Experiencing Surveillance: A Phenomenological Approach
A draft paper, written with Grace Chung and Andrew Feenberg. Here’s a draft; here’s the abstract:
The near-ubiquity of surveillance and dataveillance technologies in public and other spaces (public squares, transit stations, supermarkets, bank lobbies) has recently given rise to doubts about the totalizing, panoptic discipline and control frequently ascribed to these technologies. If these pervasive technologies are as “panoptic” as the theories derived from Foucault’s classic work suggest, would this not render everyday life as totally controlled as the cells in Bentham’s prison? In the wake of this and other kinds of questioning of the Foucauldian approach, new ways of conceptualizing both surveillance and the observed subject are coming to light. This paper takes this post-panoptic questioning further by utilizing phenomenological and ethnomethodological methods to study the everyday experiential reality of surveillance and dataveillence –methodologies that are little utilized in surveillance studies. This new approach addresses the similarly under-theorized questions of individual experience of surveillance. Perhaps surprisingly, such a study appears to reinforce Foucault’s original panoptic articulation much more directly than do more recent models and conceptions of surveillant regimes. But at the same time, this study raises new questions regarding the role of the body and attention in surveillance and dataveillance –and in resistance to these technologies and practices.
