ABSTRACT
Chapter 5, ‘Fleeting biometric encounters: care and control at Italian border sites’, takes its point of departure in an Italian hotspot where fleeting biometric encounters between newly arrived Somalis and Italian police officers take place every day. The chapter examines how the use of biometric technologies shapes different forms of care in the biometric border world and how control is an integral part of, and motive for, providing such care. It does so by zooming in on the registration of newly arrived Somalis’ fingerprints and its consequences for Somalis as they leave the hot spots and move into the Italian system of refugee care.
