Autonomy of Migration Despite Its Securitisation? Facing the Terms and Conditions of Biometric Rebordering

Abstract

This article reconsiders the concept of autonomy of migration (CAM) in the context of technologically ever more sophisticated border regimes by focusing on the case of biometric rebordering. As its name suggests, the CAM's core thesis proposes that migratory movements yield moments of autonomy in regards to any attempt to control and regulate them. Yet, the CAM has been repeatedly accused of being based on and contributing to a romanticisation of migration. After outlining two advantages the CAM offers for the analysis of biometric border regimes, I demonstrate that processes of biometric rebordering increase the warranty of the two allegations, which feed this major critique. Drawing on examples relating to the Visa Information System (VIS), I show, moreover, that processes of biometric rebordering alter the practical terms and material conditions for moments of autonomy of migration to such an extent that it becomes necessary to rethink not only some of the CAM's central features, but the notion of autonomy itself. In the final section I therefore point out some directions to develop the CAM as an approach, which is better equipped to investigate today's struggles of migration without being prone to the critique of implicating a romanticisation of migration. KeywordsAutonomy of migration, biometric rebordering, securitisation, dispositif, situated knowledge […] there is an autonomy of emigration adverse to the politics of states and this accounts for emigration as well as immigration. This is a pre-edited version of an article which appeared in Millennium -Journal of International Studies. You will find the final version of the article here: http://mil.sagepub.com/content/41/3/575 2 understands itself as a contribution to this ongoing undertaking. It argues that the material terms and practical conditions for the emergence of possible moments of autonomy of migration have changed significantly due to the increased technologisation of border regimes.Yet, the existing literature on the concept of autonomy of migration (CAM) has so far not sufficiently acknowledged the impact of the technologisation of border controls on the possibilities of migrants to appropriate what contemporary border and migration regimes seek to deny them, namely: mobility and rights. What has hindered the advocates of the CAM so far to take the technologisation of border controls and its effects on migrants' room for manoeuvre seriously is the misreading of the interrelated securitisation of migration as a mere means for the economic exploitation of migrant labour. 4 This is why the CAM's core hypothesis has been largely articulated as an unqualified generalisation to date: moments of autonomy seem to emerge and operate within any border and migration regime irrespective of its legal, practical and technological composition.In this article I therefore reconsider the CAM in face of the ongoing technologisation of border controls by focusing on the challenges posed by biometric rebordering. My analysis is driven by the following q...

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