ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Sociol.
Sec. Migration and Society
Volume 10 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fsoc.2025.1641898
This article is part of the Research TopicContesting Artificial Intelligence: Communicative Practices, Organizational Structures, and Enabling TechnologiesView all 4 articles
Civil society and the (im)possibilities of algorithmic contestation in migration governance
Provisionally accepted
- 1Department of Thematic Studies, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden
- 2Universitat Wien, Vienna, Austria
- 3Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden
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The present article explores the (im)possibilities of contesting algorithmic systems in migration governance through the case studies of civil society organizations in Sweden and Norway. Drawing on the concepts of data justice, contestability, and the contentious politics of data, it develops a typology of civil society responses and highlights how configurations of actors, alliances, and the changing landscape of migration policy shape the capacity to act. Based on interviews, document analysis and digital ethnography, the article identifies key tensions between the growing awareness of algorithmic harm and the limited ability to mobilize meaningful opposition. We argue that contestability must be understood not merely as a technical feature of algorithmic design, but as a socio-political process that requires collective infrastructures: access to information, shared vocabularies, and legitimacy for civic intervention. In highly digitized welfare states with strong institutional trust and restrictive migration policies, these conditions are not easily met. By situating Scandinavian civil society within this context, the article contributes to current debates on algorithmic accountability and the uneven terrains of digital governance.
Keywords: Data justice, Contestability, contentious politics of data, algorithmic accountability, digital governance
Received: 30 Jun 2025; Accepted: 08 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Eneva and Gámez. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Stoyanka Andreeva Eneva, Department of Thematic Studies, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden
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