Introductory description

Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies are increasingly being integrated into various aspects of our lives, including public decision-making systems. Some countries have even started incorporating these technologies into their immigration systems, using them to predict future migration and displacement, process visa applications, and conduct profiling and risk assessments for decision-making purposes. With large-scale interoperable information systems, it has become possible to deduce individual characteristics, screen them through different systems to obtain more information about an individual, and ultimately make decisions based on comparisons with others. This module aims to provide students with an introduction to the latest developments in this field and explore the conditions in which these technologies have been integrated into immigration and asylum decision-making systems, as well as humanitarian actions. Through a variety of case studies from Europe and North America, we will examine how these new technologies are reshaping state borders, identifying individuals not only through their biographic and biometric information but also by constantly comparing them to others’ characteristics as part of an inferred group. Additionally, we will explore how humanitarian actors have employed them in countries in Africa and the Middle East and how migrants themselves navigate, adopt, and resist the use of these technologies.

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

MOBILITY IN THE DIGITAL AGE

Week 1: AI and Automating Migration
Week 2: Identification and Biometrics
Week 3: Politics of Predicting Mobility
Week 4: Trusted Travellers: From Passports to Credentials
Week 5: AI in Immigration and Risk Assessments
Week 6: Reading Week
Week 7: AI in Asylum, Identification and Matching
Week 8: Digital Humanitarianism
Week 9: Mobile Phones and Mobility
Week 10: Digital Citizenship and Surveillance

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Have the knowledge and understanding of how and to what extent the operation of borders is changing in the digital age.
• Have the knowledge and ability to critically analyse the ethical, political and social implications of the implementation of new technologies in border management, immigration and asylum application processing, as well as humanitarian actions.
• Have the knowledge and ability to analyse the ways in which migrants navigate, adopt or challenge the use of a variety of new technologies.
• Be able to describe and critically participate in political and intellectual discussions on the use of new technologies in areas related to migration, asylum and humanitarian actions.
• Address the aims and objectives of the module demonstrating close engagement with module materials

Indicative reading list

• Aas, K.F. (2006). ‘The body does not lie’: Identity, risk and trust in technoculture. Crime, Media, Culture, 2(2): 143–158.
• Amoore, L. (2006). Biometric borders: Governing mobilities in the war on terror. Political Geography, 25(3): 336-351.
• Amoore, L. (2014). The Politics of Possibility: Risk and Security Beyond Probability. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
• Aradau, C. (2023). Borders have always been artificial: Migration, data and AI. International Migration, 61: 303–306.
• Aradau, C., & Blanke, T. (2017). Politics of prediction: Security and the time/space of governmentality in the age of big data. European Journal of Social Theory, 20(3): 373-391.
• Beduschi, A. (2021). International migration management in the age of artificial intelligence. Migration Studies, 9 (3): 576–596.
• Bigo, D. (2020). Interoperability: A political technology for the datafication of the field of EU internal security? In The Routledge Handbook of Critical European Studies, Edited By Didier Bigo, Thomas Diez, Evangelos Fanoulis, Ben Rosamond, Yannis A. Stivachtis, pp. 400-417.
• Bridle, J. (2016). Algorithmic Citizenship, Digital Statelessness. GeoHumanities, 2(2): 377-381.
• Browne, S. (2010). Digital Epidermalization: Race, Identity and Biometrics. Critical Sociology, 36(1): 131-150.
• Calzada, I. (2023). Emerging digital citizenship regimes: Pandemic, algorithmic, liquid, metropolitan, and stateless citizenships. Citizenship Studies, 27:2, 160-188.
• Cheesman, M. (2022). Self-Sovereignty for Refugees? The Contested Horizons of Digital Identity. Geopolitics, 27:1: 134-159.
• Cheney-Lippold, J. (2016). Jus Algoritmi: How the National Security Agency Remade Citizenship. International Journal of Communication, 10: 1721-1742.
• Gillespie, M., Osseiran, S., & Cheesman, M. (2018). Syrian Refugees and the Digital Passage to Europe: Smartphone Infrastructures and Affordances. Social Media + Society, 4(1): 1-12.
• Hintz, A., Dencik, L., & Wahl-Jorgensen, K. (2017). Digital Citizenship and Surveillance: Introduction. International Journal of Communication, 11: 731-739.
• Jacobsen, K. L. (2015). The politics of humanitarian technology: good intentions, unintended consequences and insecurity. New York: Routledge.
• Jacobsen, K.L., Sandvik, K.B. (2018). UNHCR and the pursuit of international protection: Accountability through technology? Third World Quarterly, 39(8): 1508–1524.
• Johns, F. (2023). #Help: Digital Humanitarianism and the Remaking of International Order. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Leese, M. (2016). Exploring the Security/Facilitation Nexus: Foucault at the ‘Smart’ Border. Global Society, 30:3: 412-429.
• Madianou, M. (2021). Nonhuman humanitarianism: when 'AI for good' can be harmful. Information, Communication & Society, 24(6): 850-868.
• Molnar, P. (2023). Digital border technologies, techno-racism and logics of exclusion. International Migration, 61: 307–312.
• Muller, B.J. (2010). Unsafe at any speed? Borders, mobility and ‘safe citizenship’. Citizenship Studies, 14:1: 75-88.
• Noori, S. (2022). Suspicious Infrastructures: Automating Border Control and the Multiplication of Mistrust through Biometric E-Gates. Geopolitics, 27(4): 1117-1139.
• Noori, S. (2022). Navigating the Aegean Sea: smartphones, transnational activism and viapolitical in(ter)ventions in contested maritime borderzones. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 48(8): 1856-1872.
• Scheel, S. (2019). Autonomy of Migration? Appropriating Mobility within Biometric Border Regimes. London and New York: Routledge.
• Tazzioli, M. (2022). The technological obstructions of asylum: Asylum seekers as forced techno-users and governing through disorientation. Security Dialogue, 53(3): 202-219.
• Trauttmansdorff, P., & Felt, U. (2023). Between Infrastructural Experimentation and Collective Imagination: The Digital Transformation of the EU Border Regime. Science, Technology, & Human Values, 48(3): 635-662.
• Valdivia, A., Aradau, C., Blanke, T., & Perret, S. (2022). Neither opaque nor transparent: A transdisciplinary methodology to investigate datafication at the EU borders. Big Data Society, 9(2): 1-17.
• Weitzberg, K., Cheesman, M., Martin, A., & Schoemaker, E. (2021). Between surveillance and recognition: Rethinking digital identity in aid. Big Data & Society, 8(1): 1-7.

Research element

Students enrolled in this module will have the opportunity to conduct desk-based research as part of their assessments. The first assessment, which is presentation, requires students to research a case study and analyse it using the themes and concepts introduced throughout the module and for that specific week. In the second assessment, students will be asked to write an essay analysing a specific case study. They will be provided with several questions to choose from for this assessment. The analysis of the chosen case study must be related to the themes introduced in the module.

Interdisciplinary

This module covers a wide range of sociological themes, drawing on related fields such as political sociology, anthropology, political science, international relations, and critical security and migration studies.

International

This module is designed to explore the conditions in which new technologies have been integrated into various public immigration systems around the world and their legal, political, and social implications. It covers various topics, such as profiling and risk assessments, which are used to assess entry into countries, especially in Europe and North America. Additionally, the module explores how new technologies, including predictive technologies, are being used to deter migration to these countries. Finally, the module examines the role of new technologies in humanitarian efforts, particularly in Africa and the Middle East.

Subject specific skills

• Being able to analyse how and to what extent physical borders are changing in the digital age
• Being able to reflect on the conditions in which new technologies have been integrated into migration and related systems
• Being able to theorise how borders categorise, select and process migrants in the digital age
• Being able to explore the legal, political and social implications of using new technologies in migration and related systems with a critical approach

Transferable skills

• Developing information literacy skills to gather and evaluate information from various sources.
• Critical reading skills to analyse and interpret complex texts.
• Critical thinking skills through reflection on existing policies and their implications.
• Oral communication skills by participating in seminar discussions and delivering a short presentation
• Written communication skills by writing a summative essay.
• Research skills to conduct independent research and critically evaluate sources.
• Policy analysis skills to understand the impact of current events on society.
• Analytical skills to identify and evaluate patterns and connections in data.