User:Eastwood/research writing

Passports

The following is a preliminary investigation into the passport as a travel document, and as an identifier of individuals and nations. It purpose is to investigate this elusive object's origins, its current role in society, and consider its possible futures.

Previous research into this document spans wide historical, legal and philosophical spaces. It will only be possible to touch on a very small part of this object's phenomenology in such a short format, but hopefully this will be the catalyst for further inquiry.

Dissecting the passport into its empirical parts, it appears to be a neutral, and totally functional object. On the surface it is an identification document that records international travel. Its physical construction is compact, and adorned with national, governmental, and cultural identifiers, all of which is brought together in a collection of high and low technologies.

As an identifying document, it provides a visual representation of its owner, their name, gender, birthplace and date, nationality (according to the current document), the document's own identifier and duration of its validity. Buried within, many passports contain more unknown data in the form of bio-metrics, and ties its owner to a much larger, and mostly invisible network of information.

As a travel document, it records its owners movement between countries, plots possible future movement, and gives (or denies) access to countries throughout the globe. When abroad, it identifies the owner as being part of another nation, and can often grant them protections by their home country.

The issuing country identifies itself though forms of iconography, language, design, and the technologies it chooses to employ.

Much of this information mentioned above clearly manifests itself. Sometimes within complex systems, others in more simple ones. But it is the information that is held within this document that is recorded through no official system at all.

This benign identification document, designed for international travel, that most un-objectively identifies its owner so as to allow them safe travel throughout our globalised world, the systems, history and ontology of this document as both an object that acts, is acted upon, and is acted through stimulates questions of mobility, identity, technology, nation, and governance.

Passports as already expressed can generally be simplified into documents that identify an individual, where they might be from and at times give indications to where they might be going.

Despite their ubiquity amongst international travellers (with exception to citizens of the European Union), their existence, nor their history is as standardised as one might believe. Like the individuals they try to identify, their origins are hard to pin down, and have manifested out of many varied origins.

It is overly simplistic to suggest any one motivator or general historical movement can account for the origins of the passport. Foucault, in his historical studies on knowledge allows us to recognise that it is never one grand teleological narrative but rather the culmination of many small events, often disparate in nature, that can account for what we now know. Furthermore, it is questionable to assume that the birth of the passport was born from nations and frontiers, but rather we should consider the reverse.

On the official Belgian website for Foreign Affairs, Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation, it states that:

A passport is an official, worldwide recognised and usable travel document in the format of a booklet issued by the relevant authority in a particular State to its nationals. ... a passport allows its holder to travel to any country in the world, subject to fulfilling any applicable visa requirements.

A worldwide recognised and usable document issued to nationals of a state, that allows travel to any country in the world. If travel throughout the world is considered to be a right for those baring a passport, then we'd best investigate the history of movement regulation.

This history varies throughout time and place. During Medieval times, a nation's strength economically and militarily was directly comparable to its population. Military might considered in terms of armies, economic strength in the form of production. Thus it was not in the best interest of any ruler to loose their subjects.

It is recorded that in Portugal in the 1600s, systems were put in place for incoming merchants to register themselves, cargo and any additional passengers on arrival, and for any citizens considering leaving the country, to seek approval, and receive official papers prior to leaving. In those time, much like today, this was not a free service, and had to be affected in official spaces designated by the authorities.

Later, just after the British abolishment of slavery, the British Empire had to respond to a loss of workers across their colonies. The solution to this was to distribute indentured Indian labour across its colonies to where there were shortages. The colonial Indian government developed papers to identify the travelling labourers as "free-men" so as to not identify them as slaves, and in turn to protect their rights in their destination countries. It is here that the first use of the word emigration was used to specifically identify the movement of manual labourers.

It is suggested that the from of documentation most closely related to our modern day passport originated after the first world war alongside the establishment of the League of Nations. After the Great War, during a time of high migration, nations felt the need to record international movement. It was considered necessary for individuals to carry "documentary substantiation of identity..." so that nations may "...register and keep watch over aliens".

In Portugal as is described above, the ruling class worked to dissuade people from leaving the nation. It was considered that "emigration was an illusion, a trap that only the naïve would enter into" an undocumented emigration was considered treason. However emigration was a reality that the ruling classes could not deny, and so systems of control were implemented. They pitched the existence of the passport not as an "obstacle" but rather, like it is today, a "facilitator" for movement. This was an easy enough task as emigrants at the time were often victims of various forms of fraud and/or exploitation, either in the form of transportation, or promises on arrival in their destination.

So too was the passport a regulator of immigration seen to control the influx of the unwanted or the "alien". A clear example of this is in the case of Indian migration within the British Empire during the mid 1800s. It was only emigrants (in the form of Indian indentured labour) whose mobility was recorded. The British Empire and Colonial Indian government did not see a need in controlling the movement of free Indians. As a result many migrated to other British Colonies, notably Canada and Australia to seek new opportunities. Commonwealth powers started to feel the threat of loosing a national identity, and felt the need for restrictions on "free" movement. It is in 1905 during correspondence between the "Seat of the Empire" and Australian authorities that the term "Passport" is first officially mentioned.

It during this time and throughout the 20 century, that sentiment to restrict movement, and install the technology of the passport, rises. However we must recognise that these concerns always rose from white settler colonies or European nations.

It is clear that from this history of mobility control, the stakeholders are not the populace that this system is applied to. Nor is it, as it was historically, necessarily our current elites who seek to gain. It seems that the restriction of mobility is a purely a governmental system that is in place to perpetuate an idea of national identity. When the public are asked to reflect on the idea of national identity, and thus that of mobility, national ideology is not clearly definable. This was clear to see in the split of the Britain from the European Union. Forces for and against Brexit were spread across socio economic, political, cultural, and "national" identities.

We can extrapolate from history, and our present situation, that the core of mobility control rises from an arbitrary conflict between "them" and "us". Neither party identifiable by concrete terms, despite the wishes and sentiments of government and nationalists. It is not clear exactly what the purpose is of border and migration control. Nor was it clear historically. However it seems to me, that at its core it is an exercise of governmental power, imposed by questionable rhetoric, and motivations.

The technology of the passport alone, speaks volumes in the methodology of control. Its cold, clinical representation of the self, encapsulated in untouchable technologies, decorated in national iconography, has so much more to say than what meets the eye.

Bibliography

W. Walters, Reflections on Migration and Governmentality . movements. Journal für kritische Migrations- und Grenzregimeforschung, 2015

M. Salter, "Passport Photos" Making Things International . Making Things International, University of Minnesota Press, Apr 1, 2015

S R Clark, Balancing Privacy and Security in the Australian Passport System . Deakin Law Review, 2011

R V Mongia, Race Nationality and Mobility: A History of the Passport . Public Culture 11(3) pg527-556, 1999

V Pereira, Papers of State Power: The Passport and the Control of Mobility . The making of modern Portugal Chapter 1, 2013

Passport Research Notes

Suggestions from peers : Czech Republic : Velvet Revolution - When the Czech republic separated from Slovakia. Side notes read "Progressive" and "Manacle"

Whare are general passport application processes. The case where it was easier and cheaper to change your name by depol, get a new passport than to purchase a new ticket with Ryanair.

Suggestion to create a subjective archive of my family movement. Look at my family's history in relationship to world history specifically in regards to mobility and national diplomacies.

Infinite Citizenship : Giuditta Vendrame

Identity and Control : Harrison C. White

Extended Border Control Privileges

eff.org article on the loophole, an example of the overextension affected on a NASA scientist who was part of the Global Entry programme.

Nation Exclusivity

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/feb/16/migrants-scapegoats-ukip-compelling-stories-win-over-xenophobes

Alien's Act

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2017/01/slovenia-amendments-to-aliens-act-denies-protection-to-refugees/ http://www.refworld.org/docid/4c407cbd2.html

Migration

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/01/left-afghanistan-family-of-nine-arrived-uk-family-of-two

Essay Research Suggestions 2

Max: I have been reading a short introduction to Foucault. It is relevant because we talk about control and disciplinary society in this class. Thought it would be handy to look at these in terms of passports. His life is very interesting he didn’t want to be tied down to one definition; opens up to reading F’s life from different perspectives. Archeologist of knowledge. Rather than looking at what a work says and placing it in its context you situate it in its time in order to understand the concepts. [discourse] The technology of language, interpreting it in our time in terms of just the words of that are written […unpack]. This is interesting in relation to the mobility and passport project; identity, classification; Historical thing:

What have you done since last time?

Text: reading F Book, also had a follow up group meeting. Would like to finish the book, re-read it; go back to the history of passports and visas. Take it from a personal place, where I am allowed passage within the work; for my family down 3 generations; to map out their journey. At the time; my gp’s movement during the war; and my greatgarnadp’s escaped the Russian revolution. Seeing what it would have been like for my grandfather to change his nationality. [Karina] You could update this […] in Holland… Where will you be: writing something down: questions I want to address.

Outside:

coding and playing music: both with varying degrees of success. Hopefully with the sound project. Euclidian time – translated into 1 & 0s [explains]. Then you play it like . Euclidian rhythms are currently popular and from these patterns you get polyrhythms, which come from human culture. One can generate African rhythms, for instance. This could be (possibly) performed for DePlayer project. Like the idea of improvising music, to make the score in parallel or after the fact.

CONTROL and DISCIPLINE SOCIETY : https://libcom.org/library/postscript-on-the-societies-of-control-gilles-deleuze

Essay Research Suggestions 1

https://pad.bleu255.com/p/rwrm_notes_06-01-17

started of with passports and identity evolved into idea of national identity, mobility institutionalised

Passports, indentity which evolved into the idea of national identity, mobility,

need to find history of passports phylosophy of identity. movement through World of the family. Political environment.

need to look at a personal point of view look at family and their movement

what information is needed case study on 'nationally diverse' family

where do you come from? is it relevant to make that destinction?

Trump Tolling http://everysecondcounts.eu/

Taiye Selasi: Don't ask where I'm from, ask where I'm a local https://www.ted.com/talks/taiye_selasi_don_t_ask_where_i_m_from_ask_where_i_m_a_local?utm_source=tedcomshare&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=tedspread

dna test momondo https://www.momondo.nl/letsopenourworld/ Is your DNA a more genuine distinction of your "nationalities". Is ethnicity related to nationality. Is culture related to nationality?

Ethnocentrism

Overview Effect - seeing the world from outer space https://vimeo.com/55073825

The Space Between Us http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3922818/

Why a passport identity exists? which are the reasons they exists? do they identify us?

Can you look at yourself / your personality and find something 'typically' Australian, South African, Belgian? How family culture can get into your identity?

Italian travelled to Argentina. He felt at home there because of similar culture (many Italians there)

What defines a culture?

Language How does language shape cultural identity? It's also a specific tool. In some countries it's easier to explain food, weather, nature, technology

What was the reason we started having passports? History of passports

History of the visa - started in 1958

Costs of visas Compare difficulties / process of getting a visa Look into reasons why you do / do not need a visa Poland doesn't need a visa to China because they think Poland is still communistic

Immigration and Naturalisation Service (IND) https://ind.nl

Facebook Tracking

http://dataselfie.it/#/

2016

Essay

Essay : The Silver Bullet

Reading Notes

Collection of notes on things I'm reading/read.

Citizen Lobby : Olsen

Vilém FLUSSER

Talking at the Osnabrück, European Media Art Festival, 1988

POST-HISTORICAL STRUCTURAL TRADITION

Our current form of literacy is no longer sufficient to communicate current concepts concerning our world. To more precisely reflect on our world we are not solely able to explain it with language, neither written or spoken. To understand the world, we are no longer able to rely solely on words, it is necessary to calculate the world.

Vilém Flusser suggests that the only way we are able to reflect on our current existence is through synthetic images. He describes the language of science and mathematics is a visual language of thought through numbers, giving the example of the number two as the representation of a couple or pair. From this he goes on to suggest that the most appropriate tool to facilitate this realisation of synthetic images is through computing. At the time of this interview Flusser claimed that he had not yet seen any examples of this and suggests that we do not know how to yet manipulate the technology.

Flusser explains that before the alphabet images were used to represent the world. Images served to represent non linear mythical thought, a projection of understanding upon the world tied into past present and future. At the invention of the alphabet this non-linear representation of the world gave way to a linear, historically causal and critical method. Now linear, historical thought has been disrupted by a calculative method of thinking, which Flusser likes to call a systemic or structural way of thinking.

Our current revolution can be likened to the revolution that gave us the origin to history. One that returns to a non-linear, image based narrative, that likens to a pre-historical way of thinking. We are now in the process of developing a post-historical structural way of thinking.

Historically the philosophy of image cast a mostly negative opinion of 'the image'. Greek and Jewish (Christian) philosophy and thought considered images either only a copy or simulation of thought and so we have been conditioned to distrust images. However now images should be considered articulations of thought, not mere copies by projection or models. Flusser calls for a new conversation around images.

STRUCTURAL v FUNCTIONAL COMPLEXITY

Systems can be considered complex in 2 ways. Systems with structural complexity and systems with functional complexity. Structurally complex systems are ones that are complex in their construction, or operation but not in their interaction or output. Functionally complex systems are systems can be used in many different ways or has a functional nuance without necessarily being structurally complex.

Flusser gives the comparison between TV (structurally complex) and Chess (functionally complex). The television a technologically complex electronic device that decodes data into visual moving image and sound that is broadcast live to the viewer, is very simple to interact with or manipulate within its set parameters. Chess, a game made up of solely physical objects can be played 100 different ways and have many different outcomes.

As things are being designed more structurally complex without being necessarily functionally complex leads us to become intellectually, aesthetically and ethical less active or even able. It is Flussers analysis that it is not the fault of the systems themselves, but rather the responsibility on the users of the systems to find functional complexity in structurally complex systems.

The importance in doing this is because functionally complex systems encourage creative thought (arguably a calculative way to look at our world) whereas structurally complex systems currently allow us to stagnate in thought.