This thesis explores the role of fingerprints in the governance of migration within the European Union. Although it represents only a centimeter of skin that appears to be a universal part of the human body, the fingerprint (and fingerprinting) reveals much broader meanings in the context of migration. At the outset, the thesis introduces a few theoretical concepts developed by Michel Foucault (governmentality, biopolitics, state racism), which serve as a foundation for a broader analysis of certain aspects of contemporary migration. To understand the complex relations between power, control, and resistance, the thesis then draws on various theoretical approaches, including securitization, the criminalisation of migration, and the autonomy of migration. The analysis focuses on fingerprinting as a mechanism situated within these processes and discourses. The thesis also examines the historical development of identification through fingerprints, from its colonial beginnings to its implementation in European migration regimes, with particular attention to the Eurodac system and the application of the Dublin regulation. Central to the discussion are the effects of these practices: how fingerprinting contributes to the construction of criminalisation and securitization of migration, and how this is experienced by people on the move. The research also considers responses and practices of evasion, presented through the lens of the autonomy of migration, which reveal that migration is not only a target of control but also actively resists it. The thesis thus encourages reflection on fingerprinting as a political technology that goes beyond the technical function of identification and exposes the broader processes of governing mobility in contemporary European Union migration policies.
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