Technologies, infrastructures and migrations: material citizenship politics

Abstract

This article aims to explore the multiple uses and consequences of different technologies and infrastructures in the context of migrations and how such uses and consequences inhabit and transform migrants' rights and subjectivities. It reviews relevant literature at the intersection of citizenship, critical migration studies and science and technology studies (STS), focusing in particular on the current debates underway within critical citizenship studies that examine how technologies and infrastructures shape the ability to acts of citizenship. By mobilizing insights from STS, we focus on how these political subjectivities are shaped by certain sociomaterial and epistemic practices. By introducing the notion of material citizenship politics, the article outlines a way to differentiate three different constitutive forms between technologies, infrastructures and citizenship in migrations. Technologies and infrastructures can (1) constrain acts of citizenship in migration and border regimes; (2) constitute contestation and participation over citizenship; or (3) enable and shape alternative acts of citizenship in migration and border regimes. As it provides a theoretical background to the special issue, the article also serves as the introduction to the issue.

New tech, old exploitation: Gig economy, algorithmic control and migrant labour

“…Combined with the structural precarity migrant workers often face, algorithms and data further act as a source of control and coercion to nudge workers in ways that benefit platform companies. By utilising gamification methods of surge pricing, customer ratings, bonuses for trips completed by certain time frames, platform companies strategically capitalise on migrant workers' financial needs but also the socialised needs of fitting in within the host countries' standards (Amelung et al., 2020). Many migrants face financial precarity in new countries, however, also face precariousness in acceptance due to racialised logic.…”

“…Many migrants face financial precarity in new countries, however, also face precariousness in acceptance due to racialised logic. These logics position migrants into categories of good versus bad, for example, migrants that came ‘legally versus illegally’, with platform companies strategically exploiting these logics to push workers to self‐optimise (Amelung et al., 2020) and overcompensate, such as adding extra services within ride‐sharing or working harder in food delivery. It should be further noted that migrant workers might have limited technological knowledge of how algorithms work or who are new and isolated workers to understand how algorithms operate, how algorithms control their job opportunities as well as how they could ‘game the system’.…”