Biopolitical bordering: Enacting populations as intelligible objects of government:
26 Jan 2020-European Journal of Social Theory (SAGE PublicationsSage UK: London, England)-Vol. 23, Iss: 4, pp 571-590
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that these discussio... argue that the discussion of how to interpret and use biopolitics has been fiercely debated, usually in highly generalized terms.
Abstract: Since Foucault introduced the notion of biopolitics, it has been fiercely debated—usually in highly generalized terms—how to interpret and use this concept. This article argues that these discussio...
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TL;DR: In this paper, a sociology of translation and treason is proposed to trace how records produced in border encounters are translated into not only migration facts, but also various forms of nonknowledge, and demonstrate the analytical potential of this approach, which is, to a significant extent, a result of the mistranslation of returned migrants in administrative records used for migration statistics.
Abstract: In the past decade, constructivist understandings of migration have gained momentum in migration studies. Scholars have shown how (some) people are enacted as ›migrants‹ when human mobility clashes with nation‐states’ claimed prerogative to control »the legitimate means of movement« (Torpey). Another body of scholarship has highlighted the crucial role played by knowledge practices in the enactment of migration as an intelligible object of government. However, these two lines of inquiry have largely been conducted independently of each other. To better account for how practices of border control affect the production of knowledge about migration and how the latter, in turn, informs practices and rationales of migration management, this article asks: How can we conceptualize and empirically investigate the relationship between enacting migration through knowledge practices and enacting migrants through practices of bordering? In response to this question, I propose a sociology of translation and treason in the tradition of the Actor‐Network Theory (ANT), which enables tracing how records produced in border encounters are translated into not only ›migration facts‹ but also various forms of nonknowledge. To demonstrate the analytical potential of this approach, I show how statistical knowledge about the ›deportation gap‹ – often invoked to justify ever‐more restrictive measures in the field of return policy – is, to a significant extent, a result of the mistranslation of returned migrants in administrative records used for migration statistics.
Zur Politik des (Nicht‐)Wissens in der Herstellung/dem Ruckgangigmachen von Migration
In den letzten Jahren haben konstruktivistische Ansatze in der Migrationsforschung an Bedeutung gewonnen. Zahlreiche Forscher*innen haben gezeigt, wie einige Subjekte zu Migranten gemacht werden, wenn Mobilitat mit dem von Nationalstaaten beanspruchten Recht kollidiert, »die legitimen Mittel der Bewegung« (Torpey) zu kontrollieren. Ein zweiter Forschungsbereich hat die Rolle von Wissenspraktiken bei der Konstitution von Migration als einem Objekt des Regierens aufgezeigt. Bislang wurden diese beiden Forschungsrichtungen zumeist unabhangig voneinander betrieben. Um besser zu verstehen, wie Praktiken der Grenzkontrolle die Produktion von Wissen uber Migration beeinflussen, und wie Letztere Praktiken und Logiken des Grenz‐ und Migrationsmanagements pragt, fragt dieser Artikel: Wie lasst sich die Beziehung zwischen der Konstituierung von Migration als einem Objekt des Regierens durch Wissensproduktion und die Konstitution von Migrant*innen durch Praktiken der Grenzkontrolle theoretisch denken und empirisch erforschen? Hierfur wird eine Soziologie der Ubersetzung und des Betrugs in Tradition der Akteur‐Netzwerk‐Theorie (ANT) vorgeschlagen. Dieser Ansatz erlaubt es zu untersuchen, wie administrative Daten, die Begegnungen zwischen mobilen Subjekten und Akteuren der Grenzkontrolle generiert werden, in Fakten bzw. in Nicht‐Wissen uber Migration ubersetzt werden. Um das analytische Potential dieses Ansatzes zu demonstrieren, zeige ich, wie statistisches Wissen uber den ›deportation gap‹, der haufig bemuht wird, um restriktivere Masnahmen im Bereich der Ruckkehrpolitik zu legitimieren, zu einem signifikanten Teil auf der Nicht‐Ubersetzung von remigierten Migrant*innen in administrative Daten beruht, die fur die Produktion von Migrationsstatistiken genutzt werden.
13 citations
Cites background from "Biopolitical bordering: Enacting po..."
...Other scholars have highlighted the importance of the categories used to classify migrants (e.g., Dahinden et al. 2020; Grommé and Scheel 2020; Horvath 2019; Supik and Spielhaus 2019; Stricker 2019) and the discursive formations constituting migration as a problem of government....
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...Hence, populations also tend to fragile and mutable for two reasons: First, the size and composition of a population changes depending on the methods and inscription devices that are used to know it (Scheel, 2020)....
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TL;DR: The authors assesses policy initiatives within England aimed at increasing accountability in localities, by establishing governable spaces that include territorializing, mediating, adjudicating, and subjectivizing.
Abstract: The governance of territories has become increasingly fragmented and complex, challenging the accountability arrangements for “governable spaces.” Tension between central and local governments is a perennial feature of their relationship, but few analyses have explored the implications of this tension for accountability relationships. This article assesses policy initiatives within England aimed at increasing accountability in localities, by establishing governable spaces that include territorializing, mediating, adjudicating, and subjectivizing. During the 2010s, the UK government sought to introduce a form of place-based accountability within the context of reduced central government funding to English local authorities. This meant that local government faced new forms of accountability while adapting to considerable financial shocks. Accounting methods—assessing what phenomena can and should be governed—underpin audit and orthodox concepts of accountability in the United Kingdom. These have driven a narrow finance-focused narrative of local audit and local accountability. However, we also argue that developments in England in the 2010s have undermined political accountability in the localities, because they have worked against critical components within it for making governable space auditable: interpretation of data, judgments on service quality and the impact of cross-public sector relationships on local authorities’ “decision space.”
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TL;DR: For the first time, Scotland's 2022 census will ask a question about sexual orientation as discussed by the authors, which will be the last time the question will be asked in the UK census. Correspondence between National Records of Scotland, the Scottish Parliament's Culture, Tourism, Europe and...
Abstract: For the first time, Scotland’s 2022 census will ask a question about sexual orientation. Correspondence between National Records of Scotland, the Scottish Parliament’s Culture, Tourism, Europe and ...
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TL;DR: In this paper , the authors examined the race-based expulsion of a group of established practitioners from the accountancy profession in Fascist Italy by drawing on Foucault's concepts of biopolitics and race and an array of primary and secondary sources.
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References
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TL;DR: The biological existence of human beings has become political in novel ways as mentioned in this paper, and the object, target and stake of this new 'vital' politics are human life itself, which has become one of the most important sites for ethical judgements and techniques.
Abstract: The biological existence of human beings has become political in novel ways. The object, target and stake of this new 'vital' politics are human life itself. The contemporary state does not 'nationalize' the corporeality of its subjects into a body politic on which it works en masse, in relation to the body politics of other states competing in similar terms. Biopolitics addresses human existence at the molecular level: it is waged about molecules, amongst molecules, and where the molecules themselves are at stake. Human beings in contemporary Western culture are increasingly coming to understand themselves in somatic terms – corporeality has become of the most important sites for ethical judgements and techniques. Biopolitics was inextricably bound up with the rise of the life sciences, the human sciences, clinical medicine. It has given birth to techniques, technologies, experts and apparatuses for the care and administration of the life of each and all, from town planning to health services.
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TL;DR: The Proliferation of Borders as mentioned in this paper is a seminal work in the field of political science that explores the role of borders in the formation and evolution of the modern world. But it does not address the problem of border control.
Abstract: Preface vii Acknowledgments xiii 1. The Proliferation of Borders 1 2. Fabrica Mundi 27 3. Frontiers of Capital 61 4. Figures of Labor 95 5. In the Space of Temporal Borders 131 6. The Sovereign Machine of Governmentality 167 7. Zones, Corridors, and Postdevelopmental Geographies 205 8. Producing Subjects 243 9. Translating the Common 277 References 313 Index 349
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TL;DR: The authors analyzed quantification as a general sociological phenomenon and called for an ethics of numbers, drawing on scholarship across the social sciences in Europe and North America as well as humanistic inquiry.
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