Bodies of Evidence is a Koneen Säätiö-funded research project of the political, social and ethical contexts and implications of the use biotechnology in the Finnish immigration policy and administration. The study focuses on two specific forensic technologies: DNA profiling applied for family reunification and medical age assessment of underage applicants for asylum or family reunification.
The background of the research project is in the deployment of biotechnology in border control and immigration management. Fingerprints and iris scanning related to databases like the EuroDac, biometric passports and residence cards, medical age assessment, medical examinations of contagious diseases or signs of torture and DNA profiling has expanded in the industrialized West during the past two decades to such an extent that scholars discuss about the ‘biometric border’. The use of these techniques for control of migrant populations is justified by their precision and objectivity.
In the 2000s, European immigration policy has increasingly emphasized strict border control and containment of immigration ‘flows’, and in this framing biotechnology is primarily deployed as a control technology aiming at prevention of fraud and illicit entry of immigrants. In this context, forensic and biometric technologies bring the bodies of the immigrants and asylum seekers into the focus of control and approach the body as a bearer of evidence of the person’s identity, family and kin relations, migration history or even a medical history or criminal record. As a consequence, the border becomes as if engraved in the migrant body in the framework of biotechnological border and immigrant control. The focus on migration based on family reunification is highly topical as it has become the most notable form of legal immigration in Europe in the 2000s.
Methods
The Bodies of Evidence project uses the data and findings of international comparison as a background and extends the study of the use of DNA profiling for family reunification and to the experiences of immigrants subjected to DNA testing. The role of DNA information in juridical practices is studied by analyzing administrative and legal documents which include over 250 cases from the Helsinki Administrative Court. In addition, lawyers, judges and other authorities as well as immigrants who have undergone medical studies will be interviewed.
Bodies of Evidence 