Send message to Authors

Paper short abstract

This talk analyzes how EU datafied migration governance shapes and marginalizes migrant representation. Focusing on the Eurodac reform, it contrasts official discourses with civil society counter-claims and introduces “ecologies of contention” to examine exclusion and emerging self-representation.

Paper long abstract

This talk examines democratic representation from the perspective of marginalized migrants within the European Union’s increasingly securitized and datafied migration governance. In EU policymaking, migrants who are often excluded from formal citizenship face structurally hostile conditions of political representation, particularly when contesting dominant narratives in border and migration control. Drawing on Hayat’s concept of “inclusive representation,” the article analyzes how EU data-driven migration policies configure hegemonic epistemic and political representations of migrants, while provoking counter-representations by civil society actors and migrant groups.

Based on EU legislative documents, institutional reports, and civil society advocacy materials, our talk focuses on the recast of the Eurodac Regulation. In contrasting official policy discourses and interventions by civil society organizations advocating for migrants’ digital and fundamental rights, we introduce the concept of “ecologies of contention” to capture how asymmetric regimes of authority, shaped by technocratic expertise, digital infrastructures, and securitized governance, privilege certain representative claims while marginalizing others. Our talk first traces how “the migrant” is constructed and which forms of expertise and representation are recognized or excluded in the process of policy making. Second, we identify both structural forms of marginalization and emerging practices of self-representation. The article concludes by reflecting on reformist and more radical responses to democratic exclusion, interrogating the boundaries of representative democracy that sustain exclusionary regimes of belonging.