Surveillant assemblages - Essay Example

Surveillant assemblages: How are they constituted and contested in the of London? Nowadays a new ivity is taking place in the western world regarding surveillance. This subjectivity is due to the ongoing transformation of power relations. These power relations can be described as surveillance assemblages. These assemblages take its shape against the backdrop of the society with a growing importance on rapidity, mobility, flux and flows (Romein.E, Schuilenburg..M. 2008). The city of London is filled with security cameras. These cameras are installed in each and every corner. According to the police authorities, they are invaluable in the area of crime solving and reduction. They are also important in the area of investigation also. But there are complaints regarding the infringement of the civil and private liberties of the Londoners through these cameras. Critics claim that theses surveillance methods are not a boon to the law enforcement agencies as they are claimed by some people ( Zarroli.J.). The method of video surveillance is widely accepted in London. It is viewed as a fact of daily life. An estimated 4.2 million cameras are installed all over Britain. Video cameras are watching silently in each and every London street corners. It is clear that surveillance is better in unraveling crimes than deterring criminals particularly the Islamic terrorists who have pledged to bring the unholy war to the streets of London. Those persons who support surveillance noted that crime rates have fallen significantly after the induction of surveillance cameras. However according to David Wood, an expert in surveillance, the very idea of CCTV as a deterrent for something which is no longer accepted. In this context there is an argument that if surveillance does not prevent in reducing crimes, it also has less effect on ordinary human behavior. Nowadays in the streets of London, the general public is not too much worried about the effects of CCTV monitoring. Erosion of privacy for the average citizen is not a reality. But for those who widely look towards the social benefits of surveillance, the notion that people are becoming inured to the gaze of the camera in a worrisome matter. Another interesting development in this area is that the authorities have started to equip cameras with loud speakers. This allows human monitors to caution people caught littering or brawling on the street. These types of cameras cannot be ignored like the ordinary cameras but there are critics who say that theses cameras cross the line from prevention of crime into public bullying. According to experts the next generation cameras that are used for surveillance in the streets of London will be equipped wit computer software that can judge suspicious behavior that can lead towards a crime.The London police have started to use this technology very effectively. This same technology is also pursued by the London traffic authorities to track and charge vehicles that enter the congestion zone ( LANDLER.M. 2007). The city of London has spent nearly 200 million pounds for the installation of CCTV,s in each and every part of the city. The proportion of crimes committed in the city is going up and not down. Cases of solving crimes are vastly going down. Ironically some places where there are more cameras installed have a record of worse crime solving rates. Approximately there are now more than 10000 cameras that are installed by the home office department in 32 London boroughs at an estimated cost of 200 million pounds (Doctorow. C. 2007). During the last two decades, surveillance studies have seen a rapid growth. This was due to two reasons. The first one being development in governance and new technologies and the second one fresh initiatives in theoretical explanation. It this context it is to be worth noting that surveillance practices is as old as history of humans. In the modern world these practices took some specific forms. They became routine and systematic and were based on bureaucratic organization as well as individuation. During the last part of the twentieth century, when computer based systems replaced the old and traditional paper files, it became very clear that new technologies will be decisively implicated in the surveillance process. Moreover the work of Michael Foucault, an expert in this field, stimulated new approaches for understanding surveillance. Discipline and punish, a book written by Foucault had surveillance as its central theme. Many researchers have been attracted by the Panopticon concept in the field of surveillance. Foucault has used the prison architecture that was invented by Bentham brothers in his work on surveillance extensively. This work has summarized both an emphasis on self discipline as the standard modern mode. This succeeds the previous coercive and brutal methods. Although Foucault prompted the newly found panopticism in the field of surveillance, others found fault in his theories. One among them is the belief that one had to go beyond Foucault for understanding contemporary electronic technology dependent surveillance. When the panoptic regime becomes more stringent and rigorous, there will be more active resistance. Whereas if the panoptic strategies are more soft and subtle, it can produce more desire docile bodies. If the possibilities of dialogue and mutual learning is brought forward, it is possible to bring together the classical, cultural, the critical and post structuralist in the field of surveillance. Surveillance theories are depended on debates. They always are related to history and humanity. Although there are a number of critiques regarding the Panopticon concept, this theory refuses to fade away. In surveillance discourses, the idea of panoptic still has significance. This is because of the fact that panoptic theory is rich and has a multifaceted concept. This theory is capable of interpretation in many ways. It also provides attention on major problems of modernity. The panoptic theory helps in the exploration of knowledge and power as well as highlights the enlightened increase of vision and is imbricated with a mission for social order as well as for social change that is progressive. It is not possible to avoid some interaction with Panopticon whether in the historical concept or in the modern concept of surveillance. According to Roy Boyne, a researcher and author in this field, it is fair to accept the panoptic presence even if only as the ghost prowling within the world that is purely post panoptic. Today vision is an enlightment privilege that can be used for order as well as control. The multifaceted dialectics of watching and being watched are still vital to rules as well as to governance. The panoptic vision is still regarded as an ideal symbol although it is not an actual architecture expressed in cement and stone. The vision machine continues to drive initiatives, mainly for the US department for homeland security as well as for other major European cities especially London. Moreover the idea of visibility that is purely omniscient lies behind from many schemes ranging from military intelligence to city planning. The categorical discrimination as well as practices used in unseen observations are encountered on a daily basis under the CCTV cameras and on the phone to the call centre , have made surveillance studies more intellectually engaging and have also give political relevance. That is why panoptitc theories have importance in this area. At the other end of the panoptic vision lies the prison which still expresses the extreme panoptic power. Panopticon must always be an uncompleted project and should tighten the focus when cloudiness threatens to undo it. In the Kingston Penitentiary prison which is a maximum security prison, it always turns out to be an uneven place where revolt and ingenious escape attempts are common. This prison has always been controversial in the area of treatment of its prisoners. Moreover this prison evidences some curious reversals of panoptic principles in behaviors. In the Washington state prison, there are instances of disturbed behaviors among the inmates. Prisoners are engaged in self mutilation which is deliberate. There are behaviors that result in faeces throwing and smearing also. Such prisoners are identified as behaviorally disturbed. According to researcher Lorna Rhodes who observed such behavior, the technology of power that is intended to make a manipulation that is calculated in the body, produces more than this in actual situations. She remarked that the perfection of the mechanism really calls forth it’s opposite. The resistance is not liberatory in nature but it invites more control. According to Rhodes the prisoner discovers that his body, the base of the panoptical relation, is its potential undoing also. The prisoner has within himself the makings of a vicious opacity. The prisoner is a human who always tries to transcend the situation. Docile bodies are not necessarily produced by the most panoptic circumstances. The prisoner may experience their bodies as abandoned but then they use them to declare themselves. The disciplinary spaces normally increases or magnifies disorder, pollution and noises. When the prisoner throws faeces or self mutilates or makes disturbances, what they actually do is that they produced selves for the observer. They turn private and destructive bodily acts into spectacles. When Panopticon is understood in this way, it diagnoses a view that is from nowhere. It is that of a vision that undermines vision. For example, a self cutting prisoner will react against the negative visibility that could produce compliant selves by making them even more visible. These acts are regarded as strategic acts. They undermine not purely the instant situation of the prisoner but also by extension the vital seeing as well as being seen disassociation that the Panopticon is planned to maintain. The ordinary citizens are not allowed to see inside the high security prisons. The prisons are hidden from their sight. The glimpses inside the maximum security prisons are quite revealing. They show not just the lives of prisoners and their inconsistent resistance but they disclose the limits of western enlightment rationalities that are associated with vision. The maximum security prisons represents the sharp end of the panoptical spectrum, however there are soft ends also. It is also relevant in areas related to entertainment as well as consumption. The TV show titled Big brother that clearly depicts late modern day unrealities justifies surveillance. It is worth to call these stuff panoptic commodities. Mark Andrejevic, through his studies has revealed that reality television shows have applied theories of scientific management to consumers rather than workers for increasing the productivity. Surveillance can be accepted in the workplace but it is less accepted in the area of the freedom of the consumer. With regard to online marketing Andrejevic opined that it is an integration of labor of watching and labor of being watched. In today’s modern world, Panopticon is still a question. Many critical questions arises with regard to Panopticon like its ability to perfect disciplinary power, limits of Panopticon to guide the analysis of surveillance , prominence of Panopticon, diversion of Panopticon etc. Some early social scientists have mapped the field of surveillance in a preliminary way. They drew attention to the modern disciplines advocated by Marx, Weber, Simmel and Durkheim. These studies are quite helpful for viewing the prepanoptic ideas in a broader sense. In short it is clear that the art of watching is metamorphic as well as physical. Foucault has mentioned about the shift towards modern scopic regimes in the Panopticon through its explanatory proposals that were powerful. But Panopticon is a prison and its generalizability is always questioned. Some post panoptics like Deleuze, Hardt , Negri and Agamben view other factors other than new technologies and political regimes at work. It is argued about the existence of rich veins of surveillance theory in different modes. But surveillance theories that are produced within a modernist frame are incomplete. Modern theories are related to nation, bureaucracy, technologic etc whereas post modern theories gives focus on ways in which digital technologies makes a difference. In this context, the works of Erickson, Haggerty, Stephen Graham, Simon Marvin etc are quite exemplary because of the fact that they bring together different theoretical stands. They have demonstrated how policing have bound up with the priorities of insurance companies and the implication in the reproduction of geospatial inequalities by banks as well as retail outlets. The classical theories that are related to surveillance are somewhat boring and irrelevant. But these theories offer fascinating possibilities for the exploration of surveillance systems as well as the beliefs and values that cheer up and inhabit them. These theories are also critical and raises questions about the concentration of surveillance power in one agency and the how the repressive forms of surveillance are related to broader situations like polarized social as well as economic inequalities. On the other hand, cultural theories focus its attention on matters like constitution of the subject using discursive and digital means on simulation and speed. In the cultural viewpoint, media and technology are important. It has been established that some contributions that are constructive is needed for surveillance theories. The surveillance theories cannot ignore the Panopticon but can always move beyond it. Kevin Haggerty once said to tear down the walls with regard to demolishing the Panopticon. He encouraged the abandonment of the Panopticon (Lyon.D. 2006.). It is to be noted that Haggerty and Erickson developed their surveillance assemblage theory as a response to the ever-growing network of electronic monitoring in every day life of humans. These authors severely criticize other surveillance scholars for stretching Bentham and Foucault’s surveillance symbol of the Panopticon clear of detection so that new technological developments can be accounted ( Haight. I.M.). Londoners are seen on the vast collection of surveillance cameras on an average 300 times a day. Almost every citizen whether he is a normal or a terrorist is quite sure that he or she will be caught on tape. Before the spy cameras were installed in London, before they were invented, the supporters of surveillance were arguing that people are less likely to do horrible things if being watched. For this reason, Jeremy Bentham in the 1791 proposed a Panopticon or a jail where the warden could always see what his prisoners are doing. It is to be debated that the criminal would behave differently when they are watched. After many studies carried out in England on CCTV system, there is very little evidence which suggests that the surveillance through CCTV actually works. In cities of America, cases have reported evidencing that there is a drop in crime rated due to surveillance, but studies in England suggest that these dips are temporary (London: Panopticon Cracks. 2005). . Now the concept of Panopticon is replaced by the urban space covered by numerous surveillance cameras. But the mechanisms of Panopticon are still useful to study and understand the surveillance of urban space. It must also be noted that there are important differences involving ideal prison and urban space and the resemblances should not be overdrawn. However it is seen that many old fashioned power mechanisms as well as control and normalization still works effectively. In a contemporary urban condition. For the citizens of London, it is possible to ignore the surveillance in their daily lives but it does not undermine the mechanisms of power rooted in surveillance. According to Lyon, there is not much an individual could do opposing the numerous forms of surveillance; however resistance may also take a form of composed exhibition of cooperation. It is not homogeneous but pluralized (Koskela1.H).. Reference: Doctorow. C. 2007. Londons panopticon of CCTVs arent solving crimes. (online).Available:http://www.boingboing.net/2007/09/20/londons-panopticon-o.html Haight. I.M. University of Texas at Austin MSIS Candidate. (online). Available;http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/~imhaight/projects/surveillant_assemblage.html Koskela1.H. . ‘Cam Era’ – the contemporary urban Panopticon.(online). Available:http://www.surveillance-and-society.org/articles1(3)/camera.pdf London: Panopticon Cracks. 2005. (Online). Available:http://www.defensetech.org/archives/001665.html LANDLER.M. 2007.Where Little Is Left Outside the Camera’s Eye. (online). Available:http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/08/weekinreview/08landler.html Lyon.D. 2006. Theorizing surveillance: the panopticon and beyond. Devon. UK: Willan Publishing. Romein.E, Schuilenburg..M. 2008. Are You On the Fast Track? The Rise of Surveillant Assemblages in a Post Industrial Age. Vol 13, Issue 3 .(online). Available: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a906363537~db=all Zarroli.J. Debate Brews over London Surveillance Cameras. (Online). Available:http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4748483 Read More