Technological transformations in migration processes spatiality, temporality and agency

Technologies are part of every aspect of migration. Whether it concerns the vessels, airplanes and vehicles migrants use, information systems that are applied to process visa requests or travel and identity documents, walls, fences and digital infrastructures to control borders, communication networks migrants use or media coverage of migration processes: migration and technology are deeply connected. But how should these technologies conceptually be conceived? This chapter argues technologies appear in migration processes in three ways: as an instrument, a network and a world view. These different notions of technology overlap, coincide and vary in time. As a result, technologies transform the categories of place, time and action. These transformations produce hybrid relations of technologies, implicate different temporal regimes for various groups of migrants and give rise to a multiplicity of actors and institutions related to migration issues.