Moodle@Warwick

This is a second-year elective module that will run during the Autumn Term of 2024.

In this module, we will explore how new technologies, including Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based technologies, are shaping the governance of mobility. AI-based technologies are increasingly integrated into various aspects of our lives, including public decision-making systems. Some countries have even started incorporating them into their immigration systems, using them to predict future migration and displacement, process visa applications, and conduct various forms of profiling and risk assessments for decision-making purposes. With large-scale interoperable information systems, it has become possible to deduce individual characteristics, screen them through different systems to obtain more information about an individual, and ultimately make decisions based on comparisons with others.

This module aims to provide students with an introduction to the latest developments in this field and explore the conditions in which these technologies have been integrated into immigration and asylum decision-making systems, as well as humanitarian actions. Through a variety of case studies, mainly from Europe and North America, we will examine how these new technologies are reshaping the definition of territorial state borders and methods of identifying and governing individuals. Additionally, we will explore how humanitarian actors have employed new technologies in countries in Africa and the Middle East and how migrants themselves navigate, adapt, and resist their use.

By the end of this module, you should be able to:

• Have the knowledge and understanding of how and to what extent the operation of territorial borders is changing in the digital age.
• Have the knowledge and ability to critically analyse the ethical, political and social implications of the implementation of new technologies in border management, immigration, and asylum application processing, as well as humanitarian actions.
• Have the knowledge and ability to analyse the ways in which migrants navigate, adopt or challenge the use of a variety of new technologies.
• Be able to describe and critically participate in political and intellectual discussions on the use of new technologies in areas related to migration, asylum and humanitarian actions.
• Develop skills in accessing and evaluating relevant literature for seminar discussion, presentations, conducting independent study, research, and essay writing.

Provisional Outline of Course

Week 1: Introduction: Indigenous feminisms, post/colonial feminisms and the intersections of political struggles

Week 2: Feminism, post/coloniality and the question of sovereignty (Assam)

Week 3: Feminism, terror and security (Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Sudan) 

Week 4: Feminism, socialism and authoritarianism (China)

Week 5: Feminist engagements with the politics of religion, secularism and border control 

Week 6: Reading Week

Week 7: Feminist movements in a settler colonial context: political prisoners and decolonial methods (Palestine)

Week 8: Feminism, reproduction and land rights in settler colonial states (Australia, US, Canada)

Week 9: Feminism and Revolution (Algeria)

Week 10: Summary workshop/ Time for assessment discussion

Illustrative Bibliography

R. Icaza (2017) 'Decolonial Feminism and Global Politics: Border Thinking and Vulnerability as a Knowing Otherwise' in M. Woons & S. Weier (eds.) Critical Epistemologies of Global Politics, E-International Relations Publishing.

Kaul, N. & Zia, A.(2018) ‘Knowing in our Own Ways: Women and Kashmir’, Special Issue EPW/RWS

Osuri, G.(2018) ‘Sovereignty, vulnerability, and a gendered resistance in Indian-occupied Kashmir’, Third World Thematics: A TWQ Journal, 3(2) 228-43.

Das, N. K. (2019) 'Indigenous Feminism and Women Resistance: Customary Law, Codification Issue and Legal Pluralism in North East India', Journal of Cultural and Social Anthropology, 1(2), pp. 19-27.

Menon, Nivedita. 2012. "Victims or Agents?" in Seeing like a Feminist. pp. 173-212. 

Radha Kumar (1999) 'From Chipko to Sati: The Contemporary Indian Women's Movement'. in N. Menon (ed.), Gender and Politics in India. OUP, pp.342-369.

Fong, M. (2016) One Child: The story of China’s most radical experiment, Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt.

Lydia H. Liu, Rebecca E. Karl and Dorothy Ko (eds.) (2013) The Birth of Chinese Feminism: Essential Texts in Transnational Theory, Columbia University Press.

Hershatter, G. (2018) Women and China’s Revolutions, Rowman & Littlefield.

Maha El Said, Lena Meari and Nicola Pratt (eds.) (2015) Rethinking Gender in Revolutions and Resistance: Lessons from the Arab World, London: Zed.

Nadje Al-Ali & Nicola Pratt (2009) What Kind of Liberation? Women and the Occupation of Iraq, Berkeley: University of California Press.

Seedat, F.(ed.) (2017) ‘Special Issue: Women, Religion and Security’, Agenda, 30(3).

M.E.M.Kolawole (1997) Womanism and African Consciousness, Africa World Press Inc.

B. Badri & A. M. Tripp (eds.) (2017) Women’s Activism in Africa, London: Zed.

B. Fredericks (1997) ‘Reempowering Ourselves: Australian Aboriginal Women’, Signs. Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 35(3).

Green, J. (ed.) (2017) Making Space for Indigenous Feminism(2^ndedition), Fernwood Publishing.

R. Aída Hernández Castillo (2010) ‘The Emergence of Indigenous Feminism in Latin America’, Signs, 35(3).