Scholarlink

The chapter examines the role technical objects play in making common understandings of the Mediterranean as a space characterized by the interplay of control and irregularity possible. In so doing, it outlines some of the features of sociotechnical approaches to (in)security politics. They consist of a spectrum of theoretical moves sharing the notion that securitization is not simply a discursive process, but involves meaningful sociomaterial practices. Securitization materializes sociotechnical networks of “people-and-things.” This entails an understanding of agency as composite or hybrid, rather than essentialist or instrumental accounts of technology, as well as a renewed focus on knowledge and the way in which (in)security practices constitute rather than simply produce knowledge about the entities that are subject to (in)security interventions. Examining (in)security politics, then, involves attending to how politics as the mediation between people and things (re)constitutes spaces, boundaries and meanings. A key insight of sociotechnical analytics, the chapter argues, is that of a constitutive entanglement between the deployment of technologized EU border enforcement measures and the performance of the Mediterranean as a controlled space. Focusing in particular on the development and deployment of EUROSUR, the chapter shows that over the span of several decades, the ‘Mediterranean question’ has been a key condition of possibility for the deployment of this major EU-wide technical and technological framework. Before it was subsequently extended to other parts of the EU external borders indeed, EUROSUR was fundamentally an attempt to both problematize cross-Mediterranean movements of people in terms of irregularity and adopt measures matching that problematization. How these measures have been formulated and implemented has been shaped sociotechnically by networks of “people-and-things”, generating controversies and dealing with central political questions such as the shape of authority over EU border enforcement.

错误：搜索内容不能为空，请输入英文关键词
错误：关键词超出字数限制，请精简
高级检索

Securitization and Technology at the European Union’s Mediterranean Borders

  • 章节

  • 发表日期：

    2026年

查看全文
  • Julien Jeandesboz

摘要

The chapter examines the role technical objects play in making common understandings of the Mediterranean as a space characterized by the interplay of control and irregularity possible. In so doing, it outlines some of the features of sociotechnical approaches to (in)security politics. They consist of a spectrum of theoretical moves sharing the notion that securitization is not simply a discursive process, but involves meaningful sociomaterial practices. Securitization materializes sociotechnical networks of “people-and-things.” This entails an understanding of agency as composite or hybrid, rather than essentialist or instrumental accounts of technology, as well as a renewed focus on knowledge and the way in which (in)security practices constitute rather than simply produce knowledge about the entities that are subject to (in)security interventions. Examining (in)security politics, then, involves attending to how politics as the mediation between people and things (re)constitutes spaces, boundaries and meanings. A key insight of sociotechnical analytics, the chapter argues, is that of a constitutive entanglement between the deployment of technologized EU border enforcement measures and the performance of the Mediterranean as a controlled space. Focusing in particular on the development and deployment of EUROSUR, the chapter shows that over the span of several decades, the ‘Mediterranean question’ has been a key condition of possibility for the deployment of this major EU-wide technical and technological framework. Before it was subsequently extended to other parts of the EU external borders indeed, EUROSUR was fundamentally an attempt to both problematize cross-Mediterranean movements of people in terms of irregularity and adopt measures matching that problematization. How these measures have been formulated and implemented has been shaped sociotechnically by networks of “people-and-things”, generating controversies and dealing with central political questions such as the shape of authority over EU border enforcement.