Please join the Migration, Mobilities, and Social Politics Research Cluster for this hybrid event featuring four presentations by PhD students whose research focuses on the roles played by various technologies in contemporary strategies of migration and border control. The presentations consider technologically assisted border and migration governance in the European Union, Canada, and Brazil.
Smartphones as Survival Tools: Mapping Resistance on the Balkan Migrant Route
Fatmanur Delioglu is a PhD candidate in Global Governance at the Balsillie School of International Affairs, Wilfrid Laurier University. Her research lies at the intersection of migration governance and critical border studies, with a specific focus on how technology shapes migrants’ mobility and resistance strategies. She currently serves as a PhD Support Officer for the Migration, Mobilities, and Social Politics Cluster at BSIA and a research assistant at the Global Adversity and Wellbeing Research Group. Fatmanur has held visiting and research positions at Lund University, Koç University’s Migration Research Center (MiReKoc), the Institute for Interdisciplinary Gender Research and Diversity at the University of Applied Sciences, and the Istanbul Policy Center. She holds an honours MA from Marmara University, where she investigated solidarity networks among Syrian refugee women.
Borders and Mobility: Examining Social Implications of Border Technology
Justin Lahey obtained his Honors Bachelor’s degree in Social Sciences in 1996 and his Master’s degree in Arts (Sociology) in 1999, both at the University of Ottawa. He began a PhD in Sociology at Carleton University in 1999, researching the social impact of technology and commodification of E-Commerce. He paused his PhD to pursue a professional opportunity that turned into an exciting 20-year career as a federal public servant. This journey began at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) where he worked on the national taskforce to roll out CFIA’s response to avian influenza, before being a lead analyst specialized in stakeholder consultation and public participation, and then managing CFIA’s Cabinet process. In 2015, Justin was recruited by the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) to lead the overall tracking, assessment and final reporting of the Canada-U.S. Beyond the Border Initiative. He then became the lead communication, data and reporting analyst on the performance of the newly deployed primary inspection kiosks at Canada’s international airports, the largest border transformation project in CBSA’s history. The increasing importance of data analytics and the reliance on facial recognition technology (FRT) at the border inspired a return to academia in 2022 at the University of Waterloo to research the social implications of border processing technology. His doctoral thesis will address demographic bias in the use of FRT in traveller processing by conducting mixed method research focused on the lived experiences of marginalized groups, aiming to improve the policies and standards governing the use of FRT. Besides work and school, Justin spends his spare time playing tennis, reading books and writing, watching the Blue Jays, and camping.
Lucia Sestokas is a PhD candidate in Social Anthropology at the Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Brazil. Her research addresses border technologies used for crime control and migration control, focusing on the relationships between private companies and state agencies. Lucia holds a Master’s degree from the same program in which she has analyzed criminal hearings and cases of migrants prosecuted for international drug trafficking in São Paulo (Brazil).
Sarco-scopic Border: Flesh in Unsanctioned Migration
Ana Vișan is a PhD candidate analyzing migration, borders, and technology. For over a decade, her research has examined how technologies shape the governance of irregularized migration, with a focus on Europe. Drawing on critical migration studies, political geography, and feminist and postcolonial theory, her work explores how surveillance, security infrastructures, and institutional practices reconfigure mobility, visibility, and political recognition.
