El derecho a la ciudad segura

Aquest article és una versió ampliada de Galdon Clavell, G. «La ciudad asustada», publicat el 2010 a la publicació electrònica El carajillo de las ciudades

The political economy of surveillance in the (wannabe) global city

Many authors have highlighted the need to look at the political economy of surveillance in order to provide a comprehensive picture of our increasingly surveilled societies. However, an analysis that stressed only the material interaction between public and private actors, or the formal relationships between markets, technologies, policy and politics would leave out a broader understanding of the motives and expectations that are taking shape alongside the increase of surveillance mechanisms. The fact that Barcelona (Spain) has so far only installed CCTV systems in the city center, in areas used intensively by tourists, reveals a picture that takes the political economy of surveillance beyond the corporation-meets-public-official discourse, which highlights private profit and the role of lobbies and lobbyists as a key reason behind the ascendance of surveillance technologies in public spaces, and addresses a more complex setting where the electoral expectations of local politicians meet the economic interest of the private shop owner meet the political aspirations of local media moguls meet the pressure to sell safe cities in the context of a global drive to see security technology and surveillance as the solution to all urban evils (and fast track to winning elections). By looking at the actual articulation of the actors and interests involved in promoting security policies based on surveillance and monitoring of behavior in Barcelona's public spaces, this piece presents less-explored understandings of the political economy of surveillance, making a case that highlights how global pressures, processes and imaginaries are received and negotiated at the local level

Vigilância camuflada? Compreendendo a contra-vigilância como prática e discurso crítico

In 2008, an exhibition center in Northern Spain hosted a project called Situation Room which tried to recreate an “open” control room drawing, on the one hand, on the experience of previous hacklabs or medialabs set up by social movements, and, on the other, on an operations room designed in the 70s in order to gather and analyze economic data to organize the Chilean economy under Salvador Allende’s government, called Project Cybersyn. The fact that an artistic/activist project would use a government initiative of surveillance as a reference brings to the fore questions about what it means to subvert the surveillance society, and the limits of privacy in the information society. What is identified as the problem in critical discourses, the ability to monitor people’s everyday moves and store personal data or the aims of surveillance? Or maybe it is the ideology or political affiliation of the surveillants that makes the difference? Are there instances in which the massive storage of personal data could be justified? Is all surveillance wrong or can control and data-mining be put to the service of dissent or the common good? This paper explores how definitions of counter-surveillance, sousveillance , privacy and data protection have been theorized in the existing literature and artistic practices and confront them with recurring themes in critical surveillance studies.En los últimos años diferentes proyectos artísticos se han inspirado en prácticas de vigilancia y los procesos sociales capturados por éstas. De la misma forma que en los estudios de vigilancia existe un debate sobre las diferencias entre las diferentes formas de contravigilancia, estos proyectos ofrecen diferentes perspectivas en torno a la posibilidad de recrear, cooptar o denunciar la vigilancia, y se relacionan con el fenómeno de formas diferentes. Apartir de una selección de seis proyectos artísticos sobre la vigilancia y el análisis de las cuestiones relacionadas con el poder, la tecnología y la agencia, este artículo utiliza el arte como puerta de entrada para la exploración de cuestiones que permanecen abiertas en el debate académico: ¿en qué consiste la subversión de la sociedad de vigilancia?, ¿cuáles son las diferencias entre recrear, co-optar y denunciar cuando se pretende concienciar sobre los aspectos cotidianos de las sociedades vigiladas? A partir de estos seis ejemplos artísticos, exploramos las formas en que los proyectos artísticos han planteado estas temáticas y las contraponen a la evolución de tratamiento de estos temas por parte de los estudios de vigilancia. Mientras que la mayor parte de los debates académicos se nutren de contribuciones académicas, este artículo propone una mirada al estado de los estudios de vigilancia desde las prácticas artísticas y las reflexiones que éstas sugieren como punto de partida, encontrando sorprendentes similitudes entre estas dos perspectivas, y sus debilidades actuales.Nos últimos anos, diferentes projetos artísticos se inspiraram nas práticas de vigilância e nos processos sociais capturados por elas. Do mesmo modo que nos estudos de vigilância existe um debate sobre as diferentes formas de contra-vigilância, estes projetos oferecem diferentes perspectivas sobre a consistência de recriar, cooptar ou denunciar a vigilância, além de se relacionar com o fenômeno de maneiras variadas. A partir da seleção de seis projetos artísticos sobre vigilância e a análise de quais seriam suas compreensões sobre as questões relacionadas ao poder, a tecnologia e os agenciamentos, este texto utiliza a arte como porta de entrada para a exploração de assuntos que permanecem indefinidos no debate acadêmico. Em que consiste a subversão na sociedade de vigilância? O que diferencia recriar, cooptar e denunciar quando o que se pretende é conscientizar sobre aspectos cotidianos da sociedade vigiada? A partir destes seis exemplos artísticos, este artigo explora como tais projetos desenvolvem a temática da vigilância, traçando paralelos com as abordagens acadêmicas

Crisi econòmica i gestió de la inseguretat ciutadana : els mapes de delinqüència

El context econòmic actual de crisi ha derivat cap a un discurs polític centrat, principalment, en la reducció dels pressupostos públics. Per tal de mantenir el nivell actual de serveis, l'aposta ha de passar per una major eficiència i eficàcia de la gestió pública, evitant la despesa innecessària i maximitzant l'impacte dels serveis prestats. La introducció i l'ús d'aplicacions informàtiques es preveu com una de les solucions a l'hora d'abaratir costos i processos de l'Administració. En l'àmbit de la seguretat, aquesta aposta es centra en un major desenvolupament d'eines de georeferenciació o sistemes d'informació geogràfica que tinguin com a finalitat millorar la gestió i visualització de la informació i facilitar-ne l'intercanvi entre plataformes policials. Però un ús eficient d'aquestes aplicacions requereix afrontar prèviament un conjunt de reptes relacionats amb les estructures organitzatives que les gestionaran i les possibilitats i expectatives tècniques que en deriven, així com una reflexió per mesurar les externalitats tant positives com negatives en un camp tan sensible com és el de la seguretat.El contexto económico actual de crisis ha derivado hacia un discurso político centrado, principalmente, en la reducción de los presupuestos públicos. Para mantener el nivel actual de servicios, la apuesta debe pasar por una eficiencia y eficacia mayor de la gestión pública, evitando el gasto innecesario y maximizando el impacto de los servicios prestados. La introducción y el uso de aplicaciones informáticas se prevé como una de las soluciones a la hora de abaratar costes y procesos de la Administración. En el ámbito de la seguridad, esta apuesta se centra en un desarrollo mayor de herramientas de georreferenciación o sistemas de información geográfica que tengan como finalidad mejorar la gestión y visualización de la información y facilitar el intercambio entre plataformas policiales. Pero un uso eficiente de estas aplicaciones requiere afrontar previamente un conjunto de retos relacionados con las estructuras organizativas que las gestionarán y las posibilidades y expectativas técnicas que se derivan, así como una reflexión para medir las externalidades tanto positivas como negativas en un campo tan sensible como es el de la seguridadThe current economic crisis has turned towards a path of political discourse based mainly on the reduction of public budgets. To maintain our current level of services, we need to increase the efficiency and efficacy of public administration, avoiding unnecessary expense and maximising the impact of the services provided. The introduction and use of IT applications is predicted to be one of the solutions that will help to cut costs and administrative procedures. In the area of safety, this solution focuses on further developing georeferencing tools or geographic information systems intended to improve the way information is managed, visualised and exchanged across police platforms. But before efficient use of these applications can be made, it is necessary to confront a series of challenges relating to the organizational structures that will be used to manage them and to their technical capacities and expectations, and to weigh up the positive and negative external factors at play in such a sensitive area as safety and security

The citizens’ perspective : awareness, feelings and acceptance of surveillance and surveillance systems for fighting crime in Spain. A quantitative study

This document presents the results for Spain within the framework of a larger study undertaken as part of the RESPECT project – “Rules, Expectations and Security through Privacy-enhanced Convenient Technologies” (RESPECT; G.A. 285582) – which was co-financed by the European Commission within the Seventh Framework Programme (2007-2013). Analyses are based on a survey regarding the perceptions, feelings, attitudes and behaviours of citizens towards surveillance for the purpose of fighting crime, carried out amongst a quota sample that is representative of the population in Spain for age and gender. Responses were gathered, predominantly, through an online survey supplemented by a number of questionnaires administered in face to face interviews, in order to fulfil the quota and also reach those citizens who do not use the internet. The questionnaire consisted of 50 questions and was available online in all languages of the European Union between November 2013 and March 2014. The face to face interviews were carried out between January and March 2014. The Spanish sample is based on the responses from 500 individuals who indicated Spain as their country of residence in the online survey or were administered the questionnaire face to face. As a result, the Spanish respondents indicated a strongly felt lack of trust in the protection of, and control over, personal information gathered via surveillance. At the same time, and despite the respondents’ general perception of surveillance measures being useful, surveillance measures appear not to reduce their feelings of insecurity, and analyses indicate that increasing the effectiveness of surveillance measures may not increase citizens’ feelings of security at the same rate. However, results also point at the possibility that increasing the effectiveness of laws regarding the protection of personal data gathered via surveillance may make citizens feel more secure. Further, the majority of Spanish respondents feel more unhappy than happy with the different types of surveillance (except CCTV), and particularly unhappy about surveillance taking place without them knowing about it. However, there is only a moderate link between feeling happy, or unhappy, about surveillance and feeling secure or insecure through the presence of surveillance. More research is needed to disentangle the relationships and effects between surveillance measures, feelings of security or insecurity, and citizens’ general quality of life feelings.This project has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement no 285582.peer-reviewe

The Hands Behind the Cans

Nowadays, walking around any city is a guarantee of seeing graffiti, while the public transportation are still a good canvas for writers. It is a well-established social phenomenon and has catch the attention of ethnographers, academic artists and other scholars that have entered the worlds of graffiti writers to explain their origins, trajectories, motivations, their identity construction, their conception of the self and their role and relation with society at large. However, still there is no synthetic effort of categorisation that provides understandable and communicable approaches to graffiti in the real world. From some sectors graffiti is still something to “deal with”. Generally speaking, authorities and dutyholders consider graffiti as threat a security and safety issue, turning it into something that needs to be addressed. For social workers, for instance, graffiti can be a means of communication with certain youth sectors or even a tool for social cohesion generation. Departing from this perspective, Graffolution was designed: an EC funded project for generating awareness and advance in the provision of best practices for tackling graffiti in Austria, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom. The first rule encountered is no-one-size-fits-all and referring to graffiti and graffiti writers, this requires a complex understanding of the phenomenon, their trajectories as well as individual and collective dispositions. The aim of this paper is to provide a consistent typology of graffiti writers, offering a comprehensive picture of whose are the hands behind the graffiti cans. This serves a double level purpose: advancing at the theoretical level putting forward the sociocultural approaches to careers and social backgrounds provided by ethnographic approaches, as well as capturing the complexity of the phenomenon to serve as an operative conceptual basis for practitioners, professionals and decision makers. In doing so, the analysis is made on the transcripts obtained for 22 semi-structured interviews, carried out in the four participating countries. The transcripts have been analysed according to the “persona” methodology, which constitutes a systematic and novel approach and a qualitative technique for clustering information. As a result, three main categories have been defined according to important ambitions, challenges and stages of typical ‘journeys’ or ‘pathways’ of actors. These findings contribute to form a basis of a) highlight the misconceptions around graffiti as a petty crime, and b) offer a guide to understand graffiti writers under a socio-cultural perspective

The Promise of Participation and Decision-Making Power in Citizen Science

Citizen science is challenging professional researchers and their organizations to rethink the way they do science and connect with society. In any citizen science project, professional researchers are “making a promise” to the public about the level of participation and power in decision making that they are willing to provide to citizen scientists. Researchers should set expectations explicitly to ensure informed participation, trust, and motivation. Also, the design of tools for informed consent, information sharing, recognition, and privacy has to be adapted to the new power relations and distributed knowledge production. Based on fieldwork experiences and literature review about environmental and biomedical citizen science, this article examines the challenges and proposes solutions for: 1) setting expectations for informed participation; 2) addressing privacy concerns and adapting informed consent to evolving interests and networked environments; and 3) promoting citizen governance of research data. Citizen science has the potential to both increase scientific literacy and counteract mistrust and skepticism about scientific evidence of global problems (such as climate change) that need to be addressed. However, there are still many challenges to fulfilling the promise of citizen science – for example, empowering people and gaining trust. A few inspiring initiatives help us reflect on a facilitation model for engagement and informed participation; privacy by design; and new governance models for research data provided by citizen scientists

Innovative public procurement guide

Podeu consultar la versió en català a: http://hdl.handle.net/11703/113907Podeu consultar la versió en castellà a: http://hdl.handle.net/11703/11563