The Question of Movement in Dwelling

Abstract

The authors explore transformations in the surveillance and discipline framework proposed by Foucault (technologies that “allow to see,” the panoptic as a completely closed space) by analyzing new Global Positioning System (GPS) care technologies. The authors contrast the antinomadic characteristics of traditional care practices for people with dementia with the new “in-movement” GPS care devices. They outline three main displacements: the definition of a new space that erases the distance between separated social and sanitary spaces; the lifting of the boundary between the home and the neighborhood; and finally, we point out the importance of movement in this process. These devices show the emergency of new micropractices of power and control: a new anatomy of surveillance. Grounded on movement, they transform physical barriers into risk alarms that do not block users' way; instead, they generate information that mobilizes others. The authors refer to the notion of kinevalue to explain how these devices turn living organisms' motility properties into a value that can be managed, as well as the central feature around which new exercises of patients' security and caregiving may be deployed. Through the analysis of a pilot project on GPS telecare devices carried out by the Spanish Red Cross, the authors suggest a new diagram of the control and management of subjects based on their movement, called “kinepolitics.”