by Paul Trauttmansdorff
Trauttmansdorff, P. (2025). Against interoperability? Terrains of technopolitical contestation and the remaking of EU border infrastructure. Big Data & Society, 12(2). https://doi.org/10.1177/20539517241307909 (Original work published 2025)
Europe’s borders have undergone profound changes in recent decades, one major driver being the ongoing development of large-scale databases for migration and border control. Critical scholarship has examined the futures, promises, and expectations associated with the increased collection of data on travelers in the European border regime. One of the most recent and probably most transformative initiatives in the European Union is interoperability, which aims to interconnect different databases containing the personal data of migrants, asylum seekers, and convicted criminals. These databases should be joined up through a shared repository where biometric and personal data are cross-referenced in order to detect so-called “identity fraud,” such as duplicate identities.
Like many researchers studying the intersections of data, borders, and migration, my work has so far focused on critically examining initiatives such as interoperability, exploring the imaginaries of (in)security behind them, and questioning their solutionist approach to technically “fix” deeply social and political issues of cross-border mobility. However, less attention has been paid to how these digital transformation initiatives are routinely contested and opposed. Contestation and resistance are naturally linked to the agency and recalcitrance of migration, which authorities constantly struggle to govern and “control.” In my article, I aim to point to various other sites of contestation in the European border regime, using the example of creating an interoperable border infrastructure. This is why I introduce the concept of “terrains of technopolitical contestation.” I identify three such terrains—the parliamentary, the consultative, and the civil society terrain—where contentious claims, dissent, and opposition have emerged against the making of interoperability. The term “technopolitical” denotes that, on these terrains, claims and debates primarily revolve around defining the boundaries between the political and the technical. I believe this framework can help us understand how crucial boundary-making processes shape the framing of claims and issues while also constraining the space for critical intervention critique and political critique in the current technopolitics of the EU border regime. I hope that future research can further explore how various terrains of contestation evolve over time, shape the digital governance of migration, and demonstrate further possibilities for contestation within an increasingly data-driven border regime.
