Abstract
Abstract This chapter introduces the concept of ‘biobordering’. Taking the nationally grown crime control regimes into account, we argue that the proposed concept of bioborders is useful in capturing how the territorial foundations of national state autonomy are partially reclaimed (what we call rebordering) and at the same time partially purposefully suspended (what we call debordering). The concept of biobordering is particularly fruitful for understanding how modes of bordering entangle with large-scale IT database infrastructures for the exchange of biometric data in the context of crime control. It highlights in particular the legal, scientific, technical, political and ethical dimensions of data exchange across borders across the EU. The chapter reviews recent insights from border studies and continues by outlining components and dynamics of biobordering that make bioborders more or less permeable for expansive biometric data exchange.
Highlights
Taking the nationally grown crime control regimes into account, we argue that the proposed concept of bioborders is useful in capturing how the territorial foundations of national state autonomy are partially reclaimed and at the same time partially purposefully suspended
The concept of biobordering aims to address the following research question: who or what is acting when transnational large-scale IT database infrastructures facilitate the exchange of biometric data for the purposes of crime control and tracking of mobile ‘risky’ people? In order to try to provide some answers, we use the concept of biobordering to understand actions and interactions that go beyond state-as-actor-centred perspectives
Afterwards, we explore the different logics of the debordering dynamics at work at the EU level, highlighting the legal, scientific, technical, political and ethical dimensions of data exchange across borders that are configured to achieve technological integration across Member States
Summary
We introduce the concept of ‘biobordering’. Taking the nationally grown crime control regimes into account, we argue that the proposed concept of bioborders is useful in capturing how the territorial foundations of national state autonomy are partially reclaimed (what we call rebordering) and at the same time partially purposefully suspended (what we call debordering). The concept of biobordering aims to address the following research question: who or what is acting when transnational large-scale IT database infrastructures facilitate the exchange of biometric data for the purposes of crime control and tracking of mobile ‘risky’ people? While most border studies interested in biometrics in the EU have been concerned with the role of borders in relation to people and people’s bodies, we argue that the shift towards attempts to make national borders permeable for biometric data exchange deserves further attention We call such borders ‘bioborders’ and assume that unpacking such bioborders will help us to understand how they shape new forms of surveillance of ‘risky groups’ across Europe. Different dynamics shape how multiple occurrences of the state’s rooted autonomy and the integration ambitions of EU institutions meet and configure diverse bioborders for data exchange
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