Autonomy of Migration? : Appropriating Mobility within Biometric Border Regimes PDF
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Autonomy of Migration? Examining how migrants appropriate mobility in the context of biometric border controls, this volume mobilises new analytics and empirics in the de- bates about the politics of migration and provides an analytically effective and politically significant tool for the study of contemporary migration. Drawing from the tension between the EU’s attempt to achieve watertight border controls by means of biometric technologies, and migrants’ persis- tence to move to and live in the EU, the volume pursues two interrelated objectives: first, it studies the encounters between migrants and the Visa In- formation System (VIS), one of the largest biometric databases in the world, from the perspective of mobility in order to investigate how migrants appro- priate mobility via Schengen visa within and against this biometric border regime. Second, it addresses criticisms of autonomy of migration in order to develop it as a viable approach for border, migration and critical security studies. Hence, the book is driven by two interrelated research questions: what does the assertion of moments of autonomy of migration refer to in the context of border regimes that use biometrics to turn migrants’ bodies into a means of mobility control? And how do migrants appropriate mobility via Schengen visa within and against biometric border regimes? This book will be of great interest to scholars in border, migration and critical security studies, as well as researchers engaged in citizenship studies, surveillance studies, political theory, critical IR theory and international political sociology. Stephan Scheel is working as an assistant professor at the sociology department of the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany. He was previously a researcher on the project ‘ARITHMUS – How Data Make a People’ at Goldsmiths, University of London, UK. Stephan holds a PhD from the Department for Politics and International Studies at the Open University in Milton Keynes. His thesis has been awarded the Michael Nicholson Thesis Prize of the British International Studies Association (BISA) in 2015. Interventions The Series provides a forum for innovative and interdisciplinary work that engages with alternative critical, post-structural, feminist, postcolonial, psychoanalytic and cultural approaches to international relations and global politics. In our first 5 years we have published 60 volumes. We aim to advance understanding of the key areas in which scholars working within broad critical post-structural traditions have chosen to make their interventions, and to present innovative analyses of important topics. Titles in the series engage with critical thinkers in philosophy, sociol- ogy, politics and other disciplines and provide situated historical, empirical and textual studies in international politics. We are very happy to discuss your ideas at any stage of the project: just contact us for advice or proposal guidelines. Proposals should be submitted directly to the Series Editors: • Jenny Edkins ([email protected]) and • Nick Vaughan-Williams ([email protected]). ‘As Michel Foucault has famously stated, “knowledge is not made for under- standing; it is made for cutting” In this spirit The Edkins - Vaughan- Williams Interventions series solicits cutting edge, critical works that challenge main- stream understandings in international relations. It is the best place to con- tribute post disciplinary works that think rather than merely recognize and affirm the world recycled in IR’s traditional geopolitical imaginary.’ Michael J. Shapiro, University of Hawai’i at Manoa, USA Edited by Jenny Edkins, Aberystwyth University and Nick Vaughan- Williams, University of Warwick Autonomy of Migration? Appropriating Mobility within Biometric Border Regimes Stephan Scheel The Anarchist Imagination Anarchism Encounters the Humanities and Social Sciences Carly Levy and Saul Newman For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.com Autonomy of Migration? Appropriating Mobility within Biometric Border Regimes Stephan Scheel First published 2019 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2019 Stephan Scheel The right of Stephan Scheel to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Scheel, Stephan, author. Title: Autonomy of migration? : appropriating mobility within biometric border regimes / Stephan Scheel. Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2019. | Includes bibliographical references. Identifiers: LCCN 2018055467 (print) | LCCN 2019003866 (ebook) | ISBN 9781315269030 (eBook) | ISBN 9781138285361 (hbk) | ISBN 9781315269030 (ebk) Subjects: LCSH: Immigration enforcement—European Union countries. | Visas—Government policy—European Union countries. | Border security—Technological innovations—European Union countries. | Biometric identification—Government policy— European Union countries. Classification: LCC JV7590 (ebook) | LCC JV7590 .S33 2019 (print) | DDC 325.4—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018055467 ISBN: 9781138285361 (hbk) ISBN: 9781315269030 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by codeMantra Dedicated to Ayoub, Hissam, Kelly (and all the people who have to struggle against bordering practices implied by the national order of things) Contents List of figures ix List of tables xi List of abbreviations xiii Acknowledgements xv Permissions xix Introduction 1 1 Biometric rebordering revisited: beyond the control bias and policy gaps 18 2 Autonomy of migration within biometric border regimes? 42 3 Rethinking the autonomy of migration: rethinking autonomy 75 4 Deconstructing the trickster narrative: the visa regime as an unpredictable regime of institutionalised distrust 112 5 At the consulate: appropriating mobility within and against biometric border regimes 136 6 Encounters at the airport: embarrassing performances of sovereign power 157 7 Rendering Europe a vast borderzone: on the irreducible ambivalence of migrants’ practices of appropriation 182 Conclusion: autonomy of migration reloaded 209 Index 225 List of figures 6.1 Copy of leaflet attached with sticky tape to counter of border check posts at airport X (Chapter 6) 161
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