Borders patrolled by AI-powered robotic dogs once seemed like something purely in the realm of dystopian sci-fi novels. But the border industrial complex is working hard to make them a part of our (still dystopian) reality.

Petra Molnar, author of The Walls Have Eyes: Surviving Migration in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, joins us to discuss the militarization of border technologies, the racial politics of migration and the complexities of being both a refugee and an economic migrant.

Petra is a lawyer and anthropologist specializing in migration and human rights. She is the co-creator of the Migration and Technology Monitor, a collective of civil society, journalists, academics, and filmmakers interrogating technological experiments on people crossing borders.

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In Solidarity is openDemocracy’s podcast about people, power, and politics. It’s hosted by openDemocracy editor-in-chief Aman Sethi, an award-winning journalist and author of A Free Man. Support the show by visiting openDemocracy.net/donate.

Credits:

Presented by Aman Sethi

Edited and produced by Nandini Archer, James Battershill & Ayodeji Rotinwa

Theme song ‘Odyssey’ performed by Edward Abela

Featuring audio clips from NowThis, TVO Today and ParliamentTV

00:00 Introduction

01:39 Why Petra you write The Walls Have Eyes?

07:00 The theatre of surveillance

08:55 The history of the politics of migration

11:47 Racial politics and migration

14:37 AI's roll in policing borders

18:43 How do we decide who is 'worthy' or migrating?

20:09 Is Trump creating a new type of migrants?

22:00 Defining a refugee in the modern age

24:08 Petra's experiences in Israel and Palestine

27:28 The death of physical borders

29:19 How can we resist?

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