Surveillance and subjectivity: Everyday experiences of surveillance practices

Ellis, Darren; Harper, David; Tucker, Ian

Abstract

The growth of a surveillance industrial complex over recent decades has had significant implications for the political economy of personal information. Within the field of surveillance studies there has been an engagement with these issues at a macro level in relation to the delineation of the complex itself (eg Hayes, 2012; Stanley, 2004) and in the development of a range of conceptual resources, for example post-panoptical theories (e.g. Haggerty &Ericson, 2000). However, the implications of these developments for subjectivity have received less attention. Although there is now a burgeoning Surveillance Studies literature, only a relatively small proportion of work consists of empirical research of peoples' everyday experiences of surveillance practices. In this chapter we briefly review recent empirical research on how the public experience a range of surveillance technologies and practices. We argue for the need to focus on subjectivity as a topic within Surveillance Studies. We suggest that realist quantitative research is not well-placed to understand variability in public responses and that a social constructionist approach to qualitative research may be better placed to address research questions addressing subjectivity.

• Online Publication Date: Jul 4, 2013
• Publication Date: Jun 13, 2013
• Deposit Date: Feb 7, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 9, 2023
• Publisher: Routledge
• Book Title: The surveillance-industrial complex: A political economy of surveillance
• Chapter Number: 11
• ISBN: 9780415634472; 9780367867188
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/10336961
• Publisher URL: https://www.routledge.com/The-Surveillance-Industrial-Complex-A-Political-Economy-of-Surveillance/Ball-Snider/p/book/9780415634472