Together with several partner organizations, the Refugee Law Lab has established the Migration + Tech Monitor.
Administered by RLL Associate Director, Petra Molnar, the Migration + Tech Monitor is a living and growing archive of work done at the intersection of migration and technology.
Technology replicates power structures in society. Unfortunately, the viewpoints of those most affected are routinely excluded from the discussion. At the Monitor, we attempt to change this — both by giving space to the experiences of people directly affected by border tech experiments as well as by investigating and interrogating how these technologies are playing out on the ground.
The Monitor’s primary goal is impact — impact to share knowledge, destabilize structures of hierarchical power, and create space for participatory work at the intersection of migration, technology, and human rights. Research for research’s sake is not our goal. Instead, we connect rigorous analysis with meaningful policy and advocacy goals, using innovative methodologies to get the public, media, and policy makers interested and involved in these issues.
We are guided by foundation questions such as:
-Whose perspectives matter when talking about innovation and which priorities take precedence?
-What does critical representation and meaningful participation look like — representation that puts first people’s agency and works against asymmetries of power, knowledge, and resources?
-Are human rights framings enough or do they also silence the systemic, historical, and collective nature of these harms?
MTM Fellowships
One of the Monitor’s first projects was to create a fellowship program to support work from-the-ground-up on border and migration technologies. The fellowships aim to continue creating opportunities for people with lived experience of migration to meaningfully contribute to research, storytelling, policy, implementation of technology and advocacy conversations from the start, and not as an afterthought. Among our aims is a collaborative, intellectual, and advocacy community committed to border and migration justice. We prioritize opportunities for participatory work, including the ability to pitch unique and relevant projects by affected communities themselves.
The application cycle for 2024 has now passed. Check here for future opportunities.
Meet our 2022-3 fellows here.
