Digital surveillance in post-coronavirus China: A feminist view on the price we pay.

Ai Yu

doi:10.1111/gwao.12471

Abstract

In this piece, I look at the question — are we worth saving and if so at what cost? — through a Foucault‐inspired feminist lens on surveillance. I examine a case that illustrates how digital surveillance, despite being perceived as a successful development in China’s response to COVID‐19, reinforces the country’s gender‐biased discourses on contagious disease and sexuality. In doing so, I want to emphasize that the states of exception that governments can establish and extend are not gender‐neutral. Given the feminist interest in and responsibility for life, this fact compels us to react to states of exception from a freedom‐enabled gender perspective. It is to be hoped that this perspective would then help to promote socio‐political practices that allowed society to challenge the normalizing male gaze induced by digital surveillance.

Highlights

George Fu Gao, Director of the China Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), joined a live streaming panel1 on 25 April 2020 to share insights into the latest developments in China’s response to COVID-19
The program issues everyone with a coloured health code if they fill out a quick health survey, and the code dictates whether they can leave the house or not
While western nations are critical of this mass surveillance tool and ask what else the data may be used for, scholars2 are more concerned about the high likelihood that this mass data collection could be accepted as the norm even after the coronavirus has become less of a threat to the public

Summary

Introduction

George Fu Gao, Director of the China Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), joined a live streaming panel1 on 25 April 2020 to share insights into the latest developments in China’s response to COVID-19. It is to be hoped that this perspective would help to promote socio-political practices that allowed society to challenge the normalizing male gaze induced by digital surveillance.

Results

Conclusion