Andrea Rea (ULB-GERME, Belgium): "Controlling the Undesirable at the border-network"

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Controlling the Undesirable at the border-network

Andrea ReaUniversité libre de Bruxelles (ULB-GERME)

THE ANTI-ATLAS OF BORDERSINTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

30 Septembre – 2 Octobre 2013

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Plan1) From borders to bordering2) Three main interpretations3) The border-network4) European policy of mobility and

bordering processes5) Controlling the undesirable at the

airport

Andrea Rea : Controlling the Undesirable at the border-network

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1. From borders to bordering• State borders, state sovereignty and territory• In Westphalien state model, border is the container of the state

which allows control populations and protection against the exterior• Military conception: Border as a continuous demarcation line

between homogenous entities• From spaces of places to spaces of flows (Castells, 1996)• Harvey ‘time-space compression’ (Harvey, 1990) or ‘time-space

distanciation’ (Giddens, 1990)• Human mobility has increased and the classic notion of migration

has become insufficient• Mobility of elites (entrepreneurs, scientists, advanced service

producers, transnational professionals, artists, etc.) and growing consumption-led mobility (tourists)


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1. From borders to bordering

• Debordering-rebordering

• “The debordering processes in the world’s states might lead to a “debordering of the world of states” (Albert & Brock 1996).

• The first process refers to the increasing permeability of borders and the decreasing capacity of states to curb this trend

• while the debordering (or rebordering) of the world of states involves the response of states seeking to adapt to globalisation.

• In the literature, at least three processes are distinguished that contribute to debordering.


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1. From borders to bordering

• Three main changes– The first is the expansion of the world economy.

The large movement of financial capital and the global strategies implemented by transnational companies constitute the central elements of current economic globalisation.

– The second process of debordering is indeed the increase in international regulations, the growing involvement of international organisations and supranational entities (such as the European Union) and the emergence of transnational networks or transnational social movements acting on a global scale.Andrea Rea : Controlling the Undesirable at the border-network

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1. From borders to bordering– The third debordering process is linked to the

dematerialisation of the border. The most well-known example is the mobility of information and knowledge as a result of the internet (for the economy, especially since the digitalisation of stock exchanges). The dematerialisation of the border also affects the mobility of people. The crossing of the physical border of a state is disconnected from the control of the right to move. Surveillance is no longer mainly localised at the physical borders of states. It operates first through administrative procedures and databases and only later, for some, upon the physical passage of the border


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2. Three main interpretation• Borderless World

– The expansion of the world economy gave birth to the globalisation of economic activities, what Ohmae (1991) calls The Borderless World, in which the state no longer occupies a central position, giving way to the market and consumer.

– The world economy is also fragmented and the continuities and fluidities of economic activities occur mainly between transnationalized regions (Ohmae 1996) and global cities(Sassen 1991).

– Other authors like Ohmae (1996) and Guéhenno (1995) claim that we are witnessing not the end of territory but the end of the nation-state and in a certain manner the end of democracy.


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2. Three main interpretation• Transnational communities

– Creation of new dislocated and deterritorialised spaces: transnational communities founded on a strong sense of belonging linked to a common origin (national, ethnic, religious, etc.). (Hannerz 1996, Appadurai, 1996).

– Transnational communities and diasporas have emerged as a result of increased transport facilities and telecommunication(Glick-Schiller 1994; Portes 1999; Faist, 2000).

– Borders have not dissolved, they are reconfigured. They are no longer linked to geographical borders: their construction is primarily based on boundaries, on ethnic and cultural borders

– The globalised upper classes (Sassen 2007) are also transnational communities (transnational professionals).These transnational communities could be perceived as detached from territory and to offer an alternative to the nation-state as a social, economic and political organisation.


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2. Three main interpretation• Securitization

– New approaches in the field of International Relations recognize that the border is an area of demarcation rather than a barrier and that processes of bordering are disconnected from territory.

– Since the ‘return of identity’, with reference to identity building as the internal cohesion of states, the border remains a front line to be defended (Huntington 1996).

– This conception leads to the development of narratives that state that new threats (organized crime, terrorism, drug trafficking, smuggling, human trafficking, irregular migration) threaten the domestic social cohesion of nation-states and the identities of their people.

– “Loss of control" is the dominant border narrative (Sassen 1996; Andreas 1999). This approach is based on the idea that one of the major risks of globalization is the dissolution of borders which threatens the nation-state, its homogeneity and internal cohesion.


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3. The Border-Network• This approach propose to no longer think in such rigid

terms as the separation between inside and outside(Walker 1993).

• The border is not as a line which must be defended, a conception still largely dominant in many policy narratives, particularly European narratives on EU external border security.

• The border is consider as a porous or broken line that cannot form a closed circle, since it is the exchange with the outside that permits survival. The border ensures communication (Newman, 2003).

• Rather than a fixed identity, the border is therefore a meeting place, a site of economic transaction, exchange, construction and re-construction of belonging.


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3. The Border-Network• Border-network = network of space-time units (checkpoint,

square, consulate, airport,etc.) where human (street levelbureaucrats at the consulate, border guards, travellers, lawyer, etc.) and non-human (laws, procedure, databases, etc.) interact with the aim to produce pratices which enactstate sovereignity. (Rea; 2013)

• With this approach globalised world is a propagation of crossing points that together form a border. The border must be seen as fluid or liquid.

• Globalisation does not lead to the destruction of borders, quite the opposite. States and supranational or international institutions of order and security continue to play a central role in controlling the border and the border-crossing.


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3. The Border-Network• At the heart of this outlook: the mobility and not the

territoriality : The aim of the border control aim to improve freedom of movement of goods, knowledge, and people.

• Security instruments are designed primarily to ensure maximum freedom of movement for the majority, and subsequently to filter and control the minority groups that deviate from certain criteria, defined a priori as dangerous or suspicious.

• Surveillance is used to accelerate the mobility of legitimate travelers (Torpey, 2000) and control is used to filter and block undesirable travelers trying to circumvent migration laws (Bigo et al. 2011). There is a necessary continuity which allows for monitoring everyone and controlling some.


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4. European policy of mobility and bordering processes

• Dispositifs of security : are there to accelerate mobility for certain people, while filtering and blocking others with migratory risk and migratory profile.

• Irregular migration as a crime• Migration and new penology (Feeley & Simon, 1992)• New penology = passing from an individualised penalty to one

targeting and controlling populations at risk. This type of policy is basically founded on both an economic and managerial legitimacy. It is preferable to prevent rather than punish, to minimise risk than to ensure punitive justice.

• The security dispositifs managing migration flows that are used to ensure border control, for instance, between Europe and the countries south of the Mediterranean, are composed of four elements.


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A)From Travellers to Groups at risk• The first surveillance tool defines legitimate travellers and the

groups at risk for security and migration reason (Bigo & Guild, 2005).

• Countries subjected to the obligation of obtaining Schengen Visa(short stay) as a condition to enter into the territory is a way of creating countries at risk where nationals are considered to be a risk (Infantino, 2013, Infantino & Rea, 2012).

• As to asylum, the European institutions establish lists of safe countries, which annihilate the right to asylum for their nationals.

• The beneficiaries of the right to family reunification are subject to massive restrictions. The instrumental logic of immigration tends to reduce the legitimacy of travellers who do not contribute to the economic and financial activities and to privilege the social and economic utility of foreigners considered worthy (entrepreneurs, merchants, businessmen, political, cultural and artistic elites, etc.).


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B) Technological apparatus of surveillance• Preventive policies of remote control• Migration control constitutes an excellent laboratory for the

technologisation of surveillance (smart borders)• Three main surveillance tools

– Accumulation of information on individuals and of the constant resort to biometry during the crossing of European borders + Data bases

• For accelerating mobility (Parafes and Previum) or sorting and blocking (SIS, VIS, EURODAC).

– Displacement of controls on people intending to cross external borders of the EU from the physical spaces of the border to the territories of departure of travellers. At the border (airport): body + data double


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– Technologies of control at the point of departure: • SIVE (Sistema Integrado de Vigilancia Exterior), which is an electronic

surveillance system that polices the coasts using boats, infrared cameras, satellites, etc. This system has limited the arrival of irregular migrants using “pateras” in Andalusia.

• In 2011, EUROSUR (European Border Surveillance System) was launched to reinforce the management of the southern and eastern maritime borders of Europe using satellite images and sensors.

• The AMASS (autonomous maritime surveillance system) project uses buoys equipped with infra-red cameras and hydrophones in order to detect subaqueous sounds. When a suspicious vessel is detected, images are directly transmitted to a control centre on the shore. Compared to SIVE, AMASS seeks to improve the control of the European coasts through the early warning of suspicious vessels.


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• FRONTEX plays a crucial role in the preventive fight against irregular immigration by trying to send back to the coasts whence the migration candidates came. (Militarisation approach of the border)

C) Operating in the countries of departure and focussing on a target public

• Government at distance (Rose & Miller, 1992)• The cooperation agreements for police• The readmission of irregular migrants, deportation• The strengthening of intervention capacities at land and sea

borders• Securing travel documents and training of officials• Creation of “buffer zones” with the The Neighbourhood Policy


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D) Ultima ratio = Detention• Detention and expulsion of irregular migrants• The extension of detention in detention centres, including

in the country of transit, the increase of expulsions and the European coordination of readmissions by charter flights, bear witness of the rationalisation of the removal procedures.

• The adoption of the “return” directive in June 2008, constitutes a sort of harmonisation based on minimum standards, in casu long detention (up to 18 months), which is a removal measure accompanied by the prohibition to subsequently enter the territory and but a feeble protection against removal and expulsion.


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5. Control at the airport

• Central activities at the border (airport) are sorting, categorizing and profiling (Lyon 2003) travelers

• Sorting is based on the use of surveillance tools:– Traditional: passport, visa– Biometric technologies (fingers prints, retina patterns,

etc.), various databases (SIS, VIS, EURODAC) (Adey, 2002)

• At the airport, the body is condensed in databases (smart borders) (data double) moving separatly from the physical one

• What happened at– The first line check– The second line check (confessional, Salter, 2007)– Detention center


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5. Control at the airport

Questions on governance• Bureaucratic governance based on bureaucratic rules• Network governance based on trust (databases)

(Flemming & Rhodes, 2005)

Questions on implementation policy and street level bureaucrats

• Degree of interpretation of European regulations• Division of labor and organization of border guard

organization• Border guard, as street level bureaucrats, can use

discretionary power (Lipsky, 1981)


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Andrea Rea (ULB-GERME, Belgium): "Controlling the Undesirable at the border-network"