Spaces of Exception and Techno-Securitization of Human Mobility in North America. From Corporeal to Algorithmic-Digital Control

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to identify and analyze the uses and abuses related to technological innovations used for the governance of human mobility in North America in the last decade. Based on process tracing and content analysis, three objectives are developed: 1) a cartography is proposed for the study of the state of migratory and refugee exception, whose evolution has incorporated algorithmic and technological governance environments in recent years; 2) management and containment devices related to big data, algorithms, machine learning, artificial intelligence and other technologies that reproduce human rights violations based on their convergence with smart borders, virtual borders, algorithmic discrimination, permanent surveillance and privatization of the exception are examined; 3) the neologism techno-securitization is proposed. The prefix techno- does not refer only to the use of digital tools. It places at the center of the discussion the narrative linked to technification, and its assumptions of impartiality, efficiency, transparency and empowerment that allow legitimizing the criminalization and denial of rights of migrants and refugees in the 21st century.