CRITICAL TIMES | 4:2 | AUGUST 2021
DOI 10 . 1215 / 26410478 - 9092334 | © 2021 Hourya Bentouhami
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of a Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). 233
The Life Strike
Disobeying Borders in the Era of Surveillance
Biotechnologies
HOURYA BENTOUHAMI
abstract This article examines the forms of disobedience practiced by migrants at the European bor-
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dimensions of the body—not only one’s appearance but the body’s very organicity and biochemistry—
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“If the injustice has a spring, or a pulley, or a rope, or a crank exclusively for
itself . . . then I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the
machine.”
1
Henry David Thoreau formulates this call for disobedience and argues
that we must never stop asking who or what sustains our freedom, whether other
living beings or prosthetic machines. But what to do when, as an “irregular” migrant,
one only has the low-tech use of one’s body to stop the machines that seek to detect
one’s illegal movements? How to resist when “your life” and “the machine” blur
together, and all you have are your bones, muscles, skin, and breath to bypass
the engineering and sophistication of “smart” biotechnological machines grafed
onto the living, machines whose mission is to declare who is authorized to pass?
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