New release: Surveillance: Power, Problems and Politics

About the Author(s)

Sean P. Hier is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology, University of Victoria. Josh Greenberg is an assistant professor in the School of Journalism and Communication, Carleton University.

Surveillance is commonly rationalized as a practice to address existing political or social problems such as crime, fraud, and terrorism. This book also explores how surveillance systems can, under the guise of managing risk or reducing harm, cause or exacerbate a range of problems, including poverty, over-policing, suspicion, and exclusion.

This volume presents essays written by Canadian scholars who interrogate the moral and ideological bases and the material effects of various surveillance practices and systems. The contributors explore the relationship between surveillance and social and political problems in a number of cultural locations and institutional arenas: policing, consumerism, welfare administration, disaster management, popular culture, moral regulation, news media, social movements, and anti-terrorism campaigns.

These original theoretical and empirical essays examine and challenge us to consider the question: How can we ensure a future in which the consequences of surveillance are not taken for granted as normal, or necessary, features of modern life? The thought-provoking discussion of problems and potential solutions makes this book a valuable resource for students and practitioners of sociology, criminology, history, anthropology, political science, and communications and culture.

Surveillance: Power, Problems and Politics at UBC press.