Taylor, L;
Milan, S;
Veale, M;
Gürses, S;
(2021)
Promises made to be broken: Performance and performativity in digital vaccine and immunity certification.
European Journal of Risk Regulation
, 12
(2)
pp. 382-392.
10.1017/err.2021.26.
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Abstract
Digital vaccination certification involves making many promises, few of which can realistically be kept. In this paper we demonstrate how this phenomenon constitutes various forms of theatre - immunity theatre, border theatre, behavioural theatre and equality theatre - doing so by drawing on perspectives from technology regulation, migration studies and critical geopolitics. Technological and political theatre often serves a valid function, but these forms are problematic for several reasons. First, they involve real-world infrastructures that, while unlikely to accomplish the task at hand, will nevertheless last a long time and be repurposed. It therefore constitutes governance by data infrastructure, diverting action and control away from elected legislators to for-profit contractors. Second, vaccine certification effectively legitimises inequalities between countries and people by formalising ways to distinguish between the vaccinated and non-vaccinated, and to exclude the latter, thus reinforcing both the mobility and the connectivity divides. It serves as a way to (further) close borders, and to regulate, through code and infrastructure, access to public goods such as employment and public space. Finally, the project of certification displaces a more important action, namely addressing the radical inequality in countries' ability to combat the pandemic.
Type: | Article |
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Title: | Promises made to be broken: Performance and performativity in digital vaccine and immunity certification |
Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
DOI: | 10.1017/err.2021.26 |
Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1017/err.2021.26 |
Language: | English |
Additional information: | This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the same Creative Commons licence is included and the original work is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use. © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press |
UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of Laws |
URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10128016 |
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