Liberation? Machine migration and the logistical episteme

Abstract Migration is a logistical problem. And logistics is a computational problem insofar as complex supply chains are managed for computational systems. Migration, including displacement, is the subject of global movements and has increasingly come under the control of supply chains and redistribution measures. This article revisits debates on the autonomy of migration in relation to computational systems that govern migration and border technologies. Surveying the computational systems that govern migration informs the conceptual orientation of our analysis. Migration in this context becomes the problem of technological speed and calculus of prediction. Pre-emptive address is the core focus of such modes of governing the movement of populations. How to rethink the autonomy of migration within the optic of the logistical episteme? In addressing this question, we consider analytical trajectories that account for the movement of people, mediated by programmable infrastructures and technologies of data surveillance.