1,720,961 research outputs found
Scripts of Alterity: Mapping Assumptions and Limitations of the Border Security Apparatus through Classification Schemas
Get PDFThis article empirically maps and compares types of knowledge produced about people on the move by the European border security apparatus. Exploring two complementary analytical moments, the article addresses the stabilization of power and contingent practices within such apparatuses. We argue, first, that analyzing classification schemas implemented in data systems used within the European apparatus can reveal assumptions and limitations about people on the move—what we call “scripts of alterity.” Second, the comparative mapping of scripts of alterity reveals a de facto division of labor between scales of governance that would otherwise be invisible in policy. Utilizing the new Ontology Explorer software method as well as discursive analysis, we identify four scripts of alterity, which materialize relations in data systems and are thus relatively stabilized. Third, we identify as “de-inscriptions” forms of resistance specific to scripts of alterity. These can still be contested and we account for three contingent practices of de-inscription from scripts of alterity by conducting ethnographic observation of data systems’ use. Finally, we summarize three contributions that the “scripts of alterity” concept makes to the science and technology studies and to the critical security studies literature on the securitization of cross-border mobility.</p
The Ontology Explorer: A method to make visible data infrastructures for population management
Get PDFThis article details the methodology of the ‘Ontology Explorer’, a method and a tool to analyse data models underpinning information systems. The Ontology Explorer (OE) is a semantic method and javascript-based open-source tool thought to compare data models collected in different formats and used by diverse systems. It’s distinctive in two respects. First, it supports analyses of information systems which are not immediately comparable. Second, it systematically and quantitatively supports discursive analysis of ‘thin’ data models, also by detecting differences and absences through comparison. Used with data models underpinning systems for population management, the OE allows apprehending how people are ‘inscribed’ in information systems; which assumptions are made about them, which possibilities are excluded by design. The OE thus constitutes a methodology to capture authorities’ own imaginaries of populations, and the ‘scripts’ through which they enact actual people as such. Furthermore, the method allows comparing diverse authorities’ scripts, as this article shows by illustrating its functioning with information systems for population management deployed at the European borders. Our approach integrates a number of insights from early infrastructure studies and extends their methods and analytical depth to account for contemporary data infrastructures. By so doing, we hope to trigger a systematic discussion on how to extend those early methodical innovations at the semantic level to contemporary developments in digital methods
Bridging silos or adding friction? The data work behind re-identification across interoperable data infrastructures
Get PDFThis paper investigates the technopolitics of identification across interoperable systems, with a particular focus on the identification of third-country nationals. In doing so, it reveals the data work required to establish and strengthen interoperability across systems. In the ongoing debate concerning interoperability's potential to bridge siloed organisations and their systems, the article focuses on iterative identification processes that make use of governmental interoperable infrastructures. Central to this investigation are the data matching practices and technologies employed at various stages of bureaucratic identification processes, including residency and naturalisation, extending beyond the initial identification of individuals at the border. The article introduces the concept of ‘re-identification' to characterise iterative processes that third-country nationals must undergo at different points in space and time. The analysis draws on data collected at the government immigration agency in the Netherlands and at the agency's data matching software supplier. We analyse how data matching technologies address ‘data frictions’ usually associated with interoperability. We argue that their utilisation in curbing data friction may entail new organisational costs. The findings show that data matching necessitates additional data work for effective re-identification, including formulating search queries, interpreting ambiguous results, and reconciling records across organisations and time
Data quality in data infrastructures of migration and border control
No full textMigrants’ identity data does not always fit into the standard categories inscribed in information systems. These constraints (and possibilities) in standards and interfaces may be one reason why data entered in databases can eventually be found to be of low quality. No wonder that this issue of data quality is frequently identified by policy-makers as an important obstacle in the effective operation of information systems in migration and border control. For example, the EU information systems of Justice and Home Affairs are currently undergoing significant changes to address data quality, a supposed prerequisite to make the systems interoperable. However, despite the wide range of research on data infrastructures of migration and border control in Europe, little research has currently dealt with data quality, and many questions remain. What types of frictions occur during the processes of establishing identities of migrants? How are practices for processing vulnerable populations shaped by databases containing information that is not always complete, accurate, reliable? And how do data quality mechanisms and technologies shape relations between different actors? As part of the ERC-funded “Processing Citizenship” project, I present results from my fieldwork conducted at a company that develops technologies for dealing with data frictions in the processes of migration and border control. My research on the use of these technologies at a migration and asylum agency of a Northern European Member State shows a sample of the kinds of data frictions that can occur during the processing of vulnerable populations, and how these frictions are mediated by such technologies. These findings will contribute to STS research on data infrastructures, the role of data quality mechanisms on socio-technical architectures, and data frictions in migration and border security
Ontology Explorer: A method to analyse data models for identifying and registering border crossers
No full textDatabase schemas, interfaces and ontologies can enact actors in politically sensitive ways. This manifests clearly when such formal knowledge representations are used to establish intended identities of non-citizens. In this paper we present results from our semantic and computational analysis of ontologies of information systems used to identify and register migrants in Europe. By launching the “hotspot approach” in 2015, the European Commission has identified the use of information systems as an important element to de facto achieve a joint migration policy and to gain knowledge on non-EU citizens. However, differences (and similarities) exist among members states’ systems, as well as between member states’ and Europe-wide systems. At European level this is especially relevant as information systems are undergoing major changes following several proposals to make them semantically interoperable, and make their data more usable for EU policy-making. How then are migrants enacted by information systems designed for different purposes by different institutional actors? And what consequences are entailed by their ongoing integration? We present our method to analyse ontologies used in information systems aimed at identifying and registering people at border. This method is informed by discourse and network analysis, allowing us to make visible the politics of knowledge production and materialities of information. We introduce results from our comparative analysis of operational information systems used at EU hotspots. This method will contribute to scholarship in digital STS and the materialities of information with a new method based on the empirical analysis of ontologies
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Finding blind spots:Investigating identity data matching in transnational commercialized security infrastructures and beyond
Get PDFThis dissertation analyzes the interconnections between data matching technologies, identification practices, and transnational commercialized security infrastructures, particularly in relation to migration management and border control. The research was motivated by a curiosity about the intersection between identity data matching and the challenges authorities encounter when identifying individuals, especially the “blind spots” caused by incomplete data, aliases, and uncertainties. The dissertation addresses the following main research question: “How are practices and technologies for matching identity data in migration management and border control shaping and shaped by transnational commercialized security infrastructures?”The dissertation begins by presenting an overview of the literature regarding the connections between data matching technology, which is used across various sectors, and its interrelationships with the internationalization, commercialization, securitization, and infrastructuring of identification infrastructure. This overview highlights a noticeable gap in the understanding of how data matching influences the meaning of the interconnected data and shapes relationships between organizations that use it. To address this gap, Chapter 3 proposes a methodological framework for using data matching as both a research topic and a resource for answering specific sub-questions related to specific aspects of data matching.Chapter 4 emphasizes the significance of data models in information systems for categorizing individuals and establishing connections between different data models for accurate matching. The analysis of this aspect of data matching is made possible by introducing the “Ontology Explorer”, which serves as a novel method for examining the knowledge and assumptions embedded within data models. By applying this method to analyze national and transnational data infrastructures for population management, this method is shown to reveal authorities’ imaginaries on people-on-the-move. In this way, the method demonstrates the importance of data categories in data models, as they are crucial for data matching while also offering valuable insights into how authorities enact people in different ways.Following that, the dissertation investigates how identity data matching is employed to re-identify applicants within a government migration and asylum agency in The Netherlands. Chapter 5 introduces the concept of re-identification, which involves the ongoing utilization and integration of data from various sources to establish whether multiple sets of identity data pertain to a single individual. This chapter uses insights gathered from interviews with personnel from the agency to investigate the integration of data matching tools for re-identification. The chapter shows that striving to minimize data friction in re-identification through data matching can have unintended consequences and additional burdens for the agency’s personnel.Lastly, this dissertation examines the evolution of a commercial data matching system employed for identification and security, adopting a sociotechnical approach. Chapter 6 introduces heuristics that are then used to identify moments that emphasize the design contingencies of the data matching system. Through the examination of fieldwork data collected from the company that created the system, the chapter highlights the reciprocal influences between the system’s design and the actors and entities involved. The system experienced adaptive and contingent changes from a generic data matching system to a specialized tool for identification and security because of such influences. In a broader sense, the chapter brings attention to the interrelationships among software suppliers, integrators, and customers, and the circulation and use of knowledge and technology for matching identity data across organizations
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
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