Introduction: Surveillance in Conflict and Crisis

Abstract

This Dialogue sought contributions from surveillance studies scholars that examine how surveillance is part of, or has grown out of, contemporary conflicts around the world. The ongoing war in Ukraine stimulated the initial idea for the section, but we also remained mindful of the wider global scope of conflicts around the world, the history of such conflict, and the ways in which surveillance has become integral to many forms of domestic and international conflict. We wanted to extend the engagement of surveillance studies research with issues of surveillance and its relationship to conflict and to push debate and conversation about the practices, technologies, and ethics of how surveillance has been situated in moments and longer periods of conflict. We have four distinct contributions as part of this specific Dialogue, and they draw upon issues of privilege, longevity, control, organizational power, and discrimination that are placed within case studies from conflicts in Columbia, Palestine, and Ukraine.