Are You On the Fast Track? The Rise of Surveillant Assemblages in a Post Industrial Age

Abstract

It is the contention of this article that a new subjectivity is taking shape in contemporary Western societies. This subjectivity is the effect of an ongoing transformation of power relations. Following Haggerty and Ericson, we call these emerging power relations ‘surveillant assemblages.’ These assemblages take shape against the background of a society with an ever-increasing emphasis on speed, flux, mobility, and flows. Taking the work of Michel Foucault on the disciplinary society as a point of departure, this article will set out to describe, following Gilles Deleuze and David Garland, the transformation of the current social order into a society of control. In light of such a transformation we will reassess the notion of flow that captures these changes. This article will, therefore, deal with the inherent connection of flow and (the society of) control. In such an analysis we leave the traditional view of control behind. That is, control as the opposite of flow. In the society that is taking shape, control has become an immanent part of flows. Or in short: there is no flow without control.