Go Explore Grant from the Independent Research Fund Denmark (2018-2021)
Borders Without Fences and Confinement Without Walls: New Approaches to Migration Control Through Electronic Bracelets
Research Description: 40 years ago, a Spiderman comic gave US judge Jack Love an idea that would revolutionize surveillance, confinement, and bordering practises. Reading how villains successfully tracked Spiderman after attaching a transmitterto his wrist, Judge Love saw the potential of using a similar technology on criminals as an alternative to prison (Lyon 1994:42). After having been adopted by criminal justice systems all over the world, the use of electronic bracelets for migration control was voted into law in the USA in 2002. Migrants can now be monitored at a distance while being able to hold a job and live with their family. At the same time, they are traceable at all times and can quickly be arrested if they disrespect a curfew or if their asylum or immigration case amounts to a deportation. By using a research design that combines person-centered long-term anthropological fieldwork with audiovisual and collaborative research practices, the project seeks to harvest in-depth knowledge about the experiences of confinement and border control, while mapping and analyzing the political and economical processes that contribute to spread the technology to the homes and wrists of increasing numbers of migrants in the USA.
Research questions:
- Which actors and processes lead to the spread and application of this new technology of confinement?
- How are these new technologies of confinement experienced and embodied, when border control is ensured in the most intimate spheres, in homes, and on bodies?
English Summary:
Borders Without Fences and Confinement Without Walls: New Approaches to Migration control Through Electronic Bracelets
Hundreds of thousands of immigrants and asylum seekers in the USA are tracked through surveillance tech such as ankle monitors, which spreads digital confinement into immigrant homes, workplaces and communities, and prolongs detention indefinitely. This for-profit surveillance system, owned by private prison companies, exists in parallel to the 30,000 detention beds that makes the USA the country with the largest immigrant population detention in the world. Through collaborative ethnographic fieldwork, photography and film-making, this project conceptualizes “digital detention” and shows how ankle monitors significantly reduces migrants’ chances to find or hold employment, and how protracted surveillance has serious repercussions for their physical and mental health. Through academic and non-academic publications, invited talks, exhibits, and a short film, the project has contributed to convince stake-holders to take a stance against the use of public funds for the surveillance of asylum seekers and migrants and inspired a 2024 report released by the American Bar Association.
Danish Summary:
Grænser uden hegn og Indespærring uden mure: Nye udviklinger i migrationskontrol gennem elektroniske fodlænker
Hundredetusinder migranter og asylansøgere i USA bliver overvåget gennem teknologier som elektroniske fodlænker, der danner et overvågningssystem, der spreder digital indespærring til migranternes hjem, arbejdspladser og lokalsamfund, på ubestemt tid. Dette overvågningssystem, der er ejet af private fængselsvirksomheder, eksisterer parallelt med de 30.000 senge i specifikke immigrationsfængsler, som gør USA til det land, der indespærrer flest migranter i verden. Gennem kollaborativt etnografisk feltarbejde, fotografi og film konceptualiser projektet “digital detention” og viser, hvordan elektroniske fodlænker reducerer migranters chancer for at finde og bevare et arbejde, og hvordan forlænget overvågning har negative konsekvenser for deres fysiske og mentale sundhed. Gennem akademiske og ikke-akademiske publikationer, foredrag, udstillinger, og en kortfilm har projektet bidraget til at overbevise interesseorganisationer om at agere mod brugen af offentlige midler til overvågning af asylansøgere og migranter og har inspireret en juridisk rapport fra 2024, publiceret af American Bar Association.
The research project was based at CERLIS, Université de Paris-Cité and SADR, John Jay Center for Criminal Justice at the City University of New York.
Original announcement by Independent Research Fund Denmark.
Grant owner: Postdoc Carolina Sanchez Boe
Research Dissemination:
Digital Borders Pop-Up Exhibit, shown at Goldsmith College – University of London, UK, March 2020, Aarhus University, Denmark, September 2021, Gallerie Colbert – Paris, France, October 2021 Maisons d’arrêt de Villepinte, Bois-d’Arcy et Versailles (organizer: Cinéma 93) France 2021 Rutgers University, USA, October 2023
Carolina Sanchez Boe 