Ep 34 "The Walls Have Eyes": Border and Surveillance Technology ft Petra Molnar

The Human Challenge

It took 6 years for Petra Molnar to write "The Walls Have Eyes", a book showcasing the use of technology in immigration and migrant affairs. As a lawyer and anthropology specializing in human rights, the book documents both research and true stories of people on the move that she herself has supported in their own journeys to freedom.

Petra joins Vanessa on The Human Challenge, an Amazon Music x ACAST "Indie Podcast Amplifier 2023" to talk about the use of technology

• along US-Mexico and in Greece to facilitate pushback operations;
• in refugee camps used as digital prisons (Kenya);
• that is tested in the Occupied Palestinian territories.

She also discusses how all of this has created the "border industrial complex", largely driven by both the private and public sector, and certain resistance strategies, including hope, in a society that continues to push more technology as an only solution. One such strategy includes her work founding The Migration Technology Monitor.

Ultimately, she invites us to ask ourselves questions around the use of technology, who gets a seat at the table in deciding what technology to use and how, and how we can co-create technologies with people on the move.

The biggest human challenge to Petra?

Dehumanization.

"We all hold such complexity with the way we move through the world," she says, "we need to hold that same complexity for people on the move."

Be invited to stay in touch with Vanessa on Instagram @vanessaferlaino or vanessaferlaino.com; and Petra Molnar on Twitter @_PMolnar or https://www.petramolnar.com/ or https://www.migrationtechmonitor.com/

Watch this full episode on Youtube at https://www.youtube.com/@vanessaferlaino/featured

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