Brexit & the Fantasy of the Frictionless Border

保持爱尔兰边境无摩擦是英国/欧盟谈判代表为解决英国脱欧复杂的主权问题而变出的魔术。帽子里的兔子是一个技术边界，它将保持欧盟的自由流动逻辑和英国的独立，以及维护耶稣受难日协议。这再现了爱尔兰边境的危险空间，只有高度技术的解决方案才能“纠正”。通过探索在专业工作场所和日常社区中如何想象、实施和体验边界，本文展示了技术边界的生活世界如何总是扰乱和抵制主权秩序。首先，我概述了一个强大的幻想，即技术可以产生一个无摩擦的边界，能够客观有效地将“安全”移动与“危险”移动区分开来（Amoore, 2016）。其次，我将这一承诺政治化，表明即使是最复杂的边境技术也需要重新定义主权秩序的基本规范/越轨逻辑。第三，我解构了这一承诺，揭示了“规范”和“越轨”这两个被认为是离散的类别中的多样性，展示了这些多样性如何总是威胁着推翻规范/越轨的等级制度。第四，我通过批判性地考察技术化爱尔兰边境的生命周期，从经验上激活了这种解构：(a)在边界之前：在技术设计中（边界作为有待解决的问题空间）；(b)边境内：由边防人员测试/使用/维护新设备的技术实施；(c)在边境：居住在边境附近并经常穿越边境的当地居民体验到所谓的“无摩擦”。我感兴趣的是幻想在其整个生命周期中是如何被解开的：当技术设计师构建时，当边境人员实施时，当那些经常穿越它的人经历时。因为它是由一个规范-偏离二元构成的，技术边界再现了英国/欧盟主权的不合时宜的想象，掩盖了固有的复杂性，混乱和偶然性（Hansen & Nissenbaum, 2009）。英国脱欧提供了一个活生生的场景，让我们批判性地探索这种幻想是如何掩盖了新的、更有害的规范/越轨二元对立的再现。研究方法基于John Law（2004）和Weber（2016）的开创性见解，本论文开发了酷儿物质符号学的方法论框架，以批判性地探索关键边境地点交织在一起的人类/非人类行动者的“复杂的社会技术现实”（Acuto & Curtis, 2014）。通过对英国边境部队设计合作伙伴埃森哲（Accenture）和智库Reform的采访，我研究了如何将越轨行为设计成技术政策。其次，通过IBMATA的参与观察，我评估了主权机构和边境技术人员之间的关系网络。第三，我想问的是，正常偏差是如何被设计到指纹扫描仪（Integrated biometics）和生物识别软件（Fujitsu UK）中的。第四，考虑到英国人工智能提案的重要性（Gov.uk, 2018），我将在边境人工智能设计师SKU Chain进行人种志研究。通过对边境人员的采访，我评估了他们在使用技术“筛选”风险流动时所经历的“职业不安”（Bigo, 2002）。英国税务海关总署/爱尔兰税务局如何运用技术对“安全”货物和人员进行分类？技术如何成功/失败地使英国/爱尔兰边境部队能够识别有问题的流动？爱尔兰警察和北爱尔兰警局负责管理哪些边境焦虑？为了了解用户体验科技边界的方式，我将与商业、农业食品、跨境通勤者和艺术组织进行一系列的民族志研究。

Keeping the Irish border frictionless is the magic trick conjured by UK/EU negotiators to resolve Brexit's complex sovereignty issues. The rabbit in the hat is a technologized border that will maintain EU free movement logics and UK independence, as well as preserving the Good Friday Agreement. This reproduces the Irish border as a dangerous space that only a highly technologized solution can 'correct'. By exploring how the border is imagined, implemented and experienced in professional workplaces and everyday communities, this thesis shows how the life-worlds of the technologized border always disturb and resist the sovereign order. First, I outline the powerful fantasy that technology can produce a frictionless border capable of objectively and efficiently sorting 'safe' mobilities from 'dangerous' ones (Amoore, 2016). Second, I politicize that promise, showing how even the most sophisticated border technology requires fundamental norm/deviant logics which reinscribe the sovereign order. Third, I deconstruct that promise by uncovering multiplicities within the supposedly discrete categories of 'norm' and 'deviant', showing how these multiplicities always threaten to overturn the norm/deviant hierarchy. Fourth, I activate that deconstruction empirically by critically examining the life-cycle of the technologized Irish border: (a) before the border: in technology design (borders as problematic spaces to be solved); (b) inside the border: technology implementation where new devices are tested/used/maintained by border agents; and (c) at the border: where supposed 'frictionlessness' is experienced by local populations who live beside and cross it regularly. I am interested in how that the fantasy is unravelled throughout its life-cycle: when constructed by technology designers, when implemented by border agents, and when experienced by those crossing it regularly. Because it is constituted by a norm-deviant binary, the technologized border reproduces an anachronistic imaginary of UK/EU sovereignty which masks inherent complexity, messiness and contingency (Hansen & Nissenbaum, 2009). Brexit offers a live scenario to critically explore how this fantasy masks the reproduction of new and more pernicious norm/deviant binaries. Research MethodsBuilding from the seminal insights of John Law (2004) and Weber (2016), this thesis develops a methodological framework of queer material-semiotics to critically explore the 'intricate socio-technical realities' (Acuto & Curtis, 2014) intertwining human/non-human actors at key border sites. Sites/Participants Before the Border: constructing the Brexit BorderThrough interviews with UK Border Force design partners, Accenture and thinktank, Reform, I examine how deviance is designed into technology policy. Second, through participant observation at IBMATA, I evaluate the relational networks between sovereign agencies and border technologists. Third, I ask how norm-deviance is designed into fingerprint scanners (Integrated Biometrics) and biometric software (Fujitsu UK). Fourth, given the significance of the UK's AI proposals (Gov.uk, 2018), I will conduct an ethnography at border AI designer SKU Chain. Through interviews with border agents, I evaluate the 'professional unease' (Bigo, 2002) they experience when using technologies to 'sift' risky mobilities. How do HMRC/Irish Revenue agents operationalise technologies to sort 'safe' goods and people? How does technology succeed/fail in enabling the UK/Irish Border Forces to identify problematic mobilities? What border anxieties are managed by An Garda Siochana and the PSNI? At the Border To understand the way users experience the technologized border, I will conduct a series of ethnographies, with business, agri-food, cross-border commuters and arts organisations.