New border and surveillance technologies are being lauded for their accuracy and fairness. But how ethical can forced identification be? Late nineteenth-century enthusiasts of pinning down the ‘born criminal’ enlisted scientific advances to sinister ends. Might biometric data processing that registers migrants entering the EU risk a similar transgression of human rights today?

Since 2011, the evolving dynamics of the Libyan civil war combined
with the EU’s efforts to delegate sea patrolling in the Central
Mediterranean to Libyan entities, resulted in Tunisia witnessing a
surge in border crossings through Libya. This article argues that
southeastern Tunisia consequently morphed into a humanitarian
borderscape, where the personnel of International Organizations
and their partner NGOs entrusted with the assistance and
protection of mobile populations, de facto contributed to border
enforcement. Based on interviews and informal conversations
conducted in 2018 and 2019 with Tunisian NGOs, local
institutional actors, national and international activists, refugees,
asylum seekers, and irregularized migrants, this contribution
demonstrates how such a metamorphosis impacted spontaneous
solidarity networks that emerged post-2011. It also illuminates
tensions and disruptions experienced by both borderland citizens
and displaced individuals, particularly from Northeast Africa, as
they negotiate an active presence within these altered border
dynamics.

Ongoing instability, due to conflict, environmental crises and economic hardship in parts of Africa, forces many to migrate. Those who make it to Tunisia’s borders face state violence and informal trading. Can the EU’s failing cash for immobility plan be anything more than legitimization of Tunisia’s authoritarian regime and Italy’s perilous politicization of immigration?

Academic research and policies on migration are at odds with each other as to what is to be done regarding the series of tensions and crises that have become "normal" on this subject in Europe.
In this podcast, three SNIS lead researchers, Profs. Bilgin Ayata, Markus Gerber and Timothy Raeymaekers bring insights on the newest research and policy trends and their potential impacts on the actors involved in migration to and from the EU.
The highlights of the discussion focus on the importance of work in the mental and physical wellbeing of persons on a migration path and worrying developments concerning academic researchers' right to access free and complete information for their studies, currently being debated in the EU parliament.