MOBILE – Mobility Law Open Lab with Alice Fill
Datafication of human mobility in ECOWAS: exploring legal and socio-technical infrastructures
The Senegal River separating the towns of Rosso Mauritania and Rosso Senegal, where a border post equipped with advanced biometric identification systems intersects with the bustling, chaotic activity of border crossing practices
Guest presenter: Alice Fill is a doctoral researcher in International Relations and International Human Rights Law at the École Normale Supérieure (Chair in Geopolitics of Risk, ED540, and République des Savoirs) in Paris and at the University of Roma Tre (Department of Law). She is also a fellow at the Institut Convergences Migrations (CNRS), affiliated with the Policy and Global departments.
Presentation: The collection of digital data on human mobility is rapidly expanding in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), alongside the development of policies and regulations to govern this shift. Datafication refers to the process of transforming human mobility into data for use in various governance practices, including large-scale identity management systems, border controls, and humanitarian assistance for displaced populations.
A map of the border between Côte d'Ivoire and Burkina Faso, illustrating the movement of people and transhumance as cross-border tensions rise
However, the interplays between mobility legal frameworks and technological systems within this field remain underexplored, while new spaces for human rights violations emerge. This presentation examines how these socio-technical and legal infrastructures shape mobility regimes, revealing tensions and paradoxes. While advanced digital systems of personal data collection coexist, mobility across porous borders, informal practices, and heightened displacement due to regional instability persists.
Drawing on extensive fieldwork conducted in Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, and Mauritania, this presentation is based on my PhD research project and adopts an interdisciplinary approach. It combines insights from Science and Technology Studies with International Human Rights Law to explore hybrid forms of governance and spaces of infra-legality.
Time: 19 September 2024 14:00-15:15
Place: MOBILE – 6B-2-22 Southern Campus + ONLINE
Online participation
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