EU Border technologies and the co-production of security ‘problems’ and ‘solutions’

Martins, Bruno Oliveira; Jumbert, Maria Gabrielsen

doi:10.1080/1369183x.2020.1851470

Cited by 38 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…In critical research on borders and/or security, only few studies have tried to combine qualitative and digital methods (Martin-Mazé and Perret, 2021). Where digital methods have been used, researchers have often focused on migrant practices, such as migrant use of digital devices and social media, or conversely, digital analyses of how migration and ‘crisis’ are represented on social media (Gillespie et al 2016; Sánchez-Querubín and Rogers, 2018).…”

Section: Digital Technologies At the Eu Bordersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Neither opaque nor transparent: A transdisciplinary methodology to investigate datafication at the EU borders

et al. 2022

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In 2020, the European Union announced the award of the contract for the biometric part of the new database for border control, the Entry Exit System, to two companies: IDEMIA and Sopra Steria. Both companies had been previously involved in the development of databases for border and migration management. While there has been a growing amount of publicly available documents that show what kind of technologies are being implemented, for how much money, and by whom, there has been limited engagement with digital methods in this field. Moreover, critical border and security scholarship has largely focused on qualitative and ethnographic methods. Building on a data feminist approach, we propose a transdisciplinary methodology that goes beyond binaries of qualitative/quantitative and opacity/transparency, examines power asymmetries and makes the labour of coding visible. Empirically, we build and analyse a dataset of the contracts awarded by two European Union agencies key to its border management policies – the European Agency for Large-Scale Information Systems (eu-LISA) and the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex). We supplement the digital analysis and visualisation of networks of companies with close reading of tender documents. In so doing, we show how a transdisciplinary methodology can be a device for making datafication ‘intelligible’ at the European Union borders.

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Section: Digital Technologies At the Eu Bordersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Neither opaque nor transparent: A transdisciplinary methodology to investigate datafication at the EU borders

et al. 2022

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“…The concept of tech-solutionism, associated with Morozov (2013) and later developed and expanded by others, suggests that the reliance on technology to solve problems "poses new challenges that are often overlooked if we have acritical faith in it" ( Martins, Lavallée, and Silkoset 2021 , 605; see also Miklian and Hoelscher 2018 ;Johnston 2020 ;Stilgoe 2020 ). Research in fields adjacent to peacebuilding, such as critical security studies, shows that our understanding of the nature of a problem at stake will have fundamental implications for the solution that is developed, yet this understanding of the problem is also affected by the solutions already at hand ( Martins and Jumbert 2022 ). These dynamics can have powerful effects.…”

Section: Claims: Blind Spots In the Co-construction Of Problems And S...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Digital Peacebuilding: A Framework for Critical–Reflexive Engagement

Hirblinger

Hansen

Hoelscher

et al. 2022

International Studies Perspectives

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Existing research on digital technologies in peacebuilding exhibits both tech-solutionist and tech-problematizing traits that tend to understate their embeddedness in society and politics. We argue that the study of digital peacebuilding should instead reflexively engage with the coproduction of the technical and the social in both academia and practice. This requires asking how assumptions about technology are related to assumptions about the conflict and peacebuilding context on which these technologies are brought to bear, and with what consequences. Therefore, we propose a methodological framework that brings to the fore how technologies for peacebuilding and peacebuilding with technology are coproduced. First, we focus on the interrelated claims about peacebuilding and technology, and the coproduction of peacebuilding problems and technological solutions. Second, we inquire into the characteristics of the digital peacebuilding agendas built on these claims, including the dynamics of disruptive change and datafication that these agendas bring. Third, we consider the sticky effects of digital approaches, in terms of a politicization or depoliticization of peacebuilding efforts, and ask what kind of peace this may produce.

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“…Scholars of policing and borders have highlighted how security technologies exert performative effects on practices of control through mechanisms such as the creation of feedback loops which feed into technological solutionism (Martins and Jumbert, 2020), connotations of neutrality and teleological 'progress' (Frowd, 2020) and a reputation of infallibility when compared to humans (Franko Aas, 2006). These mechanisms are readily apparent in IOM officials' views on the nature of MIDAS.…”

Section: Subjectification Governability and Depoliticization: The Constitutive Effects Of Midasmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biometric statehood, transnational solutionism and security devices: The performative dimensions of the IOM’s MIDAS

Singler

2021

Theoretical Criminology

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This article contributes to border criminology and transnational criminal justice research into the role of transnational actors in shaping practices of global justice, punishment and control, as well as to the criminological analysis of penal technologies. I examine the performative effects of the Migration Information and Data Analysis System (MIDAS) developed by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), and I argue that these effects are multidimensional. For beneficiary states, the deployment of MIDAS constitutes a performance of sovereign territorial power, affirming membership in the international society of (biometrically capable) states. For the IOM, the development and deployment of MIDAS and carrying out training sessions operate as pedagogical interventions legitimizing the organization as a neutral, technical expert of migration management. Finally, MIDAS itself performatively acts upon its targets, constituting ‘the migrant’ as a governable, potentially risky subject and constituting ‘migration’ as a problem amenable to depoliticized techno-solutionist interventions.

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EU Border technologies and the co-production of security ‘problems’ and ‘solutions’

Cited by 38 publications

References 40 publications

Neither opaque nor transparent: A transdisciplinary methodology to investigate datafication at the EU borders

Neither opaque nor transparent: A transdisciplinary methodology to investigate datafication at the EU borders

Digital Peacebuilding: A Framework for Critical–Reflexive Engagement

Biometric statehood, transnational solutionism and security devices: The performative dimensions of the IOM’s MIDAS

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