Promises Made to Be Broken: Performance and Performativity in Digital Vaccine and Immunity Certification

Digital vaccination certification involves making many promises, few of which can realistically be kept. In this paper, we demonstrate how this phenomenon constitutes various forms of theatre – immunity theatre, border theatre, behavioural theatre and equality theatre – doing so by drawing on perspe...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:European journal of risk regulation 2021-06, Vol.12 (2), p.382-392
Main Authors: MILAN, Stefania, VEALE, Michael, TAYLOR, Linnet, GÜRSES, Seda
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Action control
Borders
Certification
Cooperation
Coronaviruses
COVID-19 vaccines
Digital signatures
Disease transmission
Employment
Equality
Geopolitics
Governance
Immunity
Immunization
Inequality
Infrastructure
Legislators
Mobility
Pandemics
Performativity
Private sector
Public goods
Public health
Public spaces
Technology
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Summary:Digital vaccination certification involves making many promises, few of which can realistically be kept. In this paper, we demonstrate how this phenomenon constitutes various forms of theatre – immunity theatre, border theatre, behavioural theatre and equality theatre – doing so by drawing on perspectives from technology regulation, migration studies and critical geopolitics. Technological theatre and political theatre often serve valid functions, but these forms are problematic for several reasons. First, they involve real-world infrastructures that, while unlikely to accomplish the task at hand, will nevertheless last a long time and be repurposed. They therefore constitute governance by data infrastructure, diverting action and control away from elected legislators to for-profit contractors. Second, vaccine certification effectively legitimises inequalities between countries and people by formalising ways to distinguish between the vaccinated and non-vaccinated and to exclude the latter, thus reinforcing both mobility and connectivity divides. It serves as a way to (further) close borders and to regulate, through code and infrastructure, access to public goods such as employment and public space. Finally, the project of certification displaces a more important action, namely addressing the radical inequality in countries’ ability to combat the pandemic.
ISSN:1867-299X
2190-8249
DOI:10.1017/err.2021.26