Surveillance Cameras in Brazil: exclusion, mobility regulation, and the new meanings of security

Abstract

In Brazil, over the last few decades, projects for the installation of surveillance cameras for security purposes in spaces of public circulation have multiplied. However, the issue has not been specifically studied in the country. Research on surveillance cameras in Brazil has generally focused on cities and security. The debate on urban gentrification or private security has usually included the issue of CCTVs as a built-in element. The analysis presented here, based on data coming from research work carried out between 2002 and 2005, focuses on the installation of surveillance cameras in a public park in the central region of the city of São Paulo (Brazil). A multiplicity of discursive elements circulating in the country is analyzed, following an approach influenced by the work of Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze. Based on this case study, it is possible to notice that cameras actually take part in a process of gentrification and are also related to new knowledge about security and its privatization. Cameras are also analyzed here as a part of the mechanisms of the functioning of power, and their contemporary changes.