Immigration control politics in Argentina: From limit technologies to border technologies (1915-1950)

Abstract

Objective/Context: The objective of this article is to analyze the institutional development of identification, registration, and surveillance technologies as central tools in the production of information for the classification, selection, and control of international migrations from 1915 to 1950 in Argentina. Methodology: a qualitative method based on the compilation of documents among which laws, decrees, regulations, resolutions, and consular communications predominate. The analysis of documents allowed recognizing the actors of migratory control to differentiate technologies according to the information they produce and construct the analytic categories that structure the forms in which the State embraces non-national individuals. Conclusion: The article concludes that the entrance control and permanence control needed the development of new technologies and bureaucracies, and institutions capable of producing information about immigrants' authorized residency in the “national territory.” Accordingly, immigration control processes cannot be accomplished without technologies that help identify individuals and their classification between desirable and undesirable. Originality: The article's uniqueness lies in that it understands technologies from the perspective of information production and migratory control, based on a notion of borders extending inside territorial limits through new institutions and individual identity cards.