On humanitarian refugee biometrics and new forms of intervention

Publikation: Bidrag til tidsskriftTidsskriftartikelfagfællebedømt

This article traces a development from UNHCR's initial use of biometrics in a few pilot projects (early/mid-2000s), to the emergence of a UNHCR policy where biometric registration is considered a "strategic decision". Next it engages key insights from current debates about 'materiality' and agentic capacity in combination with current debates about new forms of intervention. Finally, these insights are combined into a framework through which the last part of the article engages critically with this development of humanitarian refugee biometrics by posing the following question: how does an approach to technology that takes seriously the idea of matter as capable of agentic capacity enhance our appreciation of the ways in which these humanitarian technology may contribute to the emergence of new forms of intervention. Through an analysis of how the emergence of a new type of data, namely digitalised biometric refugee data, has affected the relationship between UNHCR, donor states, host states and refugees, the article shows how UNHCR's trialling of new biometric technologies,
combined with actual and potential data-sharing practices, has advanced the
technology's performance as well as its acceptability, whilst at the same time also rendering new dimensions of refugee life interveneable - not only to humanitarian actors.
OriginalsprogEngelsk
TidsskriftJournal of Intervention and Statebuilding
Vol/bind11
Udgave nummer4
Sider (fra-til)529-551
ISSN1750-2977
DOI
StatusUdgivet - 17 jul. 2017

ID: 180504211