The social impact of ‘new surveillance’ technologies: An
ethnographic study of the ‘surveilled’.
Staff: Dr. Michael McCahill
Project date: 01 May 2008 to 30 April 2010
Funding body: ESRC
About the project:
The central question of
the proposed research is: how do people situated in different
‘social positions' experience and respond to being monitored by a
range of surveillance systems and practices across the entire
domain of a city? Focusing mainly on the use of surveillance
systems in the context of ‘policing' and ‘security' (CCTV, Drug
Testing, Electronic Monitoring etc.) the research has three main
aims: 1) To document the subjective experience and social impact of
surveillance on people's lives, as well as assessing how people
situated in different ‘social positions' respond to monitoring by
surveillance technologies and practices. 2) To provide ‘thick
descriptions' of ‘surveillance encounters' in a variety of settings
as the ‘surveilled' negotiate the ‘surveyed city' with its ‘zones
of visibility' and ‘exclusion', and to explore how ‘interaction
rituals' (Goffman, 1967) and the ‘politics of everyday resistance'
(Scott, 1990) are affected by ‘distanciated' surveillance? 3) To
raise questions concerning the empirical validity of ‘grand
theories' on surveillance which to date have been constructed
almost entirely without reference to those who are monitored by
surveillance systems.
Research background and context:
The
central aim of the proposed research is to provide a detailed
micro-sociological account of how people experience and respond to
being monitored by a range of surveillance technologies and
practices. The need for such research within the emerging
discipline of ‘surveillance studies' has been clearly stated by
John Gilliom (2006): ‘A tour of the field suggests that we have
been particularly good at studying the watchers - the police, the
CCTV operators, etc. - but not so good at the necessarily messier,
less institutionalized, and exploratory but absolutely crucial job
of studying the watched - the real people and real bodies who are
the subjects of these systems ... Until we are able to generate
sufficient research to make plausible sense of how differently
situated people - welfare mothers, prisoners, students,
middle-class professionals - speak of and respond to their various
surveillance settings, I would argue that we are fundamentally
unable to define the powers of surveillance or, indeed, to devise a
meaningful account of what surveillance is' (Gilliom, 2006: 126).
Focusing on the use of ‘new surveillance' technologies (e.g. CCTV,
electronic monitoring, biometrics systems etc.) mainly in the
context of ‘policing' and ‘security', the proposed research aims to
fill this gap in the literature by doing four things:
- First, the research aims to document the extent and intensity
of surveillance in people's lives. While one or two empirical
accounts of the subjective experiences of ‘surveilled' populations
are beginning to emerge (Gilliom, 1994, 2002; Payne and Gainey,
2004), these studies have tended to focus upon the impact of an
individual surveillance programme (e.g. drug testing, welfare
monitoring, electronic monitoring) deployed in a particular
institutional setting (e.g. workplace, welfare office and probation
centre). But in contemporary society people are subject to
monitoring by a wide range of different surveillance systems which
are increasingly integrated and operate beyond the confines of
particular institutional settings and beyond the public-private
divide. Documenting the ‘surveillance profile' of these people as
well as mapping the ‘zones of visibility' and ‘exclusion' from the
perspective of the ‘surveilled' will be one of the central aims of
this research.
- Second, the research aims to explore the subjective experience
and behavioural responses of those subject to surveillance
monitoring. While it is recognised in the literature that the
introduction of ‘time-space' transcending technologies is giving
rise to new (electronically-mediated) forms of human interaction
(Meyrowitz, 1985) and new forms of social control, this analysis
has been developed almost completely from research focusing on
those involved in the operation of surveillance systems rather than
from the perspective of those being watched (although see Dubbeld,
2003). For example, to what extent have the ‘dialectics of disguise
and surveillance' been transformed by electronically mediated power
relations? Do those subject to surveillance, through demeanour and
gesture, change their behaviour when in view of surveillance
technologies such as CCTV cameras? Do they adopt a ‘social face'
designed to transmit information to those watching at a distance?
Do those entering the shopping mall, for example, change their
dress or appearance or re-position their bodies in a way that is
conducive to the mall's consumerist ethic?
- Third, the research intends to provide a detailed account of
the ‘social impact' that surveillance has on people's lives,
focusing particularly on the ‘exclusionary' potential of
surveillance practices. For instance, which groups of people have
been subject to ‘exclusion' orders? Why were they excluded? What
are the consequences of exclusionary practices? Following the
implementation of an exclusion order in a shopping mall, for
example, where do they hang out, shop, or meet their friends? How
do those who are banned from the semi-public or private space of
the shopping mall gain access to basic public goods and services
(Job Centre, Health Centre, etc.) which are provided on private
property from which they are denied access?
- Finally, the research aims to explore how people situated in
different ‘social positions' (the ‘unemployed', ‘welfare mothers',
‘school children', ‘middle-class protestors', the ‘police' etc.)
respond to monitoring by ‘new surveillance' technologies. For
example, do these groups resort to a discourse centred on ‘privacy'
or ‘rights', or are they more likely to resort to the ‘politics of
everyday resistance'? Gary Marx (2003) has come up with a useful
typology of potential ‘resistance strategies' that could be
explored empirically, particularly in relation to visual
surveillance. They include: ‘discovery moves', ‘avoidance moves',
‘piggybacking moves', ‘distorting moves', ‘blocking moves',
‘breaking moves', ‘cooperative moves', and ‘counter-surveillance
moves'.
Methods The proposed research will involve case
studies based on interviews and (where possible) observational
research with six ‘surveyed' groups: ‘flawed consumers'
(‘homeless', ‘buskers', ‘young people') in the city centre; the
‘welfare poor', living on a council estate in a deprived
area of the city; the ‘tagged and tested' who are subject
to the Intensive Supervision and Surveillance Programme (ISSP); a
sample of students in schools, colleges and universities;
‘political activists' who are actively involved in
peaceful demonstrations in the local area; and ‘the
watchers', a group of police officers who are monitored by a
wide range of surveillance systems.