'Working the Border'

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'Working the Border' ‘Working the Border’ Risk and Interagency Communication At an International Airport A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in Anthropology By Mason Tolerton University of Canterbury Christchurch New Zealand 2009 ii Contents Contents........................................................................................................................ii Abstract ....................................................................................................................... iv Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................... v Chapter One: Introduction......................................................................................... 1 Aims of this thesis and Key Question ............................................................................... 1 Border Sector Governance Group ..................................................................................... 5 The Fieldwork Site ............................................................................................................ 6 New Zealand Customs Service...................................................................................... 8 MAF - Biosecurity New Zealand ................................................................................ 10 Aviation Security - AVSEC ........................................................................................ 11 Police ........................................................................................................................... 12 Immigration New Zealand........................................................................................... 13 Border Linked Agencies.............................................................................................. 13 Unions.......................................................................................................................... 15 Theoretical Background .................................................................................................. 15 Latour and Actor Network Theory.............................................................................. 15 Occupational Community............................................................................................ 17 Foucault’s views of Power .......................................................................................... 19 Risk.............................................................................................................................. 22 Research Methodology – situating myself “you are not the border” ............................. 23 A ‘Typical’ Border Crossing........................................................................................... 28 Direction of Chapters....................................................................................................... 33 Chapter Two, Workers of the border...................................................................... 34 Framing (not literally) the workers of the border............................................................ 34 Those within and those without....................................................................................... 38 Playing the Risk Game: Hide and Seek at the Border..................................................... 40 Success in Talking About Policing Risk ......................................................................... 41 Private worlds in public spaces and “the look” ............................................................... 48 Shared sense of time – shifts and decision making ......................................................... 53 Shared concept of the use and abuse of Power................................................................ 57 Every decision being a risk decision ............................................................................... 59 Policing Risk ................................................................................................................... 61 Concluding remarks on the workers of the border .......................................................... 65 Chapter Interlude:..................................................................................................... 69 Occupational Community to Actor Networks? ...................................................... 69 Chapter Three: .......................................................................................................... 71 Working the Border Together,................................................................................. 71 the Technologies of the Border and Risk ................................................................ 71 The non-human workers of the border ............................................................................ 71 Biometrics as a technology of (in)security.................................................................. 72 X-ray Machine – a visualising Technology................................................................. 75 Covert searching using x-rays ..................................................................................... 76 X-rays re-assembling strip searches ................................................................................ 80 X-Ray machines linking actors ....................................................................................... 87 Itemiser – a tracking technology ..................................................................................... 89 Border Databases – tracking and visualising................................................................... 96 Border Networks Databases, Communicating Risk? .................................................... 100 iii Camera Surveillance System – A Visualising technology............................................ 104 The Arrival card – a tracking technology...................................................................... 108 Sorting Passengers..................................................................................................... 110 Notebook – a tracking technology................................................................................. 113 Audio Networks............................................................................................................. 116 Conclusions – risk as a product ..................................................................................... 120 Chapter Four ........................................................................................................... 124 Highlighting Power at the Border.......................................................................... 124 Power and working the border....................................................................................... 124 Disciplinary power of the state...................................................................................... 127 Relational power at the border....................................................................................... 131 Pastoral Power at the border.......................................................................................... 135 Power and working the border, concluding remarks..................................................... 137 Too much power at the border?..................................................................................... 139 Chapter Five: Conclusions...................................................................................... 141 The Airport .................................................................................................................... 141 ‘How is the border worked at an international airport?’ ............................................... 143 Appendix One – ‘Questionnaire’ ........................................................................... 148 Information, Consent form and Questions ........................................................... 148 References................................................................................................................. 153 iv Abstract This thesis seeks to answer the ‘key question’: ‘how is the border worked at an international airport?’ To answer this key question the author, who is employed as a Customs officer, uses participant observation to provide material for an anthropological analysis of this question. The primary anthropological focus that will permeate throughout this thesis is interconnectedness of human and non human actors. This focus on interconnectedness will be linked to the ability of the workers of the border to communicate about risk to one another. Risk at the border is highly political following the terrorist attacks of September 11 (9/11). The attacks are not a focus of this thesis but a study of the border network will shed some light on how the workers of the border make sense of external factors such as these attacks (9/11) in their work world. The thesis accounts for links between the border workers of different government agencies and uses the idea of an occupational community to do so. The thesis will attempt to account for technologies within the border network. The account of technologies will demonstrate through an actor network approach their hybrid nature, and their ability to negotiate and renegotiate the border network. Power is analysed at the border through the ideas of Foucault. Though the idea of occupational community, actor network theory and the ideas of Foucault
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