The Surveillance and Everyday Life Research Group
University of Sydney
Convened by Dr Gavin Smith, Dept. of Sociology and Social Policy
The intensification and diversification of surveillance in recent decades has been
remarkable, with CCTV cameras, loyalty cards, body scanners, DNA swabs, RFID tags and internet cache cookies just some of the many ways in which personal
information is now routinely extracted from and given by individuals at strategic transactional ‘points of contact’. Surveillance makes particular phenomena discernible and identifiable, usually in order to serve the interests of data‐hungry social and commercial institutions, who gather data and then apply complex analytical formulae and protocols in a bid to classify and sort information, label and categorize abnormalities and identify particular patterns for pre‐emptive intervention.
The steady growth of surveillance cultures correlate with wider sociohistorical changes, particularly the establishment of consumer capitalism as the dominant mode of production (and thus related supervision of workers and consumption), bureaucracy as the dominant form of institutional organization (and the related auditing this facilitates) and liberal democratic nation states as the dominant style of political administration (and the accompanying forms of security, taxation, voting and welfare management this governance requires).
Technological advancement, particularly in computer applications and related dependence, and wider cultures of risk, fear, distrust and consumption, have also proved significant in legitimating surveillance as a tool of social order, organization and popular entertainment. Although surveillance makes social action visible, the relative invisibility of surveillance as a social process has meant that many of the methods and analytical techniques utilized have become ‘naturalized’, relatively unexceptional objects and unproblematic processes in the physical and cultural fabric of everyday living.
‘The Everyday Life of Surveillance’ project brings together a number of early career, mid career and distinguished scholars across the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences – and wider university community – to critically and collaboratively examine the everyday production and experience of surveillance, an issue of rapidly increasing social, historical, political, economic and local‐global significance.
Research Workshops
The group will initiate several exploratory research workshops, each of which will allow disciplinary knowledge and ideas to be exchanged on particular thematic topics, specifically the everyday impact of surveillance (broadly defined) on the lives of citizens, in their roles as pupils, workers, managers, consumers, travelers etc. Despite the ubiquity and pervasiveness of surveillance, critical knowledge is still in relatively short supply and
this situation offers to the group an exciting opportunity to contribute a diversity of perspectives to an emergent area. Moreover, because human surveillance is employed to gather personal information from people for the purposes of informed decision making and social control, the collective will address pressing social justice issues, for example, privacy, liberty, social profiling and the monitoring of borders and genetic units.
The research group will explore the following questions:
• How and why has surveillance expanded as a mechanism of governance in
contemporary society?
• How is surveillance depicted in popular culture and what effect does this
have on individualised knowledge, awareness and understandings?
• What everyday role does the body play in the politics and practice of
surveillance?
• What are the socio‐political and ethical consequences of surveillance for
humankind?
It is envisaged that the group will establish an interdisciplinary research centre in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, where innovative and critical surveillance research of global significance is administered and a graduate studies program is engineered. It is anticipated that this institute, whilst primarily concerning itself with critical investigation of the cultural and theoretical dimensions of surveillance through various programs of study, will also address social (in)justice issues and wider community concerns. As such, the centre seeks to have policy relevance on the world stage and be a flagship centre of research and teaching excellence.
Topics for investigation in the colloquia include:
‘Surveillance and the Scientific Imagination’ (i.e. how surveillance devices are creatively imagined by scientists and then assembled in relation to wider political economy influences and social processes);
‘Surveillance and Popular Culture’ (i.e. how surveillance is represented in films, web games and literature, and how that intersects with popular interpretations and understandings);
‘Surveillance and Governance’ (i.e. how surveillance is used as an ordering technique, particularly in relation to cultures of ‘risk’ and ‘insecurity’);
and ‘Surveillance and Embodiment’ (i.e. how surveillance is experienced by embodied subjects, particularly in the politics of identification and in medical settings).
The group is comprised of the following members:
Dr Gavin Smith, Dept. of Sociology and Social Policy (Coordinator, The Surveillance and Everyday Life Research Group)
Dr Peter Marks, English
Associate Professor Stephen Robertson, History
Professor Pat O’Malley, Sydney Law School
Dr Greg Martin, Socio‐Legal Studies
Dr Kane Race, Gender and Cultural Studies
Dr Kathy Cleland, Digital Cultures Program
Dr Rebecca Scott Bray, Socio‐Legal Studies
Dr Charlotte Epstein, Government and International Relations
Mr Garner Clancey, Sydney Institute of Criminology
