Objectives
DATAMIG calls for an integrated, inter- and trans-disciplinary approach to identifying and scrutinising socio-technical matters of datafied migration and border control. We build on a rich but dispersed research landscape and civic society ecosystem that have focused on ambiguities of datafication. Our network proposal will enable the development of new methodologies, concepts, and societal engagements, thereby contributing substantially to moving beyond the conceptualisation of migrations and borders in terms of the biases of securitisation and security-based, data-driven approach of control that has become hegemonic in the past two decades. The challenges of researching data matters of EU migration and border control – that is to say, how data reconfigures rationalities of migration and border control, how it is shaped by data practices and data infrastructures, and how it gets critiqued, contested, and (re)appropriated by migrants and civic society – will be addressed in three working groups (WGs). The WGs are organised conceptually rather than thematically to interconnect various fields of research and interventions, and enable fruitful exchanges on different topics.
Inventory
Setting up an integrated research framework for data matters of European migration and border control, which will emerge from the sharing of resources in the context of an enhanced research network, will take stock of - and go beyond - recent research.
Observatory
Mapping and monitoring of different arenas of datafication will serve as an observatory of the pertinent research, to wit, as a mechanism within the research network that will ensure that any given research requirements are fulfilled; the latter range from mapping and monitoring practices at different sites and arenas of datafication or enhancing already existing monitoring activities and networks to enabling comparative perspectives on monitoring results.
Laboratory
Establishing an accessible community of practice for experimental forms of engagement and intervention to further the diversification and contestation of datafication In keeping with the innately normative and interventional function of a laboratory, WG3 will develop a central and accessible community of practice for engagement with and research into (a) the contestation of the datafication of migration and border control and (b) the diversification by means of “datafication from below”
How Can You Participate?
Please note, Management Committee nominations are carried out through the COST National Coordinators
