“The automated gate let me go out, but I feel in prison”: rethinking control over refugees through and beyond technological disruptions.
The use of AI for identifying and tracking migrants at the border and in refugee camps has gained traction in academic debates. In this talk I discuss how the techno-hype in research on borders has inflected analyses on migration control in terms of tracking, surveillance and bias, ending up in ‘seeing (migration) like a State’(Scott, 1998). Building on research conducted in Greece, I analyse the digital and biometric technologies implemented in refugee camps funded by the EU, to show the interlocking modes of control exercised on migrants, illustrating how they contribute to enforce carcerality beyond detention. I argue that these require to move beyond technological fixes. In the final part I interrogate what an abolitionist approach to techno-humanitarianism might look like, shifting attention from AI as such towards an intersectional approach to border violence
