This open access book explores how biometric data is increasingly flowing across borders in order to limit, control and contain the mobility of selected people, namely criminalized populations. It introduces the concept of bio-bordering, using it to capture reverse patterns of bordering and ordering practices linked to transnational biometric data exchange regimes. The concept is useful to reconstruct how the territorial foundations of national state autonomy are partially reclaimed and, at the same time, partially purposefully suspended. The book focuses on the Prum system, which facilitates the mandatory exchange of forensic DNA data amongst EU Member States. The Prum system is an underexplored phenomenon, representing diverse instances of bio-bordering and providing a complex picture of the hidden (dis)integration of Europe. Particular legal, scientific, technical and political dimensions related to the governance and uses of biometric technologies in Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal and the United Kingdom are specifically explored to demonstrate both similar and distinct patterns.

From the intersection of citizenship, critical migration studies, and science and technology studies (STS), this book examines, across the various case studies, configurations between technologies, infrastructures and citizenship that may constrain acts of citizenship in migration and border regimes; constitute contestation and participation over citizenship; or enable and shape alternative acts of citizenship in migration and border regimes. Technologies and infrastructures on the border are designed to position migrants in multiple and potentially contradictory forms; migrants crossing the border, in their turn, may choose to challenge and repurpose those technologies and infrastructures to match their interests. By elaborating on the notion of 'material citizenship politics', the contributors provide a detailed analysis of socio-material practices on the border that moves beyond portraying migrants as mere victims of border technologies and migration infrastructures and anchors critique on the inside of those practices. The chapters in this volume hope to contribute to setting the research agenda and to stimulate further research along these lines revisiting the (in)visibilities of migrant subjects along technologies and infrastructures. As the current pandemic unfolds, exposing societal vulnerabilities, this book highlights the need to critically reflect on the establishment of existing technologies and infrastructures in order to examine to what extent those affect and shape migrant subjects in particular, but may also be extended and used on wider populations after being tested and normalized on vulnerable subjects. This book will be of interest to a broad readership across the social sciences, including scholars working in Critical Migration and Border Studies, Citizenship Studies, Critical Security Studies, and Science and Technology Studies. The chapters in this book were originally published in the journal Citizenship Studies.

From the intersection of citizenship, critical migration studies, and science and technology studies (STS), this book examines, across the various case studies, configurations between technologies, infrastructures and citizenship that may constrain acts of citizenship in migration and border regimes; constitute contestation and participation over citizenship; or enable and shape alternative acts of citizenship in migration and border regimes. Technologies and infrastructures on the border are designed to position migrants in multiple and potentially contradictory forms; migrants crossing the border, in their turn, may choose to challenge and repurpose those technologies and infrastructures to match their interests. By elaborating on the notion of ‘material citizenship politics’, the contributors provide a detailed analysis of socio-material practices on the border that moves beyond portraying migrants as mere victims of border technologies and migration infrastructures and anchors critique on the inside of those practices. The chapters in this volume hope to contribute to setting the research agenda and to stimulate further research along these lines revisiting the (in)visibilities of migrant subjects along technologies and infrastructures. As the current pandemic unfolds, exposing societal vulnerabilities, this book highlights the need to critically reflect on the establishment of existing technologies and infrastructures in order to examine to what extent those affect and shape migrant subjects in particular, but may also be extended and used on wider populations after being tested and normalized on vulnerable subjects. This book will be of interest to a broad readership across the social sciences, including scholars working in Critical Migration and Border Studies, Citizenship Studies, Critical Security Studies, and Science and Technology Studies. The chapters in this book were originally published in the journal Citizenship Studies.

This open access book explores how biometric data is increasingly flowing across borders in order to limit, control and contain the mobility of selected people, namely criminalized populations. It introduces the concept of bio-bordering, using it to capture reverse patterns of bordering and ordering practices linked to transnational biometric data exchange regimes. The concept is useful to reconstruct how the territorial foundations of national state autonomy are partially reclaimed and, at the same time, partially purposefully suspended. The book focuses on the Prum system, which facilitates the mandatory exchange of forensic DNA data amongst EU Member States. The Prum system is an underexplored phenomenon, representing diverse instances of bio-bordering and providing a complex picture of the hidden (dis)integration of Europe. Particular legal, scientific, technical and political dimensions related to the governance and uses of biometric technologies in Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal and the United Kingdom are specifically explored to demonstrate both similar and distinct patterns.