Border Security Meets Black Mirror: Perceptions of Technologization from the Windsor Borderland

Patrick C. Lalonde

Journal of Borderlands Studies, 2023, vol. 38, issue 5, 723-744

Abstract: This article combines findings concerning institutional discourses with knowledge of frontline officials and non-officials gleaned from qualitative interviews with border services officers (BSOs) and travelers living and working in the Windsor, Ontario, Canada borderland to discuss the technologization of modern Canadian borders. Findings generated from interview data reveal that both frontline officials and non-officials experience a border where the personal narrative and performativity of the embodied subject traveler is increasingly irrelevant, with officer decision-making supplanted by information contained in databases. Findings also explore various dangers associated with increased simulation and cyborg work, including database errors having demonstrable consequences on the mobility and rights of human beings; the colonization of the lifeworld of BSOs by digitized risk technologies ultimately rendering officers incapable of asking questions, looking for indicators, and making informed decisions on the basis of anything other than databases; and the associated human rights, privacy, and legal implications that are potentially wide-ranging and extremely troubling.

Date: 2023
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DOI: 10.1080/08865655.2021.1968927

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