Surveillance Technologies in Migration Management
Event details
Thursday 7 March 2024
11:00am
Seminar Room 1, The University of Sheffield, 2 Whitham Road, Sheffield, S10 2AH
Just turn up!
Description
Dr Emre Eren Korkmaz, research affiliate at the University of Oxford's Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS) will present his first book “Smart Borders, Digital Identity and Big Data: How Surveillance Technologies Are Used Against Migrants” (https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/smart-borders-digital-identity-and-big-data).
Talk Information:
In recent years, UN agencies, global tech corporations, states and humanitarian NGOs have invested in advanced technologies from smart borders to digital identities to manage migratory movements. These are surveillance technologies that have intensified the militarization of borders and became a testing ground for surveillance capitalism.This book shows how these technologies reproduce structural inequalities and discriminative policies. Korkmaz reveals the way in which they grant extensive powers to states and big tech corporations to control communities.Unpacking the effects of surveillance capitalism on vulnerable populations, this is a much-needed intervention that will be of interest to readers in a range of fields.
Dr Emre Eren Korkmaz's bio:
Dr Korkmaz is a research affiliate at the University of Oxford's Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS). Before this position, he worked at the Oxford Department of International Development (ODID) between 2016 and 2023. ) In 2016, Dr Korkmaz was awarded a PhD from Istanbul University’s International Relations PhD Programme.
As a political scientist and international relations expert, he is driven by a passion to shed light on the social and political impact of technological innovation, focusing on surveillance technologies in migration management, border security, and international development. He examines these developments to contribute to a surveillance capitalism theory and aims to understand the evolution of contemporary capitalism.
He co-edited Data Science for Migration and Mobility — with Professor Albert Ali Salah (University of Utrecht) and Dr Tuba Bircan (University of Cambridge) — which was published by the Oxford University Press Proceedings of British Academy in November 2022.
His first monograph, “Smart Borders, Digital Identity and Big Data: How Surveillance Technologies Are Used Against Migrants”, was published by the Bristol University Press in December 2023.
His current research project was launched in October 2023 with the World Food Programme. The project, “Using Data Analysis and Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning Techniques for Vulnerability Assessment, Targeting and Assurance in Humanitarian Action,” aims to resolve data scarcity during humanitarian emergencies in Africa and the Middle East and suggest new vulnerability assessment and targeting techniques.
Dr Korkmaz' website: https://www.compas.ox.ac.uk/people/emre-eren-korkmaz/