Bodies, Biopolitics and Biometrics: Refugee/Asylum Seeker Management in the Digital Humanitarian Age

Governments, humanitarian organizations, and private actors have increasingly relied on digital surveillance technologies including biometrics to manage refugee populations. Using a novel theoretical framework which combines Agamben’s bare life, Foucault’s biopolitics, and Heek’s “adverse digital incorporation” this paper analyzes increasing securitization in humanitarian spaces through the normalisation of biometric surveillance. This paper introduces the concept of “biopolitical creep” to analyse how humanitarianism’s innovation has normalized digital technology’s expansion and securitized migration management- promoting refugee exploitation. Evaluating the UNHCR’s biometric management of refugees in Bangladesh and the US government’s increase of surveillance capacities targeting asylum seekers, the paper explores how technology designed for humanitarian spaces reinforces and encourages securitization of migration. Rapid uptake of these technologies raises questions of surveillance, data ownership, humanitarian ethics and power relations between various actors. The paper concludes by outlining points for further study, reevaluating the relationship between humanitarian actors and technology that closely monitors individuals.