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Paper short abstract

An exploration of how the "social life of documents" shapes the lives of transnational workers in the Swiss international and education sector. The subtopics include how internationalization breeds diversity and exclusion; new diasporic, gendered and racial orders, and the datafication of borders.

Paper long abstract

This presentation explores the social life of documents that shape the lives of skilled labourers in Switzerland, who hold work or study permits. Focusing on the international and education sectors, I use documents to investigate the anatomy of “smart” borders in Switzerland and Europe. Subtopics include how internationalization breeds diversity and exclusion; new diasporic, gendered and racial orders, and the datafication of borders.

I’ll describe how this transnational population find themselves confronted with what I call the “regime of letters” that differentially structures horizons of possibilities in stark terms. For example, nationals from the European Economic Area (EEA) who acquire a “B permit” are often provided paper permits with privileges distinct from non-EEA nationals, who are provided plastic biometric ones. Paper B permits usually confer 5 years of residency, whereas plastic ones vary based on nationality and the purpose of stay. If one acquires an "L" or "F" permit, the duration of the stay is drastically shorter, and privileges are curtailed. Secondly, as some racialized bodies slip through the cracks of the selectively permeable border, we increasingly see racialized Western political protagonists such as Toni Iwobi in Italy, or Kemi Badenoch in the UK, who advocate for stricter migratory regimes imposed on bodies where racialization and geographic provenance overlap more concretely. Lastly, this presentation examines public-private partnerships that datify the regulation of bodies and borders. It explores how European and/or African countries adopt similar datafication strategies at their borders and how these strategies “connect” a new datafied colonial world order.