The body politics of the urban age: reflections on surveillance and affect

Ola Svenonius

doi:10.1057/s41599-017-0057-5

Abstract

The article theorizes surveillance and affect in the context of urban security policy. Surveillance, as commonly understood, provides the means to “know” a person or a population, and to a certain extent to control or manage her/him/it. Hence, surveillance and knowledge are intimately tied together. New modes of surveillance are, therefore, also contingent upon new ways of knowing. This article discusses surveillance and affect in urban politics and let these concepts communicate with empirical research on urban security. The starting point is empirical research in three European cities on changes in local level security policy between 2000 and 2010. In all three cases, significant changes in the governance networks’ approaches about security were observed. These changes coincided with new developments in the use of surveillance technologies to increase feelings of security. In this process “performative” surveillance became a central aspect of urban security policy, with particular focus on affects related to fear of crime, old age, and gender. The article theorizes the relationship between security, surveillance, and affect. The argument put forward is that new security policies were instances of the production of a discourse in which the pre-cognitive, instinctual affects were increasingly targeted. The article shows how proponents of the new type of security governance articulate policy goals focusing on fear, threat, and surveillance. It contributes to a small body of literature on urban security and emotions by showing how cultural differences play out when similar policy goals that target citizens on the level of pre-cognitive affects are implemented.

Highlights

Urban security governance is arguably one of the main challenges in an age where more people dwell in cities than in rural areas
Sectoral public authorities, and public contractors organize their response to crime and other security issues is the subject of local security policy and governance
In Europe and North America, three aspects of local security policy are shared between most cities: a focus on security as an experience, the body as the site of this experience, and visual surveillance as the tool to render bodies more transparent and manage threats against them (Galdon-Clavell, 2015; Lippert, 2012; Tulumello, 2017)

Summary

Introduction

Urban security governance is arguably one of the main challenges in an age where more people dwell in cities than in rural areas. The security policies in Berlin, Stockholm, and Warsaw at in the 21st century all follow a similar pattern: In an environment characterized by a high-degree of physical safety, focus lies on how safe passengers feel, and in all three cases the public transport systems are almost completely monitored by surveillance cameras.

Results

Conclusion