Visualising love: Disrupting migrant datafication

Agusita, E.L.

Abstract

Amid rapidly tightening immigration control by powerful nation states, migrants are increasingly subject to data discrimination, not least through processes of border management that exact individuals’ information for the purpose of social sorting and movement regulation. These restrictive practices can result in the geographic separation of partners and families. In the UK, Non-European-Economic-Area migrants applying to join their British partners must submit evidence of the subsistence and substance of their relationships in a manner that conforms to normative displays of genuineness in order to satisfy visa regulations. This includes communications data sourced from multiple platforms and technologies, such as calling and messaging records.

This presentation shares findings of a research study investigating the communications practices of partners and families geographically separated due to restrictive UK immigration controls. It considers how representation of their digital cross-border emotional exchanges, that are required to serve as proof of ‘love’, can be re-imagined beyond the state-gaze which demands flattened and flattening forms of data. Using creative participatory methods, the project engages with affected partners and families as co-creators, in constructing portraits of emotional co-presence that aim to more meaningfully reflect their lived experiences of mediated cross-border intimacy and separation. This approach aims to critique and unsettle institutional processes of migrant datafication which position visa applicants as marginal subjects requiring state validation.

• Presentation Conference Type: Other
• Conference Name: Data Justice 2018
• Start Date: May 21, 2018
• End Date: May 22, 2018
• Acceptance Date: Dec 20, 2017
• Publication Date: May 21, 2018
• Peer Reviewed: Not Peer Reviewed
• Keywords: migrant datafication, migration media, cross-border communications, immigration data, long-distance communications, separated families, family immigration, spouse immigration, small data, creative data, deep data
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/867933
• Additional Information: Title of Conference or Conference Proceedings : Data Justice 2018