SeRiC - Seminario Ricerche in Corso del Dipartimento: Processing Alterity. Digital registration of migrants as co-production of individuals and Europe

Partecipanti: Annalisa Pelizza (Università di Bologna)

This presentation furthers the concept of “Alterity Processing” to account for the simultaneous enactment of individual “Others” and emergent European orders in the context of contemporary migration management. Alterity processing refers to the data infrastructures, knowledge practices and bureaucratic procedures through which populations unknown to European actors are translated into “European-legible” identities. The presentation discusses  fieldwork conducted in Italy and the Hellenic Republic since 2017 in the context of the “Processing Citizenship” project funded by the European Research Council (http://processingcitizenship.eu). It argues that contemporary data-based, infrastructural management of populations simultaneously enacts agency and structure, individual people on the move and European orders of authority. In this tension, it is not only the individual Other that is enacted but also specific bureaucratic orders cutting across old and new European actors and distinctive understandings of “Europe.” The presentation draws on Prof. Pelizza’s background in Science and Technology Studies (STS) and engages with historical literature on the infrastructural construction of Europe.