Migrants in the Digital Periphery: New Urban Frontiers of ControlAs the fortification of Europe's borders and its hostile immigration terrain has taken shape, so too have the biometric and digital surveillance industries. And when US Immigration Customs Enforcement aggressively reinforced its program of raids, detention, and family separation, it was powered by Silicon Valley corporations. In cities of refuge, where communities on the move once lived in anonymity and proximity to familial and diaspora networks, the possibility for escape is diminishing. As cities rely increasingly on tech companies to develop digital urban infrastructures for accessing information, identification, services, and socioeconomic life at large, they also invite the border to encroach further on migrant communities, networks, and bodies. In this book, Matt Mahmoudi unveils how the unsettling convergence of Silicon Valley logics, austere and xenophobic migration management practices, and racial capitalism has allowed tech companies to close in on the final frontiers of fugitivity—and suggests how we might counteract their machines through our own refusal. |
Contents
Racism Is a Feature Not a Bug | 23 |
The Making of the Digital Periphery | 38 |
Xenophobic Roots Tolerant Facades | 53 |
The Digital Antisanctuary of New York | 74 |
Digital Refugeeness in Berlin | 108 |
Disciplining Mobilities in the Digital Periphery | 139 |
Other editions - View all
Migrants in the Digital Periphery: New Urban Frontiers of Control Matt Mahmoudi Limited preview - 2025 |
Migrants in the Digital Periphery: New Urban Frontiers of Control Matt Mahmoudi No preview available - 2025 |
Common terms and phrases
Accumulation by Dispossession algorithmic Anita antisanctuary apps asylees asylum Berlin Big Data biometric Black Marxism Blasio border Brooklyn camps categorization chapter cities of refuge Citizenship clients colonial Culture datafication detention diaspora digital periphery digital refugeeness digital urban infrastructures displaced emergence engaged environment Europe European exploitation Facebook facial recognition Field note Frontex Germany Gesley Global Google governance housing humanitarian IDNYC immigrant communities immigration enforcement increasingly information panics initiatives integration interventions Interview Islamophobia Jobs4Refugees labor logics Luddite marginalized Marxism ment migrant migration control mobility move movement Nadim neo-Luddite neoliberal newcomers organizations Palantir particular percent policies political precarious precarity Race racial capitalism refu refugee crisis refugee tech Reset resettlement Sarina September Silicon Valley smart city Smartphones social Society Sousveillance space subjects tech companies Techfugees technol technology actors technology deployments tion undocumented immigrants UNHCR University Press Wi-Fi workers xenophobic York and Berlin Yunus