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Enacting border security in the digital age: political worlds of data forms, flows and frictions.

Project description

Data-driven border security

In today’s digital age, data is collected and used for border security, but the entire process presents many political and ethical implications. The EU-funded SECURITY FLOWS project will propose an innovative theorisation of the epistemic impacts of datafication as generating both learning and ignorance. It will also trace the practical implications of datafication by 'following the data' along the migration routes in the Mediterranean. Politically, it will show how data shapes actors’ decision-making. Ethically, it aims to understand how datafication affects the rights of both citizens and non-citizens.

Objective

Datafication, the process transforming our everyday lives into quantifiable digital data, is also transforming borders today. Data collection, exchange and interoperability have become key for EU border security. How does data enact border security in the digital age? What are the political and ethical implications of these processes of datafication? This project proposes to develop a novel interdisciplinary framework to understand how data is generated, exchanged and contested in border encounters, and to investigate the complex epistemic, practical, political and ethical implications of these transformations. Starting from a socio-material reconceptualisation of datafication as the production of data forms, flows and frictions, the project advances an innovative theorisation of the (i)epistemic effects of datafication as producing both knowledge and ignorance. It will shed light on how data forms make things intelligible or unintelligible, and how digital data flows and frictions redistribute knowledge and ignorance among border security actors, NGOs and irregular migrants. To trace the (ii)practical implications of datafication, the project will devise a multi-modal methodology for 'following the data' along the Eastern, Central and Mediterranean routes as well as the routes leading to these from Morocco, Niger and Turkey, and finally along return routes. (iii)Politically, the project investigates how data reconfigures the worlds of actors involved in the governance of border security by enacting new power relations between these actors and reshaping decision-making. Finally, the project also advances a socio-material approach to (iv)ethics to account for how data protection and the rights of both citizens and non-citizens are transformed by datafication. Through its ambitious theoretical and methodological innovations, which will shape an emergent field of research, the project will have long-lasting impact for border and security studies.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

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Keywords

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Programme(s)

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Topic(s)

Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.

Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

ERC-COG - Consolidator Grant

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Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

(opens in new window) ERC-2018-COG

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Host institution

KING'S COLLEGE LONDON
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 1 897 826,00
Address
STRAND
WC2R 2LS London
United Kingdom

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Region
London Inner London — West Westminster
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Links
Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 1 897 826,00

Beneficiaries (1)

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