Counter-mapping the mobile border

Racial surveillance and data justice in spaces of disappearance

Bibliographic Data

ID4476329
AuthorsE Russell (0000-0002-2643-526X, La Trobe University, corresponding author), Poppy De Souza (0000-0003-4958-9146, UNSW Sydney)
Year2023
Volume41
Issue3
Pages494-512
Publication date2023-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEnvironment and Planning D Society and Space (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0263-7758 • E-ISSN: 1472-3433
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/02637758231179224
OpenAlexW4379516370
LanguageEN
Citations received11
References cited66

Following significant social and legal challenges to Australia's colonial policy of 'offshoring' immigration detention, the system has become more mobile and diffuse, expanding through a range of new, ad-hoc, and established detention sites both 'on' and 'offshore'. Refugees, asylum seekers and other non-citizens are frequently transferred and dispersed between these sites, which form 'spaces of disappearance'. In this article, we draw upon concepts of racial surveillance capitalism and data justice to analyse a work by the Manus Recording Project Collective, titled where are you today, that sought to expose and counter the colonial border's disappearing effects. The work involved the creation and distribution of audio-recordings from inside detention sites to subscribers. Recordings were distributed via text messages that also plotted individual subscribers in spatiotemporal relation to the detained artists that created them. The Collective thereby appropriated the tools of surveillance capitalism - such as GPS tracking and timestamping - to create dynamic digital cartographies of the mobile-carceral border. Through studying this work, we aim to deepen understandings of colonial bordering practices and highlight possibilities for disrupting the social divisions and exclusions that they reproduce

Capitalism · Colonialism · Criminology · Economic Justice · Mobilities · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Refugee · Social science · Sociology · Work (physics · Engineering · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Law · Migration, Refugees, and Integration · Sex work and related issues

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