Probing the Surveillant Assemblage: on the dialectics of surveillance practices as processes of social control.

Abstract

Recent dialogue on the contemporary nature of information and data gathering techniques has incorporated the notion of assemblages to denote an increasing convergence of once discrete systems of surveillance. The rhizomatic expansion of late modern 'surveillant assemblages' is purported not only to enable important transformations in the p urpose and intention of surveillance practices, but to facilitate a partial democratization of surveillance hierarchies. Seeking to account for the forces and desires which give rise to, and sustain, surveillant assemblages, this paper explicates the workings of a dialectic embedded in many surveillance practices to reveal a polarization effect involving the simultaneous leveling and solidification of hierarchies. Empirical data from the intensification of welfare monitoring are presented to illustrate the dialectics of surveillance practices as processes of social control.

Risk Technologies and the Securitization of Post-9/11 Citizenship: The Case of National ID Cards in Canada.

“…The problem with the assemblage model, however, is that it tends to suggest that centralized, asymmetrical forms of (state) surveillance are no longer important. As Hier (2003) has demonstrated, investigation into the expanding applications of networked surveillance systems cannot come at the expense of insights into new and more efficient possibilities for monitoring practices that exacerbate already existing social divisions in the context of unequal relations of power. In focusing social analyses primarily on the expanding technological capabilities of surveillance systems, critics run the risk of neglecting the social dimensions and the diverse human and material implications of surveillance techniques-how they are socially constructed, how they penetrate social groups differently, and how they can contribute to the intensification of social inequality.…”

From Governmental Vigilance to Diffuse Control: Surveillance and Accountability since the Spanish Transition

“…sociological approaches (Hier, 2003), its comprehension of the flows and "nomadic" aspects of vigilance is really essential.…”

The New Transparency: Police Violence in the Context of Ubiquitous Surveillance

“…This suggests that surveillance has not resulted in the ubiquity that the ideal for transparency would advocate. The ideal of transparency would suggest the surveillant gaze is too discriminatory, and is in need of "democratization" (Hier, 2003).…”