About Us

The primary ambition of the CRC on the Security Governance of Bodies, Mobility and Borders is to produce new interdisciplinary, empirical, theoretical and normative knowledge on transformations in security, the governance of mobility and gender and identity inequalities, areas at the heart of global politics that are too often studied in silos.

By seeking to analyze how the bodies of people on the move (for reasons of travel or migration) are apprehended at the border in the name of security governance, the Chair's work aspires to better understand the multiple meanings given to the body in the context of transnational mobility, whether by people or computer systems. More specifically, it examines the discriminatory effects of governance practices and the legal and administrative infrastructures that are created or mobilized to exercise the security management, and ultimately make the mobility of bodies possible or not.

The Chair’s originality lies in its aim to analyze the political, theoretical and empirical implications of the management of international mobility involving sexed, gendered, racialized and datafied bodies apprehended by a security apparatus designed to minimize risks.

Its work and projects will focus on three key areas of research, providing complementary insights into the mechanisms, effects and infrastructures at work in the security apprehension of bodies during cross-border crossings.

The Chair's work is rooted in the theoretical framework of governmentality, with an intersectional feminist sensibility (i.e., one that takes race, gender, class and age into account) and a concern for social justice. They will 1) document the differentiated impacts that the securitization of transnational mobilities entails on bodies transiting the border; 2) highlight the multidimensional character (e.g., sexualized, gendered, racialized and datafied) of bodies that results from this security governance; and 3) analyze the role of law acting as an infrastructure that governs the cross-border control of bodies on the move.

The Chair's Axis

Axis 1: Securitizing borders, bodies and mobility: the mechanisms

1) What new forms do borders take, and how do they function to ensure secure management of transnational mobility? 2) Through what control mechanisms and technologies do these borders take hold of bodies and grant them meanings, directly affecting people's mobility? Mobility is ordered by complex technological mechanisms that make certain things possible or impossible. The characteristics of automated migration governance and its use in the public sector can change the relationship between public policy, front-line decision-makers and citizens, and between state and corporate technology and service providers.The Chair’s work will critically analyze the technopolitical solutions proposed by the state to regulate certain mobile bodies perceived and labeled as a problem or threat to be managed (e.g., automated facial recognition).

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Axis 2: Discriminations and inequalities resulting from the security governance of mobilities: the effects

1) What are the gendered, sexed, and racialized dimensions of the technological governance practices and devices mobilized to control transnational mobilities? 2) How do new technologies of control contribute to the maintenance of social inequalities? Securing mobility relies on security actors and security technologies to effectively control borders. Despite claims to eliminate gender or race bias through a supposedly neutral apprehension of the body by security technologies such as biometric data, these are "fundamentally shaped by, and generally exacerbate, the racial, ethnic, gender and other inequalities prevalent in society." The complex relationship between the body and the technologies that dematerialize it can be seen in the contradiction of meanings when the "biometric body" of a person's passport does not correspond to the "body presented" to the customs officer. Documenting the differentiated effects of the use of security technologies makes it possible to understand and make visible the forms of insecurity experienced by different population groups at cross-border crossings, including children, trans or queer people.

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Axis 3: Legal and administrative responsibilities: infrastructures

1) What are the infrastructures that enables the implementation of security mechanisms to control mobility? 2) How does the law apprehend the body, notably through legal standards, in the management of mobility? With the sharing and emulation of standards and modes of managing transnational mobility (e.g., sharing biometric databases, establishing partnerships with NGOs and companies to ensure the so-called "voluntary" return of migrants) comes a globalization of administrative and legal infrastructures. A case in point is the dissemination of standards and procedures established by the International Organization for Migration, which started out as an NGO assisting states before becoming the UN's official body for global migration management in 2016. The questioning of the role of legal infrastructures that comes with the multiplication, internationalization and privatization of borders raises the issue of state responsibility in the processes of securing borders and the role of law in these processes. This section will examine the role of law as a crucial infrastructure for managing the mobility of objects and people.

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Partners

International collaborations

Anne-Marie D’Aoust
Département de science politique
315,  Ste-Catherine E. Street
Pavillon des Sciences de la gestion
Local R-3490
Montreal (Quebec)  H2L 2C5