Remote control of migration: theorising territoriality, shared coercion, and deterrence

Abstract

'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 extraterritorialisation. 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.

The Influence of the Ethnic Diversity on the Regional Development as Exemplified by the Silesian Autochthonous Population in Poland

“…The critical turnaround in migration studies coincided with populist anti-immigration mobilization in Europe and the United States, where violations of anti-populist norms of nondiscrimination are no longer avoided (Freeman, 1995). While group-based arguments against immigrant admission and inclusion are once again becoming naturalized in public debate, migration scholars need to take seriously the claim that group-based discrimination remains an integral part of the migration and citizenship policy (Saeys et al, 2019;Fitzgerald, 2020;Noja, 2018;Noja and Cristea 2018). It is also related to recent studies on the contemporary "politics of belonging" (Yuval-Davis et al, 2005;Gedalof, 2007;Schmidt, 2011;Adamson et al, 2011) that have examined ways in which immigration and citizenship policies influence the social group membership, taking into consideration the ethnic diversity.…”

Precarious migrants, migration regimes and digital technologies: the empowerment-control nexus

“…We can link this with the fact that biometrics coupled with databases have tremendously increased states' capacity to remotely control mobility and migration (Zolberg 2003;Fitzgerald 2020). In the case of the EU, they are essential for dealing with irregular cross-border movements (Ferreira 2019).…”

Shaping migration at the border: the entangled rationalities of border control practices

“…Recent analyses of border control have adopted broader perspectives, such as ‘borderscapes’ (C. Brambilla 2015 ) and ‘border regimes’ (Tsianos and Karakayali 2010 ). Thereby, they build on scholarship that demonstrates that national borders and their control are not limited to the territorial margins of a nation state but have proliferated to the interior (Ataç and Rosenberger 2019 ; Pfirter 2019 ; Yuval-Davis et al 2018 ) and the exterior (FitzGerald 2020 ; Stock et al 2019 ) of a state’s territory. Nevertheless, territorial borders remain crucial sites of migration control that perform and reify the differentiation of the world’s population into groups with different rights and privileges (De Genova 2013 ; FitzGerald 2020 ).…”

“…Thereby, they build on scholarship that demonstrates that national borders and their control are not limited to the territorial margins of a nation state but have proliferated to the interior (Ataç and Rosenberger 2019 ; Pfirter 2019 ; Yuval-Davis et al 2018 ) and the exterior (FitzGerald 2020 ; Stock et al 2019 ) of a state’s territory. Nevertheless, territorial borders remain crucial sites of migration control that perform and reify the differentiation of the world’s population into groups with different rights and privileges (De Genova 2013 ; FitzGerald 2020 ). Hence, analyses of border regimes should continue to consider the specific moment of confrontation, at the physical state border, between a non-national and the sovereign power of the nation state.…”