The Truth and Nothing but the Truth

This article analyses the discursive power of the datafied body, using the example of medical age assessments on unaccompanied minors in Sweden from 2017. Focusing on mainstream media discourses, it aims to raise critical attention to the truth-effect of body data, and the impact of media discourse on how it is transmitted to the broader public. This becomes particularly striking in relation to a case where such data were being miscalculated and misused, in a human rights scandal Sweden has yet to deal with. Ultimately, I argue that this machinery, while turning bodies into data, carries the logic of a lie detector of sorts, wiping out self-attesting truth, and undermining relationality and trust. Through the articulation and amplification of such logics, media discourse helped confirm and legitimise the power abuse of a nation state towards a particularly vulnerable group in search of protection. Hence, I maintain that the overreliance on body data in the current migration regime must be critically discussed in relation to ethical sensibilities and the growing dehumanisation of displaced populations.