WG1: DATAMIG Prague Workshop Programme, June 4-6
Traveling technologies, regulations, and resistance in the context of datafied migration and borders
hosted by Dr. Zuzana Uhde and Dr. Linda Monsees
Czech Academy of Sciences, Institute of Sociology
June 4-5, 2026
Location:
Academic conference centre (Husova 4a, Praha 1)
onsite and online
(Times in CEST)
June 4, 2026: Day 1
Rooms and Zoom links:
Room 1: Academic conference centre (Husova 4a) https://cesnet.zoom.us/j/93630954178?pwd=3BZjthDPjNgpfVvhCXP7gy1ZSIxaZc.1
Room 2: No. 207 (Jilská 1) https://cesnet.zoom.us/j/94155204336?pwd=ImlDEw4ebbaftz12I3IbaeGGptTnlH.1
All coffee breaks will be in the Academic conference centre.
09:00-09:15: Coffee
09:15-09:45: Welcome & introduction: theme, research groups and activities
(Academic conference centre)
09:45-11:15: Session 1
Room 1: Politics, epistemologies and norms
Organized by Research Group 3 Travelling Policy
Chair &discussant: Jean-Luc Richard (University of Rennes)
Genius Amaraizu (Northwestern University): Digital Border Governance in the Global South as a Site of Epistemic Negotiation
Giorgia Donà (University of East London) & Shamna Thacham Poyil (University of Delhi): The coloniality of datafication in asylum and refugee governance
Annalisa Meloni (University of East London), Alice Fill (École normale supérieure/University of Roma Tre) & Ismini Mathioudaki (The University of Edinburgh): Mapping fragmented accountability: a methodological discussion around datafied migration governance
Sifka Etlar Frederiksen (Leuphana University Lüneburg): From legal frameworks through devices into refugee camp
Room 2: Contesting Digital Borders from Below I
Organized by Research Group 4: Traveling Resistance.
Chair: Philipp Seuferling (University of Glasgow)
Carolina Sanchez Boe (Brown University, France): Digital Detention – Collaborative Contestations from Below
Spyros Galinos (CPT-AMS, Legal Centre Lesvos): The Industry of Pushbacks. Mapping the border industrial complex in the aegean
Javier Toscano (Humboldt University Berlin): Narration as mobile commons: traveling counter-strategies against datafied border regimes
11:15-11:45 Coffee
11:45-13:15 Session 2
Room 1: Methodologies of Tracing Private Actors: Mapping Visions of the Future and Connecting Multiple Geographies of Control
Organized by Research Group 1: Trading Technologies
Chair: Kelly Bescherer (Leuphana Universität Lüneburg)
In this session we will focus on methodologies of tracing private actors, focusing especially on the ethnographic observation of trade fairs and industry events and access to information requests. We reflect on which methodological tools can help us to trace how private actors sell and shape visions of the future in which their technologies play a key role. We consider how privatization transforms public governance and embeds corporate standards with them, reshaping configurations of power and the possibilities for oversight within and beyond the EU. Moreover, the panel asks which methodological tools can help us to think multiple sites of border control together through the lens of overlapping financial interests. The session is conceived as a methodological exchange between researchers already engaging with corporate actors. It begins with a round of short impulses (5-7 minutes) on challenges and observations encountered during their research and then moves into small group work and group reflection.
Travis van Isacker (ESRC Centre for Sociodigital Futures, University of Bristol)
Eline Waerp (FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg / CHREN)
Talia Baroncelli (Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz)
Room 2: Datafied Vulnerability and Humanitarian Protection
Organized by Research Group 2 Traveling Technologies in and beyond the Nexus of Tech, Humanitarianism and Gender Chair & discussant: Marija Grujić (European University Viadrina)
Rieke Schroeder (University of Münster) & Sarian Kosma Jarosz (Københavns Universitet / Stowarzyszenie Lambda Warszawa): Data Too Sensitive: SOGIESC Classification and Queer Precarity at Poland’s Borders with Belarus and Ukraine
Susana de Sousa Ferreira (Universidad Complutense de Madrid): Vulnerability as a Travelling Governance Technology in Migration Regimes: The EU Case
Valentina Biondini (Universidad de Buenos Aires): The Moral Economy of Vulnerability: Gender, Data, and Migration Governance.
Somaiya Meer (EuropeanUniversity Viadrina):Humanitarianism and Gender. From underground classes to online classes: Travelling EdTech and Afghan Women’s Access to Education
13:15-14:45 Lunch break
14:30-16:00 Session 3
Room 1: Digital Methods in Datafied Border Regimes: Methodological roundtable & collaborative reflection
Organized by Research Group 1 Trading Technologies
Chair: Veronika Nagy (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)
This panel focuses on how datafied border regimes are researched, mapped, and critically analyzed, with particular attention to datasets, infrastructures, and the normalization of technological securitization. Instead of presenting finished papers, participants reflect on methods, epistemic choices, and research practices used to investigate digital border control. Key themes include genealogies of data, biometric infrastructures, everyday forms of digital securitization, and mapping as a critical method for revealing corporate power, institutional arrangements, and accountability gaps. The panel aims to foster methodological exchange and inform future collaborative mapping and research within WG1.
Daniel Leix Palumbo (University of Groningen): A genealogy of datasets for voice biometrics: listening to the unheard stories behind border technology
Leah Clarkson (Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals): Private actors, procurement regimes, and the surveillance-industrial complex in EU border governance
Salah El-Kahil (Leuphana Universität Lüneburg): Digitizing Nation State Capitalism: The commodification of identification through statist digital identity wallets
Beáta Paragi (Corvinus University of Budapest): Digital passing: “I died once, so I could live. Perhaps that is my real story.”(online)
Room 2: Infrastructures and Devices
Organized by Research Group 3 Traveling Policy
Chair & discussant: Sarah Perret
Gavin Sullivan & Ismini Mathioudaki (University of Edinburgh): AI Border Governance and Algorithmic Accountability: An Infrastructural Approach?
Jean-Luc Richard (University of Rennes): Statistical Data and Objectivation by Administrations and Asylum Judges in the field of Asylum Policies in Europe : Current evolutions and Perspectives
Elif A. Korkut (Queen Mary University of London) Algorithmic Risk Labels and Experimentalist Governance in the EU Screening Regulation
Iwan Oostrom (Vrije Universiteit Brussel) Translating Legal Provisions into Technical Requirements: On the Implementation of EU AFSJ Database Interoperability
16:00-16:30 Coffee break
16:30 – 18:00 Session 4
Room 1: Humanitarian Technologies and Digital Control
Organized by Research Group 2 Traveling Technologies in and beyond the Nexus of Tech, Humanitarianism and Gender
Chair: Giovanni Briganti Dini (IBEI Barcelona)
Lalaine Siruno (UNU MERIT Maastricht), Katrin Marchand (UNU-MERIT Maastricht) & Stephanie
Deubler (GIZ / Diplomatic Academy of Vienna): Rights-Based Digital Solutions for Migration: Insights from a Meta Study
Yuksel Umutcan (European University Institute): Epistemic Allocation and the Data Politics of Humanitarian Protection: Reflections from PRISM
Lucia Puglia (Zhejiang University): Afterlives of Data: Humanitarian Technologies and the Persistence of Digital Control in Migration Regimes
Ann Dechenne (Little by Little Education Services, NGO): Pathogenic Persistence in Humanitarian Technologies: How AI Inherits and Amplifies Deficit Discourse in Migration Governance
Room 2: Contesting Digital Borders from Below II
Organized by Research Group 4: Traveling Resistance
Chair: Silvan Pollozek
Basia Nikiforova (Lithuanian Culture Research Institute): Digital border and new materialism: intra-action between critical research and civil activism
Kaarina Nikunen (Tampere University):Breaking borders: disruptive and reparative practices of human smuggling
Sara Bellezza (Free University of Berlin) & Andrés Pereira (National University of Córdoba): Tech- Resistance from Latin America and Beyond: Strategies of Mobilisation in the face of the Expansion of Technologies for Migration and Border Control
Nina Amelung (University of Lisbon): A repository of resistance and civil society groups. An overview of COST Action WG3 activities.
20:00 Dinner (location will be announced)
June 5, 2026: Day 2
The four research groups meet separately and work on their own tasks. Please find the specific subgroup programs of day 2 below.
All rooms are in the same building complex (between streets Husova, Jilská and Zlatá); however, it is a maze of old buildings, hence different street names. There will be clear signposts for each meeting room. All coffee breaks will be in the Academic conference centre.
09:00-09:30: Coffee (Academic conference centre, Husova 4a)
09:30 – 11:15 Internal Groups Meeting 1 (4 rooms)
11:15 – 11:45 Coffee
11:45 – 13:30 Internal Groups Meeting 2 (4 rooms)
13:30 – 15:00 Lunch break
15:00 – 16:30 Internal Groups Meeting 3 (4 rooms)
16:30 – 17:00 Coffee and farewell, summaries from working groups, joint activities, next steps (Academic conference centre, Husova 4a)
Day 2 research groups specific program
Research group 1: Trading Technologies. Tracing Private Actors Across
Multiple Geographies of Border Control
Meeting room no. 117, Husova 4 (ÚDU). Zoom link: https://cesnet.zoom.us/j/93516508459?pwd=4ibfU8vovUQ0nUdhbDBYCx661eLGIT.1
This sub-group proposes to look at the ways in which multiple geographies of migration and border control become entangled through the involvement of private sector actors. Transnational corporations such as Cellebrite, Palantir, or Thales, as well as less known companies and start-ups operating domestically, shape agendas of border and mobility control, resulting in many parallels in methodologies of control and financial interests, and potential synergies for civil society actors resisting this securitization. While critical scholarship has examined securitization, humanitarian governance, and externalization, less attention has been paid to the political economy of trading these technologies and to the concrete impact that “privatized” digital infrastructures have on rights, accountability, and sovereignty.
Mapping this corporate landscape, spanning technologies such as biometric identification and recognition, cloud hosting, data analytics, or aerial intelligence, makes visible how private actors actively transnationalize the EU’s datafied border regime. Their technologies circulate not only among EU agencies but also across the Western Balkans, Turkey, and African partner states involved in EUexternalization frameworks. Initiatives like the Copernicus Border Surveillance Service further integrate Earth-observation data supplied by corporate partners into EU border governance systems. This circulation of technology is not merely operational but also normative and political. As proprietary systems and analytics platforms become infrastructural, they embed corporate standards into public policy processes while diffusing accountability across overlapping chains of subcontractors, cloud providers, defense manufacturers, and venture-capital-backed start-ups.
Mapping the market of technological solutions for migration and border management across different fields sheds light on the agency of private actors in transnationalizing datafied border control and in advancing a hegemonic future vision of a tech-driven global mobility regime. We are interested not only in how technologies circulate, but in how their trade restructures responsibility, diffuses accountability, embeds corporate standards into public policy, and affects migrants’ lived realities. What happens when border governance is assembled through cloud providers, subcontractors, defense industries, and venture capital? How does outsourcing reconfigure democratic oversight? How do corporate ecosystems operate across the EU, the Western Balkans, Turkey, Africa, and beyond across the transatlantic region?
09:30 – 11:15 Internal Workshop, part 1
Chair: Romain Lanneau (Statewatch)
Session on hands-on tools for corporate research: Open Security Data Europe and Access Now border surveillance industry mapping
11:45 – 13:30: Internal Workshop, part 2
Chair: Romain Lanneau (Statewatch)
In this session, a collective research exercise will be conducted.
15:00 – 16:30: Open session on future collaborations
Moderation: Linda Monsees (Masaryk University)
Exchange on potential future collaborations.
Research Group 2: Traveling Technologies in and beyond the Nexus of Tech, Humanitarianism and Gender
Meeting room no. 306a, Jilská 3 (SOÚ): https://cesnet.zoom.us/j/97901307021?pwd=mzK3PWBHY6CKu63zmuxhoMvbV3teaS.1
09:30 – 11:15: Feedback and reflection session on Day 1’s presentations
Chair/instructor: Giovanni Dini (IBEI Barcelona) & Nikolas Kouloglou (Avignon University, Université Lumière Lyon II)
11:45 – 13:30: Brainstorming session on Day 1 panels with the aim of developing a Special Issue
Chair/instructor: Marija Grujić (European University Viadrina) & Valentina Biondini (Universidad Nacional de Buenos Aires)
15:00 – 16:30: Writing workshop and future plans for the Special Issue
Chair/instructor: Marija Grujíć (European University Viadrin), Giovanni Dini (IBEI Barcelona) & Valentina Biondini
(Universidad Nacional de Buenos Aires)
Research Group 3: Travelling Policy. Mapping datafied migration governance across geographical and institutional sites
Meeting room no. 207, Jilská 1 (SOÚ): https://lacatholille-fr.zoom.us/j/87293571365
The traveling policy workshop is conceived as a collective working space oriented towards a shared publication outcome, in the form of a writing forum (see for instance: Bellanova et al., 2021). Rather than a conventional conference format, the aim is to foster dialogue across different empirical, methodological and analytical entry points, and to collectively articulate a set of situated reflections around a shared theme. This theme will be further clarified during the workshop, but it is preliminarily and broadly conceived as an exploration into how policies “travel” across geographical and institutional sites—for instance, through translation, implementation, diffusion, externalisation, or adaptation—and how these movements intersect with the datafication of mobility and migration. The objective is to leave the workshop with an expanded outline, structured roadmap or even a first rough draft of what will eventually be a collaborative publication.
To that end, day 1 of the workshop will consist of two sessions with short presentations in which participants will briefly introduce their ‘starting point contribution’: the empirical material, analytical problem, or conceptual argument from which they propose to engage with the workshop theme. Rather than a conventional paper presentation, the sessions are organised as a roundtable with short presentations. The collaborative sessions will last 90 minutes, featuring four 8-10 minute participant presentations, followed by an interactive group discussion, moderated by one of the workshop’s participants. During each session, we also ask two participants who are not presenting to take notes, exploring overlaps and tensions, differences and similarities between the contributions. These insights will form the starting point of the collective work on the second day.
Day 2 consists of three working sessions and is geared towards creating a shared writing piece that forms the basis of the collaborative publication. The first session will feature a brief discussion about the publication format and writing process, after which, based on the conversations and notes of day 1, the writing theme(s), topics, controversies and questions to investigate are collaboratively explored. Informed by this exploration, session 2 is dedicated to concretely drafting—individually or within the subgroups—a short text that can serve as the basis for one of the forum’s contributions. Finally, in session 3, these texts are briefly presented, after which the themes and tensions that may frame the forum discussion are re-articulated. As such, by the end of the day, the aim is to have established the backbone/foundation of the collaborative writing piece.
09:30 – 11:15: Session 1: Publication format, writing process and collaborative exploration
Chair/instructor: Sarah Perret
11:45 – 13:30: Session 2: Writing workshop
Chair/instructor: Sifka Etlar Frederiksen15:00 – 16:30 Session 3: Framing the discussion
Chair/instructor: Annalisa Meloni
Research Group 4: Contesting digital borders from below. Mapping Traveling Counter Strategies of Digital Technologies in the Context of Migration, Humanitarianism and Border Control
Academic conference centre (Husova 4a). Zoom link: https://europa-uni-de.zoom-x.de/j/65676540056?pwd=dWl2RThuZFdGcHgrZ2lob2ptNzdWZz09
The datafication and digitalization of migration and border control, and their contestation, have become global and transnational phenomena. At the intersection of critical research and civil society activism, our goal is to engage with collectives and initiatives that develop strategies and tactics to visibilize, trace, map, hold accountable, campaign and advocate against the innovation, marketing, and deployment of new migration and border technologies across the globe. We seek to discover active forms of exchange and networking among such collectives and actors and understand how shared positionings, approaches, epistemologies, critiques and narratives emerge, travel – and diversify – on a trans- and international scale.
This mapping workshop explores and assembles ‘contestations from below’ against datafied and digital borders across the globe. In the mapping workshop, we will discuss and contribute to the following and related questions:
– Which strategies and tactics of resistance to border-tech circulate across bordering spaces and across critical research, civil society, and activism? How do such practices – and the knowledge around them- travel, are translated and reappropriated into certain contexts and situations over time?
– Which globalized and localized epistemologies, narratives, critiques and positionings against datafied and digital borders exist and emerge across collectives? In which ways do they diversify, e.g. along the axis of reactive – proactive, technopessimistic – technooptimistic, or abolitionist – reformist approaches?
– What actors, formats and practices stimulate trans- and international exchange and network building?
Tasks for the participants:
Please brainstorm in advance about the following points and add your ideas, links, best practices to our joint Miro board (here). Please think of concrete ideas, and share concrete materials and links:
– What: Based on the description above, please think about what our mapping should focus on. What knowledge would you like to see getting created? To which existing research/work/projects should we refer? What output formats would you like to see?
– Who: For whom (audience: Academia, Activist, other?) and for which purpose should our mapping be created? Who (else) should get involved?
– How: Bring one example of a mapping to the workshop (in addition to the one you might be presenting anyways), which you find inspiring. Why? How would you like to use such a mapping with regards to our thematic scope? Try to understand what such a mapping entails in terms of data types, data collection, visualization/mapping software, etc.
09:30 – 11:15 What to map?
Moderation: Sara Bellezza(Free University of Berlin)
In this session, we will get to know each other, collect and discuss participants’ ideas, discuss potential threads and linkages, and assess existing and inspiring work. At the end of this session, we will have narrowed down the scope of our joint mapping endeavour.
11:45 – 13:30 For whom, with whom, and how to map?
Moderation: Philipp Seuferling (University of Glasgow) and Andrés Pereira (National University of Córdoba)
In our second slot, we will discuss more closely for whom and with whom our mapping project should be and what ethical questions this implies. Moreover, we will start discussing how exactly we would like to do the mapping. Participants will present their favourite mappings and we will discuss how we can apply them to our mapping project.
15:00 – 16:30: Defining our mapping project and next steps
Moderation: Silvan Pollozek (European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder))
In our last slot, we will come to terms and define our mapping project. We will discuss and define, which kind of output do we want to create. We will also schedule a next meeting and discuss how we would like to organize our collaborative project.
Organizing Teams Prague Workshop
Local organizers: Zuzana Uhde (+4206042117991) & Linda Monsees (+4917654278618)
COST WG1 Coordination Committee: Alice Fill, Koen Leurs, Annalisa Meloni, Veronika Nagy, Sarah Perret, Silvan Pollozek, Philipp Seuferling, Zuzana Uhde
Research Group1: Kelly Bescherer, Zuzana Uhde, Veronika Nagy
Research Group 2: Giovanni Dini, Marija Grujić, Nikolas Kouloglou, Valentina Biondini
Research Group 3: Sifka Etlar Frederiksen, Iwan Oostrom, Alice Fill, Sarah Perret
Research Group 4: Sara Bellezza, Andrés Pereira, Silvan Pollozek, Philipp Seuferling
Participants
Alice Fill École normale supérieure/University of Roma Tre
Andrés Pereira National University of Córdoba
Ann Dechenne Little by Little Education Services (NGO)
Annalisa Meloni University of East London
Basia Nikiforova Lithuanian Culture Research Institute (LCRI)
Beáta Paragi Corvinus University of Budapest
Carolina Sanchez Boe Brown University, France
Daniel Leix Palumbo University of Groningen
Elif A. Korkut Queen Mary University of London
Eline Waerp CHREN, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität (FAU)
Gavin Sullivan University of Edinburgh
Genius Amaraizu Northwestern University
Geoff Boyce CPT
Giorgia Donà University of East London
Giovann Dini Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona / IBEI
Ismini Mathioudaki University of Edinburgh
Iwan Oostrom Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Javier Toscano Humboldt University Berlin
Jean-Luc Richard University of Rennes
Kaarina Nikunen Tampere University
Katrin Marchand UNU MERIT / Maastricht
Kelly Bescherer Leuphana Universität Lüneburg
Lalaine Siruno UNU MERIT / Maastricht
Leah Clarkson Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals
Linda Monsees Masaryk University
Lucia Puglia Zhejiang University
Marija Grujić European University Viadrina
Nikolas Kouloglou Avignon Université / Université Lumière Lyon II
Nina Amelung University of Lisbon
Philipp Seuferling University of Glasgow
Rieke Schroeder University of Münster
Romain Lanneau Statewatch
Salah El-Kahil Leuphana Universität Lüneburg
Sara Bellezza Free University of Berlin
Sarah Perret Catholic University of Lille
Sarian Kosma Jarosz Københavns Universitet / Stowarzyszenie Lambda Warszawa
Shamna Thacham Poyil University of Delhi
Sifka Etlar Frederiksen Leuphana University Lüneburg
Silvan Pollozek European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder)
Somaiya Meer European University Viadrina
Spyros Galindo CPT / Legal Centre Lesvos
Stephanie Deubler GIZ / Diplomatic Academy of Vienna
Susana de Sousa Ferreira Universidad Complutense de Madrid
Talia Baroncelli Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz
Travis van Isacker ESRC Centre for Sociodigital Futures, University of Bristol
Valentina Biondini CCONFINES-UNVM, Universidad de Buenos Aires
Veronika Nagy Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Yuksel Umutcan European University Institute
Zuzana Uhde Czech Academy of Sciences
