. Chapters engage with some of the most contentious academic and policy debates of the twenty-first century, including the historical creation of borders, re-bordering, the criminalisation of migration, and the politics of selective toleration of smuggling. As it maps a field that contains unique methodological, ethical, and risk-related challenges, the book takes stock not only of the state of our shared knowledge, but also reflects on how this has been produced, pointing to blind spots and providing an informed vision of the future of the field. Bringing together established and emerging scholars from around the world, The Routledge Handbook of Smuggling is an indispensable resource for students and researchers of conflict studies, borderland studies, criminology, political science, global development, anthropology, sociology, and geography.
... Conforme a los trabajos académicos que existen en este ámbito, algunas características y transformaciones provocadas en el control migratorio a partir de la incorporación de nuevas tecnologías de identificación y vigilancia son: 1) estas tecnologías supusieron mayor rapidez en los procesos de identificación, logrando que la información consignada en los documentos pueda ser reproducida, intercambiada y comparada con grandes bases de datos (About y Denis, 2011;Côté-Boucher, 2008); 2) multiplicación, expansión y mayor elasticidad de las fronteras que cada vez coinciden menos con los límites territoriales de los Estados (Amoore, 2006;Amoore y Raley, 2017;Follis, 2017;Lyon, 2005); 3) se remarca la necesidad de cuestionar el discurso de los actores que promueven el uso de tecnologías, ya que brindan una mirada que sobrevalora de modo positivo la efectividad de estos sistemas, sin mencionar el fuerte trabajo tecnológico que requieren para su implementación y los problemas asociados a su mantenimiento (Walters, 2010;Bellanova y Glouftsios, 2020 T e m a c e n t r a l población", según dicho decreto. Diagnóstico que esta precedido por la idea de una necesidad imprescindible del cambio de los sistemas manuales de registro a sistemas informáticos automatizados. ...
... Este módulo también prestaría interoperabilidad con los sistemas de datos del Renaper, Gendarmería Nacional y Policía Federal. La disponibilidad de las bases de datos en línea produciría una multiplicación y expansión de la frontera (Lyon, 2005), pues se habilitaría que los diferentes puntos de control pudieran vigilar el ingreso, el egreso y permanencia de las personas controlando su estatuto migratorio e impedimentos de manera instantánea. ...
Article
Full-text available
Este artículo analiza la incorporación de las nuevas tecnologías para la vigilancia de las migraciones y las fronteras en Argentina durante 1981-2001. En términos metodológicos, se tomó información de documentos oficiales (decretos, contratos y concursos públicos), así como de entrevistas semiestructuradas a personal del Ministerio del Interior y la Dirección Nacional de Migraciones. También se tuvo en cuenta las intervenciones de especialistas y parlamentarios expertos que participaron en la Comisión de Población y Recursos Humanos de la Cámara de Diputados entre 2000 y 2002. Los hallazgos sugieren que la incorporación de nuevas tecnologías para el control migratorio y fronterizo se relacionan, por un lado, con la prevalencia de medidas estandarizadas de legibilidad en el largo plazo, y por otro, con los procesos de securitización de la “inmigración limítrofe” que estarían destinadas a proteger el “orden social” en Argentina.
... Finamente, el texto también retoma algunas nociones y conceptos que permiten comprender la frontera en relación con los desarrollos de las tecnologías mencionadas. Por un lado, se retoma la idea de Lyon (2005) cuando afirma que la frontera está en todos lados (the border is everywhere), como una forma de comprenderlas más allá de los límites territoria-La digitalización del control migratorio y fronterizo en Argentina les, incrustadas en bases de datos y en las tarjetas de identidad o pasaportes que llevan las personas en sus bolsillos, y por otro lado, la afirmación de Leese (2020), que señala como los puestos de control se convierten en espacios de producción de identidad e información de los individuos que circulan y se registran a través de ellos. De este modo, se entiende que, si bien las tecnologías expanden, deslocalizan y externalizan las fronteras, también requieren de sitios o puntos administrativos a través de los cuales se recoge la información biométrica y otro tipo de datos que sirven para la identificación de los individuos y la constitución de registros personales. ...
... Aunque mucho se ha dicho sobre las tecnologías como herramientas para la externalización de las fronteras en el caso de Estados Unidos o Europa, en Argentina las tecnologías también permiten ver un proceso de expansión interna de las fronteras. Así, la dimensión de la expresión the border is everywhere (Lyon, 2005), debe entenderse también hacia el interior de los ⁶ Desde la perspectiva oficial, la regularización migratoria era concebida como un paso necesario para el acceso a los derechos contemplados en la nueva legislación (Domenech, 2009), a la vez que una medida de control destinada a registrar información sobre las personas que ya residen en el territorio (Domenech, 2009; Pereira, 2019). ...
Article
Full-text available
|El objetivo de este artículo es analizar las transformaciones que ocurrieron en el control migratorio y fronterizo a partir de la incorporación de nuevas tecnologías de identificación y vigilancia en Argentina durante el período 2003-2015. El método seleccionado para este trabajo se basa en un enfoque cualitativo, cuyo instrumento central es la recolección de documentos, entre los que se destacan leyes, decretos, resoluciones, memorias de organismos estatales, publicaciones periódicas, videos on-line y entrevistas periodísticas. Además, el trabajo documental se complementa con entrevistas y conversaciones informales con funcionarios de la Dirección Nacional de Migraciones. El texto señala que las nuevas tecnologías provocan transformaciones en el control migratorio, aunque el objetivo sigue siendo la clasificación y selección de la migración a partir de la distinción entre “regulares” e “irregulares”. Finalmente advierte sobre la necesidad de profundizar esta línea de investigación.
... Therefore, national identity cards, including citizen biometric databases, are important for successful surveillance. For instance, national identification cards help policymakers differentiate between people who are supposed to have full citizenship rights, benefits, opportunities, and privileges from those who are not, as well as help to eliminate or minimise citizenship fraud (Lyon 2005). Only strong institutions, free of widespread corruption, could do this (Anderson 2013). ...
... In terms of distinguishing Nigerians and Nigeriens, the cultural affinity in terms of faith and ethnicity has generated nationality crises for border security officers. The national identification card aims to differentiate citizens from non-citizens (Lyon 2005). Since neither Nigeria nor Niger has a detailed biometric database of their residents, citizens of border communities often obtain dual nationality as Nigerians and Nigeriens at the same time. ...
Article
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While studies have explored how the porosity of the Nigeria–Niger Republic border has fuelled the insecurity in Nigeria, they have glossed over the value of a shift in strategy from surveillance to whistleblowing as an approach for managing trans-border arms trafficking. This study explores the inadequacy of the surveillance approach in the management of trans-border arms trafficking on theNigeria–Niger Republic frontiers and suggests the whistleblowing approach as a more effective border security governance alternative. This study utilized a qualitative dominant method based on ethnographic fieldwork, comprising participant observation and interviews with security personnel, community leaders, and other stakeholders purposively selected along the Nigeria–Niger Republic borders. The study found, among other things, that border communities have been excluded in the border security governance on the Nigeria–Niger Republic borders, which leads to information asymmetry that benefits arms traffickers, thereby undermining the surveillance approach in border security management. The paper concludes that adopting the whistleblowing approach to supplement the surveillance approach while partnering with border communities is relevant in curbing arms trafficking on the Nigeria–Niger borders.
... Passively and silently resting inside the human body, this information, about identity, legal status, or the degree of risk a certain individual, represents a latent pool of data, which can be mined in order to determine who is 'safe' and who constitutes a 'risk', and consequently, whose freedom of mobility should be restricted. When the information needed to enforce borders is carried in bodies at all times, border control is no longer limited to specific entry points to nation-state territories, but may be carried out wherever 'risky' bodies appear (Aas, 2006;Adey, 2009;Amoore, 2006;Lyon, 2005;van der Ploeg, 1999avan der Ploeg, , 1999bvan der Ploeg, , 2003Weber, 2006). Indeed, as Louise Amoore (2006, p. 338) has argued, 'the biometric border is the portable border par excellence, carried by mobile bodies at the very same time as it is deployed to divide bodies at international boundaries, airports, railway stations, on subways or city streets, in the office or the neighbourhood'. ...
... Surveillance of mobile populations through the body consequently seems to provide the solution to one of the key dilemmas in a time of heightened insecurity about global mobility: namely, the need to strengthen security without impeding globalization. Indeed, many of the technologies discussed above serve the dual purpose of facilitating the mobility of capital, goods and low-risk, 'normal' and 'qualified bodies', while, at the same time, imposing restrictions on the mobility of high-risk, 'deviant' and 'disqualified' bodies (Aas, 2006;Amoore, 2006;Coleman, 2007;Lyon, 2005;Sparke, 2006;van der Ploeg, 2003). ...
Article
Full-text available
This paper argues that cultural and political strategies that appeal to citizenship and national identity can be used to regulate flows across borders. In this process, citizen bodies may be enrolled as key agents. Drawing on the National Friday Wear programme – a Ghanaian government initiative intended to encourage white-collar workers to dress their bodies in domestically produced textiles on Fridays to reduce the consumption, and thereby also the inflow, of foreign textiles – the paper illustrates that citizen bodies are both spaces upon which borders are inscribed and geopolitical actors that perform borders on behalf of the nation-state.
... Based on my research findings and in light of the application of metaphors that are used to describe migration, I found it useful to develop a heuristic device or alternative metaphor of "borders as mirrors" in order to generate intellectual reflection about how bordering processes are as much about ourselves as they are about migrants or those perceived to be "others." The idea of "borders as mirrors" adds to the literature on critical perspectives in criminology by complementing existing scholarship that encourages us to question the socio-political function of borders and their ubiquity, as well as the role of borders in excluding and criminalizing minority ethnic groups and in maintaining racial hierarchies and regulating foreigners across the globe (Aas 2016;Lalonde 2018;Lyon 2005;Preston and Perez 2006). Furthermore, the concept of borders as mirrors contributes to a growing area within critical race studies, which theorizes the mutable, hidden and encoded nature of racism in contemporary societies: "racism is relocating both underneath and at the surface of the skin. ...
... This practice-to extend the mirrors metaphor-acted like a two-way mirror where suspects were watched, monitored and tracked without knowledge of the practice, its aims or its consequences. Once identified as not having papers, digital technologies of border control were employed to transcend time and space by searching databases, categorizing people and distinguishing outsiders and insiders (Lyon 2005). They would subsequently be monitored and their biometric data scoured to identify avenues for removal proceedings to be set in train. ...
Article
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This article considers how state-controlled borders and bordering practices are conceptualized, what they symbolize, and the consequences of these representations. By analyzing critically the metaphors that are used to describe borders and migration, and by drawing on empirical research on policing migration in the United Kingdom, an alternative metaphor, where borders are depicted heuristically as mirrors, may be instructive for capturing the multiple functions of borders and their racializing consequences. I propose that borders and their control across Western liberal democracies are like mirrors that represent, reflect and, at times, deflect the reality of exclusionary attitudes and the racialized anxieties they foment. Harnessing the function of borders through a process of self-reflection, where societies hold a mirror to themselves, may be both instructive and transformative. By reconsidering the metaphors employed in relation to migration, the article contributes to interdisciplinary debates on border studies, critical race perspectives and the criminalization of mobility.
... The national ID card is a system that links people and their data (Clarke, 1994), which is implemented in many countries across the world (Lyon, 2013). Lips et al. (2009) note that the use of ID systems helps to reorganise activities including citizens' rights and responsibilities. ...
... This is to ensure the integrity and authentication of the cards. Lyon (2013) argues that the ID cards help to improve surveillance capacities in keeping track of citizens inside a country's borders. Names linked with codes, such as addresses, help to avoid serious consequences, which include inaccurate facts and false matches (Beynon-Davies, 2011). ...
Article
An individual identity document (ID) is the most important identification method within a country, for both the government and the citizens. However, the physical addresses captured and stored in the ID systems and printed on individual IDs in the Republic of Angola are consistently inconsistent, duplicated, and incorrect. As a result, government service delivery, such as basic sanitation, health care, and security are often challenged and compromised. Thus, the aim of this study was to develop an information systems framework to improve the current system that is used to issue IDs in the country. In order to achieve this aim, semistructured interviews were used to collect qualitative data. The data were collected from a governmental institution, the Ministry of Homeland, and from the community of Luanda in Angola. The data collected were hermeneutically analysed through the lens of the duality of structure from a structuration theory perspective. Based on the analysis, factors of influence were revealed and interpreted, which resulted in the development of a framework. The framework is intended to, from an information and communication technology (ICT) perspective, enhance the quality of data and improve the accuracy of issued IDs in Angola.
... Since the beginning of 21 st century, scholars from a range of disciplines have focused on techno-human interventions that aim to locate, examine, categorise, authorise, or immobilise border crossers (see Bigo 2002;Lyon 2003Lyon , 2005Adey 2004;Monahan 2006;Wilson 2006;Broeders 2007;Amoore et al. 2008;Neal 2009;Aas et al. 2009;Aas 2011;Van der Ploeg and Sprenkels 2011;Broeders and Hampshire 2013;Milivojevic 2013;Gerard 2014;Kinnvall and Svensson 2015;Andersson 2016;Dijstelbloem et al. 2017). Regardless of whether you are a tourist or an asylum seeker, you will inevitably encounter many tentacles of a technosocial mobility apparatus at some point during your journey. ...
... Security technologies such as biometrics that measure and record people's unique physiological characteristics, as well as surveillance of people on the move have been used in contemporary border policing so much that '[t]he prime function of surveillance' -and I would argue, security technologies more broadly -'in the contemporary era is border control' (Boyne 2000, p. 287). It is no surprise then that technology-migration nexus, especially when it comes to eliminating risky travellers, has captured the interest of a range of scholars in social sciences for quite some time (Adey 2004;Aas 2005;Lyon 2005;Lyon 2007a; Van der Ploeg 2006;Wonders 2006;Wilson 2006;Squire 2010;Dijstelbloem et al. 2017). While academics have long argued that states' obsession with technology fuels the fantasy of total security (Bourne et al. 2015), the race to build a bigger, better and faster border controls is still on. ...
Book
This book is a unique and original examination of borders and bordering practices in the Western Balkans prior to, during, and after the migrant "crisis" of the 2010s. Based on extensive, mixed-method, exploratory research in Serbia, Croatia, FYR Macedonia, and Kosovo, the book charts technological and human interventions deployed in this region that simultaneously enable and hinder the mobility projects of border crossers. Within the rich historical context of the Balkan Wars and subsequent displacement of many people from the region and beyond, this book discusses the types and locations of borders as well as their development, transformation, and impact on people on the move. These border crossers fall into three distinct categories: people from the Middle East, Africa, and Asia transiting the region; citizens of the Western Balkans seeking asylum and access to labour markets in the EU; and women border crossers. This book also maps border struggles that follow these processes, analyses the creation of labour "reserves" in the region, and examines the role that technology – in particular smartphones and social media - play in regulating mobility and creating social change. This volume also explores the role of the EU in, and the impact of the aforementioned processes on nation-states of the Western Balkans, their European future, and mobility in the region. Whilst the book focusses on a particular region in Southeast Europe, its findings can be easily applied to other social contexts and settings. It will be particularly useful to academics and postgraduate students studying social sciences such as criminology, sociology, legal studies, law, international relations, political science, and gender studies. It will also be useful for legal practitioners, NGO activists, and government officials.
... However, without an e-system of citizens in place, in 2020, the UK government could not trace e-footprints or medical histories as the Taiwanese government could. A point worth making here is that British citizens' concerns about id cards are not isolated; the debate on id cards is also closely associated with state surveillance and monitoring of citizens' behaviour in the United States and Canada (Lyon, 2013). The technical setting (of e-id card) is similar in the EU, UK, North American countries, and Taiwan, but citizens' acceptance of such a setting varies. ...
Article
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The covid -19 pandemic required swift responses from governments at all levels. Government agencies were faced with the immense task of mitigating the health, social, and economic effects of covid -19. These actions and responses included developing mobile phone location tracking systems and ‘electronic fences’ alongside the use of big data analytics. Whether intentionally or not, this led to questions about the rise of the ‘biosurveillance state’. In this paper, we examine the extent to which digital democracy has emerged as a contested concept in Taiwan. Furthermore, we ask: to what extent is the use of digital surveillance for disease control and prevention justifiable, and to what extent can personal privacy be sacrificed when adopting digital surveillance measures with the aim of securing collective safety? We compare Taiwanese citizens’ concerns about personal privacy with those in other democracies, such as the UK, and those in the EU and North America.
... Otros autores (Lyon, 2013;Rumford, 2012) argumentan que las fronteras se vuelven aterritoriales y se pueden localizar y encontrar en cualquier lugar y no solamente en la línea -real o imaginaria-que comparten dos Estados-naciones. Ahondando en este aspecto, y en la innovación institucional, esto implica identificar la manera en que esta nueva concepción relacional y aterritorial transforma las prácticas y técnicas para seleccionar los flujos considerados de bajo riesgo y así facilitar la fluidez (p. ...
Article
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This article analyzes institutional innovation based on four dimensions such as knowledge, bureaucracy, organization, and technology. The article uses a comparative analysis using three crossborder governance models such as territoriality, open borders and mobile; also multiple dimensions of innovation that take place in the U.S.-Mexico border. The comparative analysis is complemented by a content analysis. The article makes a couple of contributions to the current literature: One, innovation is analyzed critically and highlights that it does not always produce positive outcomes; there are questionable ethical issues as well. Second, the article points out that a sole crossboder governance model is no possible because the public agenda is very diverse and complex, so there are topics more conducive to cooperate and other not so much.
... Die Grenze hat eine neue Bedeutung erlangt, die weit über die Markierung des Staatsgebiets nach außen an dessen fester territorialer Außengrenze hinausgeht, ohne diese in ihrer Bedeutung jedoch abzulösen und unter Hinzutreten der Externalisierung von Migrationskontrolle in Staaten außerhalb der Europäischen Union. Die Grenze ist, auch im Inneren, über eine Implosion von Passund Sicherheitskontrollen sowie Überwachungstechnologie allgegenwärtig (Lyon 2005 Kießling 2017). Nicht übernommen werden hingegen die im Strafrecht vorhandenen rechtsstaatlichen Garantien und Verfahrenssicherungen, vielmehr findet ein massiver Rechtsabbau statt, der über das Migrationsrecht auf das Strafrecht zurückwirkt (z. ...
Article
Editorial zum Themenheft zu "Crimmigration: die Verschmelzung von Kriminalität und Migration"
... Postmodern constructivism has brought a marked shift in the fundamental research perspective of border studies. Thus Kolossov and Scott (2013, § 2) argue that the study of borders has moved from a dominant concern with formal state frontiers and ethno-cultural areas to the study of borders at diverse socio-spatial and geographical scales, ranging from the local and the municipal, to the global, regional and supra-state level (see also Balibar, 2002;Lyon, 2005). Redepenning (2015, p. 81;see also 2018 confirms that this broadening of the concept has brought social phenomena radically within the remit of border studies on various spatial scales. ...
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The article outlines the debate revolving around the concept border, cross-border and multi-level governance in political science and political geography. First, it discusses the interlinkage of the concepts of border and the nation-state. Second, it presents the theoretical model of governance. Third, it differentiates the political science concept of multi-level governance and the concept cross-border governance from political geography. Finally, it sketches first empirical results from the research project „Linking Borderlands“ and links it to theory.
... Borders, then, must be conceived as ubiquitous spaces driving a multitude of interactions, involving multiple places, actors and objects, including biometric technologies (Grünenberg et al., 2022, p. 2). With the BITs, as Lyon notes, 'the border is everywhere' and 'the experience of being counted as an insider or an outsider can be reproduced anywhere' (Lyon, 2004). The BIT systems are, in effect, creating digital borders that are both internalised and externalised (Olwig et al., 2020), and spatially and temporally removed from the 'actual border' (Bither & Ziebarth, 2020). ...
... This evocative and apt phrase conveys a complex social truth about life in the twenty-first century. As scholars in surveillance studies and beyond have noted (e.g., Balibar 2002;Lyon 2005), a world that is economically globalizing is also one in which boundaries, walls, fences, and borders are becoming more, not less, important. It is a world with systems designed to facilitate and regulate flows-on one hand, ensuring unencumbered transit for commercial goods, capital, and the relatively affluent who present low security risks, while, on the other, slowing down or stopping altogether flows that might threaten economic stability, social exclusivity, or security (Cowen 2014). ...
... Albert/Brock 1995). Auf der einen Seite delokalisiert die Praxis von Visaerteilungen die Staatsgrenze, indem sie eine vorverlagerte Grenzkontrolle in den Botschaften und Konsulaten kreiert, und auf der anderen Seite deterritorialisieren auch zahlreiche Überwachungsmechanismen, die durch die Entwicklung neuer Technologien, wie Videoüberwachung durch »Closed Circuit Television« (CCTV), Biometrie und »smart ID cards« (Lyon 2005), DNA-Datenbanken und Mobilfunküberwachung erst möglich wer-vermerken, so Gilboys (1991) Studie über das Entscheidungsverhalten von Grenzschützern an einem amerikanischen Flughafen oder Lugos (2000) Untersuchung zur Rolle der Hautfarbe an einem US-mexikanischen Übergang und, mit einem weiter gefassten Fokus, die Studien von Andreas (2001) zur Sicherung der US-mexikanischen Grenze, Heymans Überlegungen zur Anthropologie der Bürokratie mit Blick auf den nordamerikanischen Grenzschutz (Heyman 1995) und zur Einreisekontrolle an der USmexikanischen Grenze (Heyman 1999), Sheptycki (2002b) und Gallagher (2002) zur polizeilichen Zusammenarbeit in der Kanalregion und Hills (2006) zur Angleichung der europäischen Grenzkontrollen, um nur einige zu nennen. Hills (2006: 74) meint zu der bislang mangelnden akademischen Neigung, sich mit dem Thema Grenzschutz zu beschäftigen: »The neglect stems from the assumption that border guarding is a technical or administrative task performed by a specialist police; it is a subset of policing«. ...
... In this final section we engage with the need to consider the material aspects of data and analytics. While early accounts of digitisation in border control and migration management have predicted that the border would likely lose some of its significance as a physical site (Koslowski 2005;Lyon 2005; Vaughan-Williams 2010), its material footing very much persists. More than that: apart from considerations of the physical and architectural characteristics of border demarcations and crossing points, the turn towards data and analytics has brought new materialities to the centre of attention. ...
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This is the introduction to the special issue (SI) on 'Data Matters: The Politics and Practices of Digital Border and Migration Management'. The SI calls for a renewed investigation on how data come to matter in the government of human mobility. To this end, it invites scholars in critical border, migration and security studies to engage with and mobilise insights, concepts and approaches as they have been developed in Science and Technology Studies (STS) and critical data studies. By introducing readers to debates on data colonialism, data feminism and data justice, the introduction discusses three crucial dimensions of data matters: (1) how scholars make enact data as matters of concern; (2) how data come to matter in contemporary border and mobility management and (3) the material 'matter' of data and processes of datafication.
... In 2005, the surveillance theorist David Lyon said 'the border is everywhere', (Lyon 2005). Efforts to uphold territorial boundaries with respect to people and things can be made anywhere. ...
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NorwegianDenne artikkelen presenterer noen bestemte utviklingstrekk når det gjelder kontrollpolitikk, både i Norge og andre land det er vanlig å sammenligne med. Jeg har kalt det jeg finner for «traktpolitikk». Traktpolitikk innebærer å inndra bidrag fra forskjellige og i utgangspunktet uavhengige aktører, organisasjoner og institusjoner fra hele det politisk-administrative feltet. Bidragene blir tatt imot og videreført i den grad de passer inn i det politiske feltet fra før og bidrar til det overordnede målet på feltet. Påstanden er at traktpolitikk og dens rasjonalitet gjennomsyrer den politiske og administrative håndteringen av flere marginale grupper. Formålet med artikkelen er følgelig å redegjøre for hvordan denne politikken fungerer, om enn i skisseform. Artikkelen tar for seg den mer spesifikke kontrollen med irregulære migranter som eksempel, og kan følgelig også leses som en studie av dette feltet.Abstract EnglishThis article presents certain specific developments in control policy that have occurred in Norway and the countries it is commonly compared with. I have coined the term "funnelling policy" to describe what I have found. Funnelling policy involves the deduction of contributions from different and basically independent actors, organizations and institutions from the entire political-administrative field. The contributions are received and continued to the extent that they fit into the political field from before and contribute to the overall goal of the field. The claim is that funnelling policy and its rationality permeate the political and administrative handling of several marginalized groups. The purpose of the article is to explain how this policy functions, albeit in the form of a sketch. The article addresses the more specific control of irregular migrants as an example, and cantherefore also be read as a study of this field.
... Broeders and Dijstelbloem (2016) have stated that, in the context of new technologies of surveillance and the digitization of information about border policies, the nature of the border has changed radically (Broeders & Dijstelbloem, 2016). Now the border is 'everywhere' (Lyon, 2005). It has changed into a 'border security continuum' (Vaughan-Williams, 2010). ...
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This chapter introduces the concept of ‘biobordering’. Taking the nationally grown crime control regimes into account, we argue that the proposed concept of bioborders is useful in capturing how the territorial foundations of national state autonomy are partially reclaimed (what we call rebordering) and at the same time partially purposefully suspended (what we call debordering). The concept of biobordering is particularly fruitful for understanding how modes of bordering entangle with large-scale IT database infrastructures for the exchange of biometric data in the context of crime control. It highlights in particular the legal, scientific, technical, political and ethical dimensions of data exchange across borders across the EU. The chapter reviews recent insights from border studies and continues by outlining components and dynamics of biobordering that make bioborders more or less permeable for expansive biometric data exchange.
... It was not confined to the moment of interaction with the actors but extended into day-to-day reality. Lyon (2005) argued that the use of electronic identity cards effectively transplants the border into every person's pocket, so that people begin to carry the border with them. However, while identity cards may extend the border into the territory, migrant bodies can carry the border without the physical identity card. ...
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As the external borders between Finland and its neighbouring countries have become more permeable for some migrants after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the EU enlargement, the internal borders have become more ubiquitous and enforced by various kinds of bordering practices. Drawing on a qualitative research on Russian-speaking women engaged in commercial sex in Finland, we have examined the everyday material consequences of policies and bordering practices. We have distinguished different sites in which everyday bordering takes place: rental markets, banking and law enforcement. Our analysis demonstrates the importance of analysing commercial sex from an everyday perspective. This perspective reveals that even women with formal citizenship can be subjected to various bordering practices due to the criminalisation of commercial sex and the stereotypes attached to Russian-speaking women. We have argued for the need to expand on the notion of "deportability" as it not only concerns non-citizens but also naturalised foreigners.
... Several authors have therefore adjusted Foucault's original analysis of biopolitics in the light of recent developments in technology such as the use of biometrics, the introduction of algorithms and the datafication 2 of numerous realms of life (cf. Dillon and Lobo-Guerrero 2009;Walters 2006;Adey 2009;Lyon 2005). With regards to borders, biometrics unfold dividualising effects, yet try to unambiguously establish the identities of travellers from corporeal markers (Salter 2006, 185;Adey 2009: 277). ...
Article
In this paper, I critically engage with the European Travel Authorisation and Information System (ETIAS), looking at the rationalities underlying its introduction, its system architecture and its proposed functionalities. Tracing the biopolitical problematisation of the border that led to ETIAS, I argue that the system embodies a shift towards data behaviourism in the regime of truth underlying the biopolitical regulation of the EU border. Data behaviourism establishes a new way of seeing conduct, adding a potential future layer to it. Taming future mobilities through data-mining and future-oriented algorithmic processing, ETIAS imagines mobile subjects in terms of their motility and thereby produces dividuals and blurs the spatio-temporal boundedness of the EU border. ETIAS thereby complicates resistance by avoiding fixed identities and instead rarefies subjects through seeing them as being constantly emergent through new correlations.
... Control over mobility increasingly takes place when state agents and their contractors interact electronically with databases of biometric registries that have no real physical location (Amoore 2006). For Lyon (2013), the advent of identity cards and the mass surveillance it engenders means 'the border is everywhere'. Maguire's (2016) analysis of many of the same technologies leads him to the opposite conclusion of 'vanishing borders' as control and the privilege of mobility becomes more individualised. ...
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‘Remote control’ has been a radical innovation that projects many aspects of migration and border enforcement beyond a state’s territory. Scholars across multiple disciplines make distinctive and sometimes contradictory claims about the extent to which state control over space and geographic borders is of declining significance. Drawing on a study of remote control policies in the United States, Canada, the EU, and Australia since the 1930s, this paper argues that states push much of their migration control out from their territorial boundaries though a process of extra-territorialisation. However, these liberal states simultaneously ratchet up controls at a finely calibrated border line in a process of hyper-territorialisation. The goal of restricting migrants’ access to territorialised human and civil rights drives both of these manipulations of territoriality. A taxonomy of controls based on the metaphor of an ‘architecture of repulsion’ describes their logic and practice. Many of these practices involve states sharing the legitimate means of coercion over movement in a way that challenges a core assumption about modern states. The degree to which remote control deters unauthorised migration remains a critical research question, but there is more deterrence than found in standard measures of border enforcement efficacy.
... Stumpf 2006). Central to intensified control are technological objects and infrastructures, whether drones, CCTV cameras, biometric controls, or computer registries and information-sharing networks (Lyon 2005, Mitsilegas 2012). Despite its insight, scholarship on border security's 'technologization' has privileged surveillance and policing while neglecting other important trends. ...
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Social media are transforming public communication and state-society relations, dynamics distinctly visible in the domains of policing and order maintenance. Despite growing research on this relationship, scholarship has adopted an internalist optic, privileging social media use by domestic law enforcement. Using an original data set, this paper broadens the scale of analysis to consider Twitter usage by federal agencies tasked with border security and migration policing in Australia, Canada, and the United States. Despite new technologies’ transformational potential, its findings suggest Twitter is overwhelmingly employed for the conventional purposes of broadcasting information, managing impressions, and enlisting public assistance. Message themes linked with greater user responsiveness are also identified. The deeper implications of these findings and directions for future research are discussed.
... This critical analytical work points to the shifting geo-spatialities of contemporary bordering (Broeders & Hampshire, 2013), and recognises the deterritorializing effects of security practices which rely on`remote control', biometrics, smart technologies, digitized data-capture, and a myriad of pre-emptive, filtering, screening and scanning technologies (Amoore, 2006;Broeders, 2007;Cote-Boucher, 2008;Muller, 2010). The notion of a border as geographically fixed at the territorial frontiers of a political community is superseded by a sense of its`everywhereness' (Lyon, 2005), its ubiquity (Balibar, 2002), its simulation (Bogard, 1996), its performativity (de Lint, 2008; Schouten, 2014), and as part of a continuum of securitisation which not only relocates border securities to`the public spaces of the railway station, shopping mall and sports stadium' (Amoore, Marmura, & Salter, 2008, p. 96) but also`brings remote and forgotten locations -islands, deserts, metropolitan peripheries, hidden parts of airports and ports -into topological proximity with the conspicuous and visible heartlands of nation-states and political regions' (Mezzadra and Neilson, 2012, pp. 68-69). ...
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This paper critically engages with, and draws inspiration from the `vertical turn’ in political geographies of security. In so doing, I expose fragilities in its conceptual vocabulary and theoretical orientations, and call into question the security imaginaries on which notions of three-dimensional securitisation are predicated. This provides an important entry point for interdisciplinary dialogue at the intersections of political geography and security studies; while the latter is not especially noted for its contribution to the study of verticalities, re-reading `volumetric security’ through the spatial framings which underpin contemporary security studies does have considerable analytical merit and clears the ground – via Foucault's notion of the milieu - for (re)thinking three-dimensional security in ontologically, epistemologically and politically inventive ways.
... Another new feature related to the promotion of the e-government project was the issue of new ID cards with a function that allows using them as a digital signature certificate. This measure, which had been long ago practiced in many developed countries (Lyon, 2005;Arora, 2008), was designed presumably to improve the information security of the electronic transactions in communicating with the government systems and help to promote the interactive component of the entire project, focusing on services that require authorization and access to the databases with personal details and commercial secrets. The issue of the new IDs and associated digital devices such as special card readers and mobile paying terminals that usually could allow carrying out mobile transactions with the portal (Hung, Chang & Kuo, 2013) significantly simplified the mechanism of interaction with the entire system of e-government at the national level. ...
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The development of e-government in Kazakhstan can be regarded as a great example of highly regulated ICT-driven reforms in public administration. Hypothetically, one of the primary reasons for the policy is a relentless desire of central authorities to increase the global ranking of the country in various e-government listings and ratings. In fact, since the introduction of the state-run e-government program in 2004, which implementation was eventually materialized in the inauguration of the official e-government platform in 2006, the policymakers of the project have regarded the implementation of the concept as a matter of national priority. Therefore, large-scale financial and human resources have been utilized to introduce and maintain technological, social and political components of the project. In this regard, the main purpose of this chapter is to analyze the development of ICT-driven public sector reforms in a typical transitional setting, where e-government has played a crucial role in the overall reformation of technological and philosophical aspects in modern Kazakh public administration and governance.
... Policing global mobility within informated space and the use of technology in border control have been subjects of academic inquiry for quite some time (Aas, 2005;Adey, 2004;Dijstelbloem et al., 2017;Lyon, 2005;Van Der Ploeg, 2006;Wilson, 2006). Scholars mostly ventured into this area of academic inquiry to document the use of technology to observe and control mobile populations. ...
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Technology challenges social, economic and political borders. This article analyses the role smartphones and social media play in constructing social memory (and consciousness) of bordering practices, examining predominant accounts of migration, de-securitizing and re-humanizing mobility and attaining freedom of movement. Using the case study of the Western Balkans as one of the main transit routes in Europe and building on Stefania Milan’s ‘stealing the fire’ theory, this article investigates transformation of borders from below, as migrants reclaim technology to enable safe passage and create counter-narratives of migration. They do so by contributing to the ‘digital knowledge commons’—a collaborative body of knowledge that can shift restrictive migration policies. The article highlights the importance of studying the technology–mobility nexus, and greater theoretical engagement vis-à-vis the use of technology as a tool for social change, as migration continues to play a pivotal role in political and public debates across the globe.
... In five case studies from Norway, Finland and Sweden, we examine internal bordering practices and gatekeeping on the one hand and migrant strategies of coping with such everyday bordering on the other. On a broader level, this issue explores the significance of intensifying internal bordering -'a border that is everywhere' (Lyon 2005) -in relation to the purportedly universal Nordic welfare states. From the 1990s onwards, increasing mobility and the selective tightening of migration policies have produced a diversity of noncitizens in each Nordic country, who lack or have overstayed their residence permit or who are in an otherwise precarious legal and social position. ...
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The following chapter covers the theoretical and conceptual basis of the study. The theoretical foundation is presented in section 2.1: The phenomenological movement in philosophy and sociology in the tradition of Martin Heidegger (2005 [1994]), Edmund Husserl (Husserl 1913, 1970 [1954], 1973 [1929]), Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1962), and Alfred Schütz (1970; Schütz and Luckmann 1973), followed by the social constructivist perspective in the tradition of Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann’s (1966) sociology of knowledge. Subsequently, in section 2.2, landscape research is presented as one of the two fields in which the present analysis is embedded.
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With its close and entangled everyday life ties across the U.S.-Mexico border, the international borderland of San Diego-Tijuana is home to more than 5 million inhabitants. As the largest western cross-border metropolitan region, it stretches over 6,200 square miles (roughly 16,058 square kilometer) from the military base Camp Pendleton and the City of Oceanside in the northwest, the mountain town of Julian in the northeast over the central and southern jurisdictions of San Diego County and the three Mexican municipalities of Tijuana, Playas de Rosarito in the southwest, and Tecate in the southeast (Herzog and Sohn,.Territory, Politics, Governance 7:177–199, 2017). Beyond the particularly strong ‘bottom-up’ networks—the social connections and organizations—the physically bordered region is locally tied together through ‘top-down’ structures—multilevel cross-border governance approaches and guidelines as well as an array of planning institutions—that deal with the shared natural environment, markets, production and manufacturing relations, as well as with tourism in the popular and rapidly growing region.
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This chapter explores the global context of the deformation of political reality in relation to artificial intelligence (AI). The chapter discusses the need to understand the importance of geopolitics for good governance. Likewise, the chapter examines, from a historical perspective, the planetary governance structures that have been characterized through the following three fundamental pillars: (1) the exercise of power over a specific territory, (2) the inequality between the central executive and administered regional structures, and finally, (3) the implementation of a political project through various forms of influence from the political, economic, institutional, social, ideological, and technological perspectives. The chapter concludes with an analysis of the future of AI in public governance practices and processes.
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El objetivo de este artículo es analizar las formas en que convivieron las perspectivas humanitarias y las de seguridad en las políticas de migraciones internacionales durante el gobierno de la alianza Cambiemos (2015-2019) en Argentina. El método seleccionado es de tipo cualitativo de alcance explicativo, basado en la recolección de diferentes documentos como decretos, resoluciones, disposiciones, videos en línea, informes y páginas web de organismos internacionales. El análisis del corpus documental permite reconocer cómo los procesos simultáneos de securitización y humanitarización construyen representaciones ambiguas y dicotómicas sobre las migraciones y los migrantes que los clasifican como sujetos peligrosos o víctimas merecedores de protección. La originalidad del artículo reside en el desarrollo de una perspectiva de análisis sobre las políticas migratorias adoptadas en Argentina que permite comprender la simultaneidad de los procesos de securitización y humanitarización.
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Die deutsch-polnische Grenze ist seit Beginn der 1990er Jahre Schauplatz grenzpolizeilicher Kooperationen. Doch warum entschließen sich Nationalstaaten zur Zusammenarbeit in diesem sensiblen Bereich? Und wieso soll ausgerechnet die deutsch-polnische Variante so erfolgreich sein? Vor welchen Schwierigkeiten stehen deutsche und polnische Grenzschützer in der Zusammenarbeit, und wie begegnen sie ihren Kollegen in der Alltagspraxis? Die deutsch-polnische Grenzschutzkooperation steckt voller Widersprüche. Warum sie dennoch als Erfolgsmodell für bilaterale Zusammenarbeit gehandelt wird, ist Gegenstand dieser Studie.
Article
In recent years, far-reaching urbanization and gentrification processes have been taking place in and around downtown San Diego. These have been accompanied not just by structural upheavals, but by social changes that still await in-depth analysis. In the context of San Diego’s inner-city redevelopment, urban research can profit from a border-theoretical approach, initiating a geography of urban boundaries focused on change processes and the redrawing, shifting, and dissolution of boundaries. Although urban neighborhoods are particularly characterized by differentiation, ambiguity, and fragmentation, border-theoretical findings have rarely been applied on this level. Against this background, the article traces processes of social “ordering” and “othering,” and the shifting of individual-subjective demarcations in the inner-ring suburbs of San Diego—the former warehouse district East Village and the adjacent Mexican-American community neighborhood Barrio Logan. A methodological triangulation of interviews, participatory observations, and cartographic and photographic visualizations illustrates the outward thrust and adaption of multi-dimensional boundaries between the downtown area and the urbanizing first ring—phenomena of what we have called “hybrid urban borderlands.” Aimed primarily at creating a wider understanding of urbanization processes in San Diego’s inner-ring, our project opens up further differentiations in the field of border studies across its disciplinary boundary to urban research.
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Africa and Europe seem increasingly interconnected, yet divided. Apart from the commonly mentioned factors of history and geographical proximity, both continents face a growing number and a broader variety of shared challenges, interests, and goals. Migration remains as the most pressing challenge, yet rather than considering this as a mere phenomenon of its own, this volume advances the notion that the various patterns with which migration and mobility are inherently linked describe a broad spectrum of structural factors, developments, and challenges. These require a holistic perspective to better understand the complex drivers of migration and find appropriate ways to manage it safely and effectively. It is imperative to attempt to debunk tenacious false narratives about migration and provoke debate in a manner that will lead to a nuanced understanding of not merely the root causes and motivating factors behind the migrant flows and their broader social impacts, but of the impact of broader social and economic forces in shaping migrant decision making. This introductory chapter sets out the premise and goals of the volume, and then proceeds to introduce the structure of the book. Africa and Europe seem increasingly interconnected, yet divided. Apart from the commonly mentioned factors of history and geographical proximity, both continents face a growing number and a broader variety of shared challenges, interests, and goals. As these cover various political domains from economy to security and from culture to mobility, relations can justifiably be regarded as of high strategic importance: "Africa needs Europe; Europe needs Africa" (Marchetti, 2020, p. 4). However, the nature of this interconnectedness often remains more assumed than comprehensively analysed. The balance may not be even, but more importantly, it may not lead us in the direction a shared understanding of the past would lead us to believe. The time has come to reassess the deep-seated belief that Africa remains dependent on European aid and offers little in return. Such a misunderstanding leads to misrepresentations, which are not only unfortunate and misleading on their own but lead to a significant
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This book challenges the common European notions about African migration to Europe and offers a holistic understanding of the current situation in Africa. It advocates a need to rethink Africa-Europe relations and view migration and borders as a resource rather than sources of a crisis. Migrant movement from Africa is often misunderstood and misrepresented as invasion caused by displacement due to poverty, violent conflict and environmental stress. To control this movement and preserve national identities, the EU and its various member states resort to closing borders as a way of reinforcing their migration policies. This book aims to dismantle this stereotypical view of migration from Africa by sharing cutting-edge research from the leading scholars in Africa and Europe. It refutes the flawed narratives that position Africa as a threat to the European societies, their economies and security, and encourages a nuanced understanding of the root causes as well as the socioeconomic factors that guide the migrants’ decision-making. With chapters written in a concise style, this book brings together the migration and border studies in an innovative way to delve into the broader societal impacts of both. It also serves to de-silence the African voices in order to offer fresh insights on African migration – a discourse dominated hitherto by the European perspective. This book constitutes a valuable resource for research scholars and students of Border Studies, Migration Studies, Conflict and Security Studies, and Development Studies seeking specialisation in these areas. Written in an accessible style, it will also appeal to a more general public interested in gaining a fuller perspective on the African reality.
Article
In less than ten years, India has launched colossal biometric databases. One among them is related to the first ‘free’ health coverage scheme offered by the government of India: the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojna (RSBY). Based on a public–private partnership between government and private companies, RSBY national scheme was launched in 2008, as a first step towards universal health coverage in a country where households endorse 70% of health expenses. The first phase of RSBY offers to cover ₹30,000 ($600) of inpatient expenses per year for five members of a below poverty line household and is now piloted in several Indian States to include outpatient expenses and above poverty line families too. RSBY relies exclusively on a centralised digital artefact to function, made visible by the ‘RSBY Smart Card’, a chip enabled plastic card containing personal data of individual and their family counting and conditioning the granting of health services to them; thus, no smart card means no health coverage. Till date 120 million Indians have been registered in the RSBY database. This article analyses how health accessibility is crafted under the RSBY scheme by questioning two central dimensions of this data-driven digital health scheme: the smart card technology and the public–private partnership, whereas RSBY scheme promises health coverage for all, its digital infrastructures may complicate access to health services, and reveal new patterns of exclusion of individuals. Thus, we will detail how smartcards technologies and private providers condition access to health care in India.
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Our understanding of contemporary international relations rests on flawed images of the past. One of the most problematic dimensions of this history is the idea that the core institutions and practices of modern territorial sovereignty originated in Europe before being gradually extended to other parts of the globe. A key dimension of this Euro-centric historiography is the story that the territorial sovereignty norm was invented in Europe in the seventeenth century, before Europeans honed it into a standard technique of state practice in the twentieth. This paper uses original archival research to critically interrogate the consensus position. The paper demonstrates that the dominant narrative significantly misconstrues the way rulers and governments sought to control migration across the longue durée. European rulers were more collectively seeking to transnationally promote migration at the same time as they individually acquired territorial sovereign control over it. Extra-European states were the first to deploy territorial immigration controls, and non-Europeans shaped the forms of mobility promotion Europeans would adopt. The paper uses these findings to make the case for a new chronology of European migration governance and for a critical institutionalist approach to the way we write the history of the global migration regime.
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This chapter examines the statutory powers of border migration officers in Australia with an emphasis on the coercive power exerted via the external body search (strip search) and internal body search (cavity search) of regular migrants. The chapter argues that the securitisation narrative allows the body to be positioned as the truth-definer. The body becomes a site of proof and trust, while documentation and oral explanation are deemed insufficient for revealing the truth, even when documents evidence belonging through citizenship. In this context, immigration officers are ‘border truth producers’ and the suspect community’s ‘non-white body’ is the main target. The Australian legislation underpinning external and internal body searches is compared to the equivalent US regime to highlight the need for checks and balances in the Australian context. This requirement for more balanced statutory powers is justified by the lack of an evidence-based approach and the secrecy surrounding the border control regime, eroding de facto the existing protection of human rights. The chapter concludes with a reflection on the digitalisation of body searches via new technology, such as body scanners. It is claimed that such a procedure normalises the search for truth in/on the body, rendering anyone a member of the suspect community.
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Much recent research has focused on examining various binary contradictions and employing metaphors pertaining to border security. Ultimately, this article argues that existing debates and metaphors are inadequate in describing what is understood and agreed upon in the literature in terms of borders. This article proposes a refinement of existing theory for contemporary borders, employing Baudrillard's concept of 'simulation'. The metaphor of the 'simulated border' functions to avoid debates surrounding geospatiality while also incorporating aspects of risk society and control in concluding that borders are anything but organic security environments, with the 'stretched screens' of border agents serving to produce dividuals that are tested within games of security to govern mobility anywhere in time or space.
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This paper explores the relationship between surveillance, refugee ID cards, population control, and the making of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border in the 2000s and 2010s. The paper uncovers how, in the security-dominated Pakistani state, during the Soviet-Afghan War it was politically expedient to host a large Afghan refugee population in the country and make use of a flexible Afghanistan-Pakistan border, but in the “Global War on Terror” this no longer applies. As geopolitical circumstances change, this paper explores how ID cards for Afghan refugees are tools of surveillance that facilitate refuge and the legal/documentary, social, and physical exclusion of the non-citizen refugee. These forms of exclusion allow the Pakistani state to “perform” the Afghanistan-Pakistan border into effect. The border is not simply located at the territorial frontier but is in process and comes into being through the control over the mobility of citizen and non-citizen populations and forms of social exclusion that are enacted through surveillance and documentation.
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