CA22135 Data Matters: Sociotechnical Challenges of European Migration and Border Control (DATAMIG)

Issues pertaining to the control of migration and borders are of paramount importance for contemporary societies. The way the relevant technology is designed and used is central to these issues. The configuration of migration and border control increasingly relies on artificial intelligence and associated digital technologies, which are based on algorithms that feed on big data. DATAMIG is focused on the need for a caring approach to big data and for the socio-technical challenges it entails. More specifically, it aims at supporting interdisciplinary research into the ways that the technological materialities inherent to the datafication of migration and border control may, on account of their black-boxed design, reproduce patterns of inclusion and exclusion that have already severely affected society. DATAMIG will foster the formation of an inclusive, self-expanding network that integrates the various disciplines contributing to the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS, with sociology of science and technology at its core) into the study of migration and borders. This will allow the latter to benefit from a unique interdisciplinary collaboration with other pivotal scientific/technical fields, including but not limited to critical Data Studies. DATAMIG will usher in building an interdisciplinary vocabulary to make data a public matter of concern and care, through research that benefits from bringing together previously disconnected arenas of contestation and public interventions concerning data matters in European migration and border control.