New Books in Critical Theory

Matt Mahmoudi, "Migrants in the Digital Periphery: New Urban Frontiers of Control" (U California Press, 2025)

Mar 23, 2025

In this engaging discussion, Matt Mahmoudi, an assistant professor at Cambridge University, delves into the intersection of technology, migration, and racial capitalism. He critiques how tech companies bolster surveillance at Europe's borders while undermining the autonomy of migrant communities. Mahmoudi highlights grassroots initiatives by Syrian women in Berlin to combat misinformation and reveals the darker role of data brokers in tracking immigrant activities. The conversation emphasizes the urgent need to rethink technology's impact on marginalized populations and advocates for community-driven resistance.

57:44

Episode guests

Matt Mahmoudi

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Episode notes

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Quick takeaways

The rise of biometric and digital surveillance, driven by tech corporations, increasingly encroaches on the lives and freedoms of migrant communities.

Grassroots initiatives demonstrate how marginalized populations can repurpose technology for empowerment, countering corporate efforts that prioritize profit over genuine support.

Deep dives

The Emergence of the Digital Periphery

The concept of the digital periphery highlights how technology interacts with migrant communities in ways that often lead to their exploitation. This term refers to the socio-economic and racial dynamics that govern the experiences of vulnerable populations, particularly refugees and undocumented individuals. Technologies such as blockchain and biometric systems are frequently marketed as solutions for humanitarian issues, but they often prioritize profit and surveillance over genuine support. As a result, these tools can facilitate the deportation, detention, and separation of families under the guise of providing aid, leading to a re-evaluation of the relationships between tech companies, governments, and marginalized communities.

Intro

2min

Tech, Refugees, and Racial Capitalism

17min

Exploring the Intersection of Technology and Migrant Experiences

5min

Tech and Community: Navigating Misinformation and Surveillance

12min

The Dark Side of Digital Surveillance: Immigrant Communities and Data Brokers

5min

Tech's Troubling Impact on Marginalized Communities

14min

As the fortification of Europe's borders and its hostile immigration terrain has taken shape, so too have the biometric and digital surveillance industries. And when US Immigration Customs Enforcement aggressively reinforced its program of raids, detention, and family separation, it was powered by Silicon Valley corporations. In cities of refuge, where communities on the move once lived in anonymity and proximity to familial and diaspora networks, the possibility for escape is diminishing.

As cities rely increasingly on tech companies to develop digital urban infrastructures for accessing information, identification, services, and socioeconomic life at large, they also invite the border to encroach further on migrant communities, networks, and bodies. In Migrants in the Digital Periphery: New Urban Frontiers of Control (U California Press, 2025), Matt Mahmoudi unveils how the unsettling convergence of Silicon Valley logics, austere and xenophobic migration management practices, and racial capitalism has allowed tech companies to close in on the final frontiers of fugitivity—and suggests how we might counteract their machines through our own refusal.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Hannah Pool whose research focuses on human mobilities. She is a senior researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the Studies of Societies.

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