Migration and Integration 4.0

A new generation of digital technologies is changing how people live, connect and participate in society. What does that mean for human mobility? 

This year's Demig Talk series brings together a set of conversations on the interaction between digitalisation, migration and integration. We will explore how digital technologies shape human mobility, transform migration governance, create new opportunities for participation and integration and generate new forms of inequality and exclusion. We will also examine how digital technologies influence attitudes and narratives around migration and how research is responding to these transformations. 

Surveillance evangelism, human rights, and the future of border control: The risk of ‘green’ function creep

Speaker: Samuel Singler, University of Helsinki

12 November 2026, 13:00-14:00 CET | online via Zoom. Please register to attend the talk.

Finland is emerging as a hub for border surveillance innovation. Its changing security environment, position on the European Union’s external border, and its strong technological expertise have driven rapid growth in the country’s surveillance and defence technology industry.

This talk examines the sociotechnical imaginaries that guide innovation in surveillance technology. It asks how private actors construct speculative visions of future surveillance in an effort to shape border control practices, policies and legislative frameworks today.

Emerging findings from research on Finland’s technology sector show how appeals to human rights can be strategically deployed to promote—rather than contest—more expansive surveillance. In particular, Finnish surveillance startups combine these visions with a climate resilience agenda aimed at protecting the environmental rights of future generations. 

About the speaker:

Samuel Singler is a University Lecturer in Societal Security at the University of Helsinki. His research is situated within the fields of border criminology and societal security and focuses on the relationship between novel surveillance technologies, criminal justice, and border control.

He is the author of Outsourcing Crimmigration Control: Digital Borders, the IOM, and Biometric Statehood (Oxford University Press, 2025), which won the British International Studies Association L.H.M. Ling Outstanding First Book Prize. His 2025 article, "Surveillance evangelism: Private technology companies and the digital futures of crimmigration control", won the 2025 Theoretical Criminology Best Article Prize and the 2026 British Society of Criminology Brian Williams Best Article Prize. He is also an Associate Director of the Border Criminologies network and co-leads its Technology and Digital Futures thematic group.

Migration destinations and the geographies of elsewhere

Speaker: Jørgen Carling, Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO)

14 October 2026, 10:00-11:00 CEST | on-site at University for Continuing Education Krems, Room W 1.06 and online via Zoom. 

From most countries of origin, migration flows disperse to a range of destinations. So, while actual migration can be thought of as a move from A to B, the “B” can be a fuzzy element of migration aspirations, which raises the question “where do people want to go if they aspire to migrate?” Many surveys on migration aspirations ask for a preferred destination country and thereby seem to address this question. But although the resulting data are interesting, I argue that the individual responses are of limited value for understanding migration aspirations. In this presentation, I use a combination of survey data, qualitative interview data, and insights from ethnographic fieldwork to examine how aspiring migrants—who for the most part have never been abroad—imagine their potential destinations. The analysis is based primarily on West African data from the ERC project Future Migration as Present Fact (FUMI).

About the speaker:

Jørgen Carling is Research Professor at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) and Co-Director of the PRIO Migration Centre. He holds a PhD in Human Geography and has authored more than 100 scientific publications. They include several key contributions to migration theory, such as the aspiration/ability model and the concepts of involuntary immobility, remittance scripts, and resolute migration aspirations. Much of his research examines the causes and consequences of migration from the perspective of countries of origin, especially in Africa, using a combination of ethnographic fieldwork, survey research, and other methods. 

What Europeans Think About Immigration and Why It Matters

Speaker: James Dennison, European University Institute (EUI) 

8 October 2026, 14:00-15:15 CEST | online via Zoom (registration)

Immigration has become one of the most politically consequential issues in contemporary Europe. Yet public debate often rests on questionable assumptions: that attitudes are becoming steadily more hostile, that voters are easily swayed by political rhetoric, and that opposition to immigration straightforwardly drives electoral and policy change. Drawing on comparative survey evidence spanning several decades, this talk challenges these assumptions and presents a new framework for understanding what Europeans think about immigration, how those views are formed, and when they acquire political force. It shows that attitudes are multidimensional, relatively stable, and, in many respects, increasingly favourable.

Their political consequences depend less on wholesale changes in opinion than on changes in issue salience: when and why immigration comes to matter more than competing concerns. This distinction helps explain the uneven rise of radical-right parties, the changing strategies of mainstream parties, and a European migration politics characterised less by general closure than by heightened selectivity between different forms of migration.

The talk also considers why some immigration narratives and communication strategies resonate while others fail, and what these findings imply for the future of European politics and migration governance. It argues for an approach grounded in how citizens actually think and how migration actually operates—offering grounds for cautious optimism through a dose of realism.

About the speaker

James Dennison is a Professor at the Migration Policy Centre of the European University Institute, where he directs the Observatory of Public Attitudes to Migration. His research focuses on political attitudes, behaviour and communication, particularly in relation to migration. These themes are also examined in his recent book co-authored with Andrew Geddes (2026, Oxford University Press).

More information about the series will follow shortly.