Surveilling Modern Surveillance: An Examination of the Impacts of Surveillance on Marginalized Identities and Police Behaviour

The meaning of public and private space in Canada is increasingly being controlled and defined technocratically along identity-based lines. In view of this reality, the rise of state-led and state-sponsored surveillance techniques, tools and modalities has real social justice implications; and this is particularly true within the context of identity and social location. Socialized meaning(s) created by the utilization and interpretation - of surveillance technologies are often highly dependant on the identity of who is being surveilled. This means that gendered, minority and othered identities can experience the meaning(s) of surveillance very differently. Moreover, the proliferation of techno-surveillance also impacts how already-marginalized identities are perceived and presented within the overall public discourse. The objective of this study is to better understand how these considerations play-out in real world scenarios and within different Canadian space(s) every day. By utilizing previous work done on concepts like Visibility (Brighenti), Racialized Surveillance (Fiske) and gendered surveillance (Glasbeek), the study will examine the ways in which state-controlled surveillance serves as a tool that marginalizes and disempowers particular groups who are already in positions of social and economic disadvantage. The study focuses on particular techno-surveillance tools; and the increasing use of policy-worn body cameras and closed-circuit video monitoring will be examined as a type of visibility mediator capable of shaping public perception and altering identity discourses. This type of state-led surveillance will also be examined vis--vis the context of public push-back and user-created counter-surveillance (most commonly in the form of cell-phone videos) as a (moderating?) influence, as well as the implications these developments have on the so-called de-policing or Ferguson effect.

Keywords: Surveillance, Police-worn body cameras, Identity, Closed-circuit surveillance, Visibility, De-policing.