Article ID: CBB478284294

Vision and Transterritory: The Borders of Europe (November 2017)

unapi

Follis, Karolina (Author)


Science, Technology and Human Values
Volume: 42
Issue: 6
Pages: 1003-1030


Publication Date: November 2017
Edition Details: Special Issue: Tracking and Targeting: Sociotechnologies of (In)security
Language: English

This essay is about the role of visual surveillance technologies in the policing of the external borders of the European Union (EU). Based on an analysis of documents published by EU institutions and independent organizations, I argue that these technological innovations fundamentally alter the nature of national borders. I discuss how new technologies of vision are deployed to transcend the physical limits of territories. In the last twenty years, EU member states and institutions have increasingly relied on various forms of remote tracking, including the use of drones for the purposes of monitoring frontier zones. In combination with other facets of the EU border management regime (such as transnational databases and biometrics), these technologies coalesce into a system of governance that has enabled intervention into neighboring territories and territorial waters of other states to track and target migrants for interception in the “prefrontier.” For jurisdictional reasons, this practice effectively precludes the enforcement of legal human rights obligations, which European states might otherwise have with regard to these persons. This article argues that this technologically mediated expansion of vision has become a key feature of post–cold war governance of borders in Europe. The concept of transterritory is proposed to capture its effects.

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Article Lucy Suchman; Karolina Follis; Jutta Weber (November 2017) Tracking and Targeting: Sociotechnologies of (In)security: (Introduction). Science, Technology and Human Values (pp. 983-1002). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB478284294/

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Authors & Contributors
Kloppenburg, Sanneke
Katina Michael
Brittany Duncan
Dijstelbloem, Huub
Lisa M. PytlikZillig
Wills, Jocelyn
Concepts
Technology and society
Drones (aircraft)
Surveillance
Border security
Technoscience; science and technology studies
National security
Time Periods
21st century
20th century
Modern
20th century, late
Medieval
19th century
Places
Europe
European Union
United States
Great Britain
Japan
Canada
Institutions
International Committee for the History of Technology
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