Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
the Canary Islands. The question that begs our moral attention is how many deaths does
this politics of fear bear?
Bioborder Politics
In the global borderland we live in an officially stamped passport is the state proof that
you exist as a citizen. By birth, a human being is thus seen not only as an individual but
as a political subject subjected to the polity. For those who are subjected to the politic-
al order that is mostly seen as comforting, as it provides a state home, but it is equally
discomforting as the political order thereby also decides who you are. For the political
order in its turn, there is also discomforting uncertainty, for an officer of a state never
completely knows with 100 percent certainty that the person in the passport is indeed
thepersonstandinginfrontofhimorher.Themorefearsocietyhasforthestranger,the
morethepolitical orderwantstobecertain ofhisorheridentity.Especially inthemoral
panic that emerged after 9/11, the measurement and determination of one's civic iden-
tity through iris scanning, facial recognition, bone-age checking, and fingerprints has
entered more and more the actual corpus of the stranger (see also e.g., Broeders 2007;
Dijstelbloem and Meijer 2009; Epstein 2007; Muller 2005; Salter and Zureik 2005; van
der Ploeg 1999). Increasingly, the civic identity of the European is carried and manifes-
ted by his or her body: the body as a passport. As a result of such metrical biopolitics,
bordercontrolcanbeexercisedonmultiplesubjectificationswithinthesameindividual.
For those who do make it into the EU-factory, be it irregularly or regularly as a refugee
who is asking for asylum, they enter into the increasingly digital test-room, which in-
creasingly is an apparatus designed for hearing, checking, biometrical scanning, pho-
tographing, fingerprinting, and evaluating every moving body. The external border in-
creasingly should, hence, beunderstood as adigital firewall protecting the machine (see
also Walters 2006). This border machine scans, registers, profiles, filters, selects, and
categorises people onthe basis ofourdesires andfears (see also Amoore 2006).Wheth-
er you will be stopped as a non-EU citizen or seen as an interesting added value for the
EU is dependent on your code. This code is made by the EU and loaded in the mech-
anic machinery of the border, the computers of Schengen. As argued above, this border
code is currently based on the black and white list by which the EU divides the world.
WhatthismeansisthattheEUperceivespeoplelessasindividualhumanbeingsthanas
subjects of a political order. People are coded by their country of birth and/or country of
origin before they are individuals. Such classical ground-politics has major moral con-
sequences.Themigrantsfromablack-listcountryarelistedasahitbythedigitalborder
machineandarerefusedentryasundesirables—thusresultinginthedangerousattempts
of the people of black-list countries to remain unseen, to remain uncoded. The irregular
