Javier DuranUniversity of ArizonaCommunication Across BordersIDC Herzliya, Israel July 8, 2008

Introductory Context

Recent theoretical work in American and European academic circles explores the ways in which the image and the cultural representation of the migrant becomes part (or not) of national discourses of securing the State.

3 recent examples that re-articulate this image are:

a) naturalizing and racializing the figure of the “alien” (De Genova 2006),

b) the role of the migrant in the ethopolitical landscape of the nation (Inda 2006),

c) the connections of the “biopolitical tattooing” with a growing perception of borders as permanent “states of exception” (Agamben 2004).

Other recent notional work on the relationship between biometrics, security and citizenship (Ross 2007) suggests the need to better frame new ways in which borders, bodies and the State are being realigned and represented in cultural artifacts anb imaginaries.

In this context, the notions of virtual border and datamigrants take a central role.

Virtual Borders DataMigrants

This presentation intends to present a preliminary framework for a theoretical exploration of the above repositioning from a multidisciplinary perspective, focusing on two main aspects:

The reconfiguration of State power into new immaterial forms such as virtual and biometric borders and how this affects the notion of rights and jurisdictions

The impact of this reconfiguration via processes of disembodiment and deterritorialization in the representation of migrant subjects and transborder communities.

Some trends where we will locate ethnographic data from the MIGRANT SUBJECTS themselves

Border crossings: documented and undocumented

Documenting testimonies of violation of human rights during crossings

Human rights issues in local border communities i.e. Racial profiling

Some theoretical extrapolations emerging at the local level:

Bio-etho-political landscapes State of exception and bionetworks The role and sorting of Clandestine

Transnational Actors CTA’s -Andreas (2003)

Muller (2008) suggests raising the marriage of convenience that connects two related dispositifs of security

– geopolitics - biopolitics And their referent objects: a) the state and b) everyday life

the biometric state involves an oddmixture of the geopolitical and the biopolitical, as well as increasing reliance on the mechanisms and technologies of risk. In this case, such technologies of risk are applied directly to the referent object of species life itself. In otherwords, it is particular forms of life that are read as risky, or bodies that are not readable represent vulnerability to the biometric state and its obsession with life

Motivated by an obsession with technologies of risk and practices of risk management, the biometric state is defined by the prevalence of virtual borders and reliance on biometric identifiers such as passports, trusted-traveller status programs and national ID cards, as well as the forms of social sorting that accompany these manoeuvres. (Salter 2007)

But what about “reality”?

States are looking to biometric solutions to prevent illegal migrants, criminals, andterrorists from entering national territories, while ensuring the efficient flow of people,goods, and services across international borders. With biometric systems, states have new tools to respond to a host of security concerns

But what happens when the human condition transcends technology and politics?

And when SECURITY as an abstract notion becomes a hegemonic discourse?

In-conclusions and potential lines of inquiry

A- An urgent need to revise the notion of “illegality” and “un-documentation”

B- A serious conversation about the issue of legal rights and jurisdictions

C- The increased criminalization of non-threatening CTA’s

D- The re-humanization of the biometric state

E- The effective management of humanitarian crisis such as the increase in deaths of migrants on the Arizona desert