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Return to the Current Issue Index
Using empirical research drawn from field studies on the policing of ‘skid row’ communities, this paper illustrates some of the theoretical, methodological and ethical problems that confront the researcher who studies surveillance and counter-surveillance within these contested settings. We begin by noting how, with the increasing use of the ‘broken windows’ policing model to regulate deviant individuals and to secure derelict urban spaces, researchers may be implicated in the use of surveillance and counter-surveillance by community stakeholders. Drawing examples from direct and covert field observations, field notes, and photographs, we demonstrate that there is a significant potential for the researcher to become identified as an agent of surveillance, and as a potential target of counter-surveillance, within such settings. We conclude by considering some of the theoretical, methodological and ethical implications of the researcher’s complicity in these dynamics for both the conduct of surveillance studies in general, and for urban fieldwork in particular.
Kevin T. Walby - Institutional Ethnography and Surveillance Studies: An Outline for Inquiry Institutional ethnography (IE) is a method of inquiry that problematizes social relations at the local site of lived experience, while examining how sequences of texts coordinate consciousness, actions, and ruling. I argue that institutional ethnography is a critical method of inquiry useful for revealing and reshaping the textual organization of surveillance. Central issues regarding institutional ethnography as a method of inquiry, including standpoint(s), texts and institutions, interviewing, and mapping, are discussed. Researchers studying surveillance would benefit from engaging with the method of institutional ethnography during future research because IE has a unique ability to explicate how surveillance subjects are linked to and managed by discursive, managerial, and professional forms of power.
Kevin D. Haggerty and Amber Gazso - The Public Politics of Opinion Research on Surveillance and Privacy This paper examines the political implications of methodological issues related to the now ubiquitous production of surveys dealing with issues of privacy and surveillance. It concentrates on how the distinctive attributes of a survey’s response rate can skew the findings of such studies. The conclusion offers suggestions for how academics and activists might respond to this issue.
Minas Samatas - Studying Surveillance in Greece: Methodological and Other Problems Related to an Authoritarian Surveillance Culture
Using the example of Greek society this paper documents how the pragmatics and practicalities of ‘doing surveillance studies’ can itself be shaped by the unique political and social history of the society being studied. The legacy of authoritarian surveillance poses unique challenges to the practice of studying surveillance in Greece and in other post-authoritarian societies. This point is accentuated with reference to how the history of authoritarian surveillance continues to shape the types of methodologies that are possible for studying surveillance and the analytical orientation of such studies. It also informs us how we might interpret the prospect for resisting surveillance and can have implications for the personal biography of researchers, who have experienced such surveillance.
This article tells the story behind the uncovering of the US operated global telecommunications interceptions system now known as ECHELON. It begins with the use of fieldwork techniques in the early 1970’s exploring the configuration of Britain’s Post Office Towers – these were ostensibly the microwave links through which Britain’s long distance telephone calls were made. This modelling process revealed a system within the system of microwave towers linked to the American Base of Menwith Hill in the North York Moors. All the key researchers were then promptly arrested, a raid by Special Branch on the author’s university at Lancaster ensued and later a show trail for the other main researchers, most notably Duncan Campbell. Eventually in 1988, Duncan wrote up the ECHELON story, which for its time was an incredible piece of detective work using materials lifted from waste bins by the women activists campaigning around the Menwith Hill Base. Little notice was taken until 1997 when an obscure book by Nicky Hager, Secret Power explained the role and function of ECHELON in more depth. The author represented these findings in a policy report to the European Parliament on the technology of political control that led to a process of political debate and disagreement of the ethics of such a system which continues even today.
Anders Albrechtslund and Lynsey Dubbeld - The Plays and Arts of Surveillance: Studying Surveillance as Entertainment This paper suggests a direction in the development of Surveillance Studies that goes beyond current attention for the caring, productive and enabling aspects of surveillance practices. That is, surveillance could be considered not just as positively protective, but even as a comical, playful, amusing, enjoyable practice. A number of recent trends suggest that there is a potential for unmistakable entertainment in the operation of a number of contemporary surveillance practices that merit further empirical and theoretical study. The paper discusses several examples that are illustrative of these trends, such as computer games and artistic presentations. Although this analysis does not downplay the problematic and negative features of current surveillance practices, it aims to accentuate some of the ways in which surveillance-enabling technologies are able to perform entertainment functions.
Peter Marks - Imagining Surveillance: Utopian Visions and Surveillance Studies This paper considers the role of utopian (and dystopian) visions in the study of surveillance, arguing that the fiction in written or filmic form offers much that is stimulating to surveillance studies. The article focuses on four recent examples of such texts: The Truman Show, Gattaca, Code 46 and The Traveller. It argues that all present differing visions that move far beyond the nightmare of George Orwell (or indeed Michel Foucault) to present a more nuanced view. Robert W. Sweeny - Para-Sights: Multiplied Perspectives on Surveillance Research in Art Educational Spaces In this paper the author outlines multiple approaches regarding surveillance research in the visual arts and art education. The notion of the parasite is used to diagram power relationships that are addressed by visual artists and activists engaged with the mechanisms of both surveillance and dataveillance. These parasitic practices are then compared with actions from art educational spaces, allowing for the surveillance that is inherent to pedagogy to be analyzed and critiqued. Ela Beaumont - Using CCTV to study visitors in The New Art Gallery, Walsall, UK The routine use of CCTV surveillance in new art galleries in the UK presents an opportunity for researchers to harness its potential as a powerful observational tool in visitor studies, and recent developments in video technology have created new possibilities for observational research. Recent studies using video observation methods in the UK, France and the US have demonstrated how powerful film data can be, but have also shown the difficulties in operationalising studies that use these techniques. The analysis of video data is in its infancy in the field of art gallery visitor studies, and this paper contributes to the theoretical, ethical and practical debate by discussing a recent observational visitor study using in-house CCTV cameras in the New Art Gallery, Walsall. The study demonstrates significant advances on previous observational visitor studies that have gathered ‘covert observational data’. It show how CCTV footage can be used to gather naturally occurring visitor activities in a highly structured way, without disrupting the gallery with extra cameras or microphones and yielding increasingly detailed, useful information. It opens up the prospect of a wider ideological debate about the use of CCTV in art galleries, and contributes to work in progress on a code of ethics for video observation in visitor studies.
