Citizens under Suspicion: Responsive Research with Community under Surveillance

Abstract

In the 14 years since the 9/11 events, this nation as a whole, and New York City in particular, has escalated its state-sanctioned surveillance in the lives and activities of Muslims in the United States. This qualitative study examines the ramifications of police infiltration and monitoring of Muslim student and community-based organizations. Drawing upon 24 months of ethnographic fieldwork among multiple research sites with Muslim secondary and college students in New York City, I examine how surveillance affected the relationships within communities utilizing notions of power, panoptic gaze, and governmentality. From the participatory action ethnographic study, which included this researcher's observations and field notes of meetings, forums, and workshops, and 25 semistructured interviews, key findings show that an insidious result of the New York Police Department's Demographics Unit has been an alarming rise in self-discipline behaviors amid a culture of fear and panoptic gaze as well as diminished intercommunity trust and sense of solidarity among these youth themselves.