ABSTRACT

This commentary reflects on the special issue on ethnographic approaches to biometric technologies. By attending to everyday experiences and understandings of the production, use, and contestation of biometric border technologies, the articles show how they are enmeshed in much wider social and cultural networks than is often presumed. I draw out three themes from the articles: automation, biometric bureaucrats (here glossed as ‘biocrats’), and imaginaries. While biometric technologies are often presented as automatic, they regularly fail. And though their automation may seem to shift questions of responsibility, they equally structure ways in which situated actors understand and act around issues of responsibility. While biometric border technologies are commonly seen to be aimed exclusively at the bodies of migrants, the bodies of biocrats are also fundamentally implicated. Lastly, while biometric technologies are presented as dealing with bodily characteristics based on science and rationality, they also relate to social and cultural imaginaries.

摘要

本评论反映了关于生物识别技术的人种学方法的特刊。通过关注生物识别边界技术的生产、使用和争论的日常经验和理解，这些文章展示了它们如何融入比通常假设的更广泛的社会和文化网络。我从文章中提取了三个主题：自动化、生物识别官僚（这里称为“生物官僚”）和想象。虽然生物识别技术通常表现为自动的，但它们经常失败。尽管它们的自动化似乎改变了责任问题，但它们同样构建了定位参与者理解和围绕责任问题采取行动的方式。虽然通常认为生物识别边境技术专门针对移民的尸体，biocrats 的身体也从根本上受到牵连。最后，虽然生物识别技术被描述为处理基于科学和理性的身体特征，但它们也与社会和文化想象有关。