H. Dijstelbloem

Migration and the new technological borders of Europe

European borders that aim to control migration and mobility increasingly rely on technology to distinguish between citizens and aliens. This book explores new tensions in Europe between states and citizens, and between politics, technology and human rights.

Border surveillance, mobility management and the shaping of non-publics in Europe

Social sorting of migrants and travellers based on data stored in information systems is at the centre of border controls and mobility management in Europe. Recent literature finds that the inclusion-exclusion distinction is insufficiently equipped to do justice to the variety of classifications that is being applied. Instead, a proliferation of refined categorizations determines the outcome of visa and permit applications. This article explores the ‘administrative ecology’ in between the two extremes of inclusion and exclusion. It claims information technologies encourage the emergence of an intermediary category of ‘non-publics’ situated between the level of groups and the level of individuals. The ontological and normative status of these ‘non-publics’ will be analysed by using some key notions of Actor-Network Theory.

The Migration Machine

Anyone travelling to Europe these days comes across not only barriers but also an increasing amount of technology. Bona fide travellers are offered high-tech initiatives (such as iris scans) in the hope that the desire for safety can still be combined with freedom of movement for all citizens. As a result, the borders of Europe are changing into an ‘e-Border’. Behind the scenes, various government services are drawing up risk profiles for all kinds of aliens. If migrants risk crossing the Mediterranean to Europe illegally, there are boats, helicopters, aeroplanes and satellites on the lookout for them. In harbours and at country borders ship containers and lorry cargo space are searched using heat sensors and carbon dioxide detectors to check for the presence of human beings. Globalization is taking place but is not making travel any easier. The EU has removed its internal borders but has fortified its outer boundaries.

Surveillance at sea: The transactional politics of border control in the Aegean:

The relationship between vision and action is a key element of both practices and conceptualizations of border surveillance in Europe. This article engages with what we call the ‘operative vision’ of surveillance at sea, specifically as performed by the border control apparatus in the Aegean. We analyse the political consequences of this operative vision by elaborating on three examples of fieldwork conducted in the Aegean and on the islands of Chios and Lesbos. One of the main aims is to bring the figure of the migrant back into the study of border technologies. By combining insights from science and technology studies with border, mobility and security studies, the article distinguishes between processes of intervention, mobilization and realization and emphasizes the role of migrants in their encounter with surveillance operations. Two claims are brought forward. First, engaging with recent scholarly work on the visual politics of border surveillance, we circumscribe an ongoing ‘transactional politics’. Second, the dynamic interplay between vision and action brings about a situation of ‘recalcitrance’, in which mobile objects and subjects of various kinds are drawn into securitized relations, for instance in encounters between coast guard boats and migrant boats at sea. Without reducing migrants to epiphenomena of those relations, this recalcitrance typifies the objects of surveillance as both relatable as well as resistant, particularly in the tensions between border control and search and rescue.

De veranderende architectuur van het bestuur

Het openbaar bestuur is in theorie voor iedereen bindend, het treedt handelend op, is net als de samenleving pluralistisch en legt verantwoording af. In de praktijk is het accent de laatste jaren echter sterk op uitvoering en controle komen te liggen. Wie herkent nog het publieke karakter van het bestuur? En wat kan zo’n bestuur nog betekenen voor de grote vragen rond voedsel, energie, klimaat en economie? Deze en andere vragen komen aan de orde in de vandaag verschenen Verkenning van de WRR, Het gezicht van de publieke zaak. Openbaar bestuur onder ogen. Geen receptenboek met oplossingen, maar een bundel die recht doet aan het publieke karakter van het openbaar bestuur.

Reclaiming Control over Europe’s Technological Borders

Migration policy and border control in Europe and its member states increasingly take place in a surveillance regime that is focused on control. The surveillance regime consists of the intertwining of migration, integration and security policies on the one hand with a technological apparatus for the control of the movements of people on the other (Haggerty and Ericson 2000; Lyon 2009). Surveillance of citizens, migrants and illegal aliens is not only executed by the state but also by private companies and medical professionals working for the state. Next to that, the surveillance regime is not only regulated externally but travellers internalize security in voluntary behaviour. As a consequence, surveillance is not only exercised by control ‘from above’ (Big Brother) but also ‘from aside’ (Little Sister) and ‘from within’ (Voice Inside).

Het gezicht van de publieke zaak: openbaar bestuur onder ogen

Het openbaar bestuur is in theorie voor iedereen bindend, het treedt handelend op, is net als de samenleving pluralistisch en legt verantwoording af. In de praktijk is het accent de laatste jaren echter sterk op uitvoering en controle komen te liggen. Wie herkent nog het publieke karakter van het bestuur? En wat kan zo’n bestuur nog betekenen voor de grote vragen rond voedsel, energie, klimaat en economie? Deze en andere vragen komen aan de orde in de vandaag verschenen Verkenning van de WRR, Het gezicht van de publieke zaak. Openbaar bestuur onder ogen. Geen receptenboek met oplossingen, maar een bundel die recht doet aan het publieke karakter van het openbaar bestuur.

Missing in action: inclusion and exclusion in the first days of AIDS in The Netherlands

Approaches combining social and political theory with ontology have rarely been utilised in the evaluation of decision-making processes. Drawing on such an approach clarifies the questions that still need to be asked about the policy response to HIV/AIDS in The Netherlands in the early 1980s. The initial response in The Netherlands is internationally regarded as an example of successful cooperation between public authorities, health organisations, blood banks and the gay movement. In comparison with other countries, deeply dividing social conflicts as well as dramatic medical disasters were avoided. This image, however, is misleading. Although it was on a smaller scale than the disasters with contaminated blood products in other countries, The Netherlands had their blood scandal too. A reconstruction of this episode offers the opportunity to evaluate the role objects are granted in theories of institutionalisation and to critically examine the procedural notion of politics in actor network theory. The aim of the article is to show that analyses of decision-making processes under conditions of uncertainty ought to engage more carefully with processes of exclusion and the transformative role of objects.

Van ondergraving naar ondervraging: over de vormgeving van gezag in een gemediatiseerde wereld

Het openbaar bestuur is in theorie voor iedereen bindend, het treedt handelend op, is net als de samenleving pluralistisch en legt verantwoording af. In de praktijk is het accent de laatste jaren echter sterk op uitvoering en controle komen te liggen. Wie herkent nog het publieke karakter van het bestuur? En wat kan zo’n bestuur nog betekenen voor de grote vragen rond voedsel, energie, klimaat en economie? Deze en andere vragen komen aan de orde in de vandaag verschenen Verkenning van de WRR, Het gezicht van de publieke zaak. Openbaar bestuur onder ogen. Geen receptenboek met oplossingen, maar een bundel die recht doet aan het publieke karakter van het openbaar bestuur.