Mobility, surveillance and control of children and young people in the everyday: Perspectives from sub-Saharan Africa

© The authors, 2011. Surveillance of children and young people in non–Western contexts has received little attention in the literature. In this paper we draw principally on our research in one African country, Malawi, to examine the ways in which their independent travel is shaped by(usually adult–directed) surveillance and control in diverse urban and rural contexts. Surveillance is interpreted very broadly, because our empirical data indicates a range of practices whereby a close watch is kept over children as they move around their community and travel out to other locations. In some cases we suggest that surveillance of children and young people becomes internalized self–surveillance, such that no external social control is required to police their movements. Our evidence, from eight research sites, brings together a wide range of source material, including findings from intensive qualitative research with children and adults (in–depth interviews, accompanied walks, focus groups, life histories) and a follow– up questionnaire survey administered to children aged 7–18 years [N=1,003]. Although many of the children in our study attend school, local economic circumstances in both urban and rural areas of Malawi commonly require children’s participation from an early age in a much broader range of productive and reproductive work activities than is usual in Western contexts, with corresponding impact on daily patterns of movement. Children may have to travel substantial distances for school, in support of family livelihoods, and for other purposes (including social events): the necessity for independent travel is common, and frequently raises concerns among parents and other adults in their communities such that surveillance is considered essential. This is achieved principally by encouraging travel in groups of children. We show how young people’s independent travel is mediated by (urban and rural) locational context, time of day, age and, in particular, by gender, and how adult efforts at surveillance may help shape resistances in the interstitial spaces which mobility itself provides

Exploring the Subjective Experience of Everyday Surveillance: The Case of Smartphone Devices as Means of Facilitating "Seductive" Surveillance

In western societies, the dependence on Information and Communication technologies (ICTs) is rapidly increasing. Smartphones, in particular, seem to be the most popular digital devices as they are an all-in-one digital gadget that due to Internet connection serves a wide range of purposes. However, in the context of neoliberal capitalism where the traditionally distinct spheres of security and marketing have merged, data generated through these personal devices can also be used for state and market purposes raising serious societal concerns. The present study contributes to the call for the understanding of the subjective experience of everyday surveillance operating through personal digital devices. Focusing on smartphones as a consumption product, the study draws mainly upon design technology and consumer research literature to suggest the theoretical framework of seductive surveillance in order to shed light on the reasons why individuals ‘willingly’ participate to their surveillance. The discourse analysis of thirteen focus groups - conducted amongst students in British universities - and follow up emails showed that participants have developed a dependent relationship with their smartphones based on notions of security, gamification, immediacy and neophilia. These discursive patterns reveal participants’ seduction to smartphones and consequently to surveillance. This seduced position sheds light on the three ‘resistant’/power diagnostic discourses emanating from the analysis: resignation, avoidance and responsibilization, all being negotiation strategies with surveillance as form of power which unfold in different ways and enabled the person to remain seduced. Surveillance met different resistance, as power diagnostic discourse, depending on the acknowledgement of the ‘face’ of the surveillant Other. These findings have theoretical and practical implications. A methodological contribution is also made using visual vignettes to raise discussion on the issue in question

Editorial : Surveillance and sport

Sports represent an ideal field to explore the importance of everyday surveillance practices. The routines of preparation associated with conducting or participating in a sports mega event at international&nbsp;level highlight unique facets of surveillance as everyday and normalised elements of elite international or professional sports performance. While these routines do have potential individual or social costs, or are&nbsp;open to various forms of subversion by athletes willing to challenge the broader objectives of fair play, other forces, such as the media or formal governance reactions to a detected rule violation, provide fuel for&nbsp;more rigorous forms of surveillance. This spiral of surveillance permeates downwards to impact on prospective elite athletes, and outwards to impact on other forms of behaviour considered to compromise integrity or fair play. How these values mirror and intersect with norms of surveillance in everyday life is a fruitful site for on-going research and theorisation.<br /

Spartan Daily, April 7, 2015

Volume 144, Issue 26https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/2119/thumbnail.jp

New labour and new surveillance: Theoretical and political ramifications of CCTV implementation in the UK

This paper examines the implications of New Labour's approaches to crime and disorder on CCTV implementation. It concentrates on the usage of CCTV as one of the government's many initiatives, which are intended to address crime and disorder, including the fear of crime. In particular, the impact of the 1998 Crime and Disorder Act (CDA) - the cornerstone of this government's approach to crime reduction - on the generation of such strategies is examined. The paper revisits neo-Marxist and Foucauldian analyses of the so-called surveillance society through an appraisal of the complex relationship between structure and agency in the formulation and implementation of anti-crime and disorder strategies. Drawing on fieldwork data the paper considers the activities of practitioners at a local level by focusing on the influence of central government, local communities and 'common sense' thinking based on certain criminological theories. It is argued that a myriad of micro-level operations, obligations, processes, managerial concerns (particularly conflict resolution and resource issues), structures and agency - as well as the indirect influence of central government - shape CCTV policy. Ultimately, the creation of new local policy contexts under the CDA emphasise the need to consider incremental and malleable processes concerning the formulation of CCTV policy. In turn, this allows a re-examination of theoretical accounts of surveillance, and their attendant assumptions of sovereign or disciplinary power

Self-tracking modes: reflexive self-monitoring and data practices

The concept of ‘self-tracking’ (also referred to as life-logging, the quantified self, personal analytics and personal informatics) has recently begun to emerge in discussions of ways in which people can voluntarily monitor and record specific features of their lives, often using digital technologies. There is evidence that the personal data that are derived from individuals engaging in such reflexive self-monitoring are now beginning to be used by actors, agencies and organisations beyond the personal and privatised realm. Self-tracking rationales and sites are proliferating as part of a ‘function creep’ of the technology and ethos of self-tracking. The detail offered by these data on individuals and the growing commodification and commercial value of digital data have led government, managerial and commercial enterprises to explore ways of appropriating self-tracking for their own purposes. In some contexts people are encouraged, ‘nudged’, obliged or coerced into using digital devices to produce personal data which are then used by others. This paper examines these issues, outlining five modes of self-tracking that have emerged: private, communal, pushed, imposed and exploited. The analysis draws upon theoretical perspectives on concepts of selfhood, citizenship, biopolitics and data practices and assemblages in discussing the wider sociocultural implications of the emergence and development of these modes of self-tracking

Habitual Disclosure: Routine, Affordance and the Ethics of Young Peoples Social Media Data Surveillance

Drawing on findings from qualitative interviews and photo elicitation, this paper explores young people’s experiences of breaches of trust with social media platforms and how comfort is re-established despite continual violations. It provides rich qualitative accounts of users habitual relations with social media platforms. In particular, we seek to trace the process by which online affordances create conditions in which ‘sharing’ is regarded as not only routine and benign but pleasurable. Rather it is the withholding of data that is abnormalised. This process has significant implications for the ethics of data collection by problematising a focus on ‘consent’ to data collection by social media platforms. Active engagement with social media, we argue, is premised on a tentative, temporary, shaky trust that is repeatedly ruptured and repaired. We seek to understand the process by which violations of privacy and trust in social media platforms are remediated by their users and rendered ordinary again through everyday habits. We argue that the processes by which users become comfortable with social media platforms, through these routines, calls for an urgent reimagining of data privacy beyond the limited terms of consent

Did somebody say Neoliberalism? On the uses and limitations of a critical concept in media and communication studies

This paper explores the political-economic basis and ideological effects of talk about neoliberalism with respect to media and communication studies. In response to the supposed ascendancy of the neoliberal order since the 1980s, many media and communication scholars have redirected their critical attentions from capitalism to neoliberalism. This paper tries to clarify the significance of the relatively new emphasis on neoliberalism in the discourse of media and communication studies, with particular reference to the 2011 phone hacking scandal at The News of the World. Questioning whether the discursive substitution of ‘neoliberalism’ for ‘capitalism’ offers any advances in critical purchase or explanatory power to critics of capitalist society and its media, the paper proposes that critics substitute a Marxist class analysis in place of the neoliberalism-versus-democracy framework that currently dominates in the field