This episode focuses on the UK’s policy of deterring refugees and migrants from seeking asylum by extending the Home Office’s domestic “hostile environment” beyond state borders and into mainland Europe. We raise a number of questions on ethical and legal grounds. Our guest Marta Welander, founder of Refugee Rights Europe and PhD candidate and visiting lecturer in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University, is here to discuss her work and research toward these issues.

From June to October 2017, the US-led Coalition launched an aggressive and highly destructive military campaign in Raqqa, Syria to oust the so-called “Islamic State” from the city. More than 80% of the city was destroyed via aerial bombardments, leaving Raqqa the most destroyed city in modern times. And over 1,600 civilians were killed. Amnesty and the Digital Verification Corps came to Queens’ College, Cambridge for a panel discussion crossed with an exhibition featuring photographs, interactive screens, and even a Virtual Reality experience. Declarations was invited to the event, to hear from the panel, explore the exhibition, and speak to some of the visitors.

Technology is redefining the experiences of refugees and asylum seekers in this globalised world, whether it is artificial intelligence (AI) being used to screen their immigration applications or mobile applications designed to help them to access information and healthcare. The implications are far-reaching and complex, since such technological innovations could either strength or undermine human rights.

Moreover, how human bodies are sorted reflects power dynamics and values in the 21st century. For instance, AI could expedite decision-making for immigration agents and reduce the backlog. Yet it is potentially dangerous to use AI in making decisions which could bear life-or-death consequences, by approving or denying a request for asylum.

On this episode, we consider these questions about the current and future use of technology in the immigration space, plus how we should change the conversation so that people can become more informed in using and developing these tools. From the University of Cambridge and the Centre of Governance and Human Rights, this is Declarations and I am Jennifer Tridgell.

We are joined by Petra Molnar, and Matt Mahmoudi. Petra Molnar is the Acting Director of the International Human Rights Program, University of Toronto, and specialises in immigration and human rights law. Matt Mahmoudi is Jo Cox PhD Scholar at the University of Cambridge, where his research focuses on technological marginalisation among refugees and vulnerable migrant populations. 

In this episode we discuss how the infrastructure of the US-Mexico border wall has become a weapon in and of itself. Since Trump’s campaign promise, “the wall” has captured onlookers’ horror and imagination. It is a frontline for so-called wars on drugs, terror, and migrants, but resistance to it is also a frontline in the fight for human rights. We explore the impact of the wall as weaponised infrastructure – not only a deadly symbol, but also a physical object that shapes the lives of those at or around the border. Our guest for the episode, Dr. Ieva Jusionyte, has worked as an emergency responder on both sides of the border in Arizona and Sonora. She is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Harvard, and Editor of the University of California Press Series in Public Anthropology. Her most recent book, Threshold: Emergency Responders on the US.-Mexico Border is written from the perspective of firefighters and paramedics working along the border.

Music by Blue Dot Sessions, Borrtex, and Seed A.I.

This week’s episode explores how the petroleum industry in the Niger Delta takes place at the intersection of contentious relations between multinational oil companies, the Nigerian nation-state, and local communities in the oil-producing regions. The guest on the show is Dr Elias Courson, a lecturer at Niger Delta University, Nigeria and a former postdoc fellow at the Centre of African Studies, University of Cambridge.