Panoptic Surveillance Research Articles

Pulling the strings: the apparatus of university policy production

ABSTRACT University governing bodies, especially academic boards, play a crucial role in policy formation. However, due to the predominance of managerial values over academic values in the policy-making process, a persistent divide exists between policy formulation and implementation. This divide results from the marginalisation of academics and the dominance of managerial authority figures within these bodies. Our study investigates the latter to determine the precise Foucauldian apparatus used by authority figures to influence policy-making meetings. Using an innovative arts-based method, we analyse ethnographic vignettes through a Foucauldian lens and transform them into collages depicting the apparatus used by authority figures: Strategic Managerial Monumentalism, Managerial Historical Revisionism, Managerial Discursive Dominance, Managerial Panoptic Surveillance, and Managerial Normalisation. We contend that only a well-defined separation of governance powers can effectively counter the encroachment of managerialism and uphold the democratic representation of academic values in university policies to bridge the policy-practice divide.

The Problems of Panoptic Invigilation Programs as Evidence of Cheating

The demand for online invigilation programs had dramatically increased due to the expansion of online learning; however, demand was further galvanized by the COVID-19 pandemic. Unfortunately, there are many technical and ethical problems with these programs that cannot be easily mitigated. Notably, they are beset by several inherent racial, gender, neuro-normative, and socio-economic biases, which means that people of color, women, neuro-divergent, and less affluent students will be more likely to be accused of cheating. While these issues have received increasing attention, a minimal amount of focus has been given to the legitimacy of these programs’ key indicator of academic malfeasance: ocular motility. The reliance upon eye movements to identify potential academic dishonesty is problematic because ocular motility is fundamental to cognitive processes such as information recall and creative thought. Given that the consequences of finding a student in violation of honor code strictures can have devastating impacts on a student’s career and given that these impacts do not affect all students equally, institutions and instructors that have adopted these panoptic surveillance programs should heavily consider the limitations of these programs, the dangerous biases that are built into them and their deployment, and the cascade of inequitable outcomes they may help propagate.

Stories of Surveillance and Resistance: Young People with Dwarfism and Teaching Assistants in Secondary Schools in the United Kingdom

Abstract Teaching Assistants (ta s) are described as key figures in the inclusion of disabled young people in mainstream schools. However, disabled young people’s insights into ta s’ support remain limited. This paper contributes to such insights by exploring the experiences of young people with dwarfism in secondary education with their ta s in the United Kingdom, drawing on their qualitative, first-hand accounts. I engage in a Foucauldian analysis of ta s’ support, where I argue that, under the guise of support, disabled young people sustain ta s’ panoptic surveillance, aiming at their normalisation. Nevertheless, the stories reveal modes of surveillance that go beyond panopticism, such as panauralism. Moreover, the stories demonstrate how young people resist to their surveillance by re-turning the gaze to their ta s, exercising the synoptic gaze. The paper concludes by considering the contributions of those stories, including the need to consider surveillance in relational terms, its multi-sensory nature, and its constitutive power.

Planting in the pandemic: surveillance on social media

ABSTRACT This article looks at interest-driven and informal social media practices that have flourished in the pandemic period and its ensuing renaissance of domesticity. It investigates how tending plants and discussing them on social media serve as a particular site for connecting around loving and taking care of plants. Its focus is on the discursive means with which posters – guided by social media algorithms – rhetorically co-construct a morally acceptable version of a pandemic lifestyle around houseplants. More specifically, drawing on multimodal discourse studies, critical sociolinguistics and work on digital surveillance, it investigates how members of a Finland-based social media site observe and monitor themselves and others via their linguistically heterogeneous and multimodal posts. The paper demonstrates how constructions of tending plants highlight a normative subject who besides cultivating plants also cultivates themselves and others in the allegedly safe microcosm of the home, surrounded by the risk-ridden, tension-full, dangerous pandemic world. In the same way, as in many other types of informal and interest-driven social media activities, surveillance forms a crucial part of the routine digital activities and interactions about and around plants. Three manifestations of surveillance are discussed in detail: site-specific panoptic surveillance, peer surveillance and self-surveillance.

Surveillance, Capitalism, Leisure, and Data: Being Watched, Giving, Becoming

This conceptual paper aims to serve two purposes: 1) introduce theories of surveillance to aid leisure scholars in exploring surveillance in its many forms; and, 2) add to the discussion on surveillance by layering “the leisure body” onto existing theory. We begin by introducing three groupings of “surveillance” theory: panoptic surveillance (think Bentham and Foucault), post-panoptical surveillance (think Deleuze), and contemporary surveillance (Galič et al., 2017). Panoptic surveillance is a physical surveillance (reliant on a fleshy body and physical space) where, like in Bentham’s and Foucault’s panopticons, the individual polices personal presentation and action under the presumption of being watched. We theorize this as surveillance on the body; it is body-to-body even as it is mediated through technology. Post-panoptical surveillance is less dependent on distinct, physical spaces, and particularly those of enclosure. We theorize this as the digital merging with the physical, where surveillance comes from the interaction of the technological with the fleshy body. Although this surveillance is less reliant on specific times and spaces—occurring within or through the body—it is nonetheless conditioned by our physical connections to technological devices. This is technology-to-body surveillance that is dependent on a physical interaction between the two. Contemporary surveillance is not dependent upon a physical linkage between technology and the body or a space of enclosure; it both marks an individual and simultaneously dissolves them into an ocean of big data. It is an inescapable surveillance as existence in the modern world. We call this technobody surveillance where the need for the interaction between technologies and fleshy bodies is subsumed by the gaseous and pervasive nature of apparatuses of surveillance. With each, we provide an exemplar from leisure practice, time, and/or space to illustrate how each operates within leisure phenomena.

Application mediated communication: Panoptic surveillance in online transportation

<p>This study aims to reveal conditions that have been neglected so far regarding the development of communication technology in online transportation. With a large number of partners, the company provides features to service users to provide an assessment of online motorcycle taxi drivers. Companies are no longer present to discipline their workers with strict regulations, but by using a panopticon monitoring system that is delegated to service users. This study uses a qualitative approach by conducting surveys and interviews with online motorcycle taxi drivers and users. The results of the participant interviews were then analyzed and supported by documentation studies originating from books, journals, and some data obtained from online media, or also known as data triangulation. The results of the study show that the panopticon system implemented by the company provides certainty of supervision so that it forms the discipline of those who are supervised by forming homogeneous behavior. The power relations that occur between companies and their partners place online motorcycle taxi drivers in a vulnerable position to symbolic violence through supervision. </p>

A Panopticon Revelation of the Power and Self-Discipline in Orwell's 1984

The article aims to study and analyze Michel Foucault's concept of Panopticism and its implication in daily life and in literary texts. Panopticism is a concept where self-surveillance, distance surveillance and central control mechanisms are developed and implemented. Panopticism is the term used by Michel Foucault in which the surveillance, observations and monitoring systems are regulated in different ways and methods in different time periods. Panoptic surveillance of eighteenth century and the present systems of CC TV surveillance in Offices, Schools, Colleges and Banks is the mechanical representation of the panoptic concept. This panoptic observation creates power and controls people, create law and order, and also creates the dictatorial ruling over general people. This article follows the method of studying Jeremy Bentham and Mitchel Foucault's terms Panopticism and attempts to assimilate in the present concept of mechanics of distance surveillance through technology. It also applies the concept to study George Orwell's novel 1984. It concludes that the present concept of CC TV surveillance and others type of distance controlling systems resembles the idea as noted by Bentham, Foucault and applied by Orwell in the novel 1984. The issue of controlling people with Big Brother power in the novel is the panoptic observation and ruling over people by the rulers.

“Holy curiosity of inquiry”: An investigation into curiosity and work performance of employees

This study investigates the relationship between the fulfillment of epistemic, diversive curiosity of employees in the workplace, and their work performance. We conceptualize the relationship in two modes: direct and mediated by intellectual stimulation and workplace loneliness. Drawing on social exchange theory, we argue that, in the absence of intellectual stimulation provided by motivational leaders to their followers, it could be generated by curiosity-fulfilling social exchanges among like-minded employees. We also argue that the nonfulfillment of curiosity could give rise to workplace loneliness, causing performance to decline. We further view the relationships in light of two moderating influences: employee self-efficacy and organizational panoptic surveillance. Based on a field study of 537 employees in 17 software development projects in a multinational firm, we found empirical support for the mediated relationships and the moderating influences. However, the direct association was not supported. We discuss the implications of our findings for organizational theory and practice.

Jesus en las Americas: Exploring Latter-day Saint Latinx Politics and Culture

Jesus en las Americas: Exploring Latter-day Saint Latinx Politics and Culture

Ideological productions in human geography as an apparatus of the state/power

ABSTRACT … ‘Humanity’ is an apparatus that could be used ideologically (Schmitt 1963, 55). This study analyses the ideological practices of the state/power -including panoptic surveillance and organic integrity practices- in the discipline of human geography through the lenses of curriculum, scientific freedom, and autonomy. Human geographers have long analysed the sociospatial traits of societies using scientific perspectives. However, in many socioeconomically less-developed countries like Turkey, human geography and other social sciences, portray social issues through the meticulously designed ideological expectations of powers, rather than universal scientific criteria. This ideological structure damages the scientific development of human geography and hinders students’ abilities to practice coexistence with other groups by instilling a dependent consciousness.

“Uncovered in the glass cages”. Rethinking neoliberal governance in the times of COVID-19: Critical performativity for performance management in higher education

This conceptual article draws on social harm theory and critical management studies to critically examine the neoliberal governance of academics’ performance management in higher education, particularly in the emerging “normal” of COVID-19. The article argues that the COVID-19 pandemic has created a crisis that lays bare the deleterious global ramifications of the dominant political-economic ideology of neoliberalism in every aspect of societal life, more so in education. Moreover, the justifiably lauded shift to the digital space of teaching and learning is increasing the already problematic panoptic surveillance and is invading the hiding spaces within the glass cages. The neoliberal approach to PM is inflicting social harms, unintentionally and intentionally. With the COVID-19 pandemic offering us the “rega” moment of opportunity to rethink and pragmatically insert critical alternatives to the neoliberal governance of universities’ performance management practices, this article proposes a critical performativity approach to work towards incremental micro-emancipations. Keywords: social harm, neoliberal governance, critical performativity, managerialsm, micro-emancipation, performance management

Online education and surveillance during COVID-19 pandemic in Palestinian universities

ABSTRACT This article employs Foucault’s concepts of docile bodies, Panopticism, surveillance and the paradigm of resistance, subversion and containment to delineate the issues of power and control that shored up in online Higher education in Palestinian universities during the outbreak of the pandemic. We propose that the online mode of education perpetuates the traditional way of teaching literature, impeding both students’ and teachers’ innovation. Topics related to sexuality, politics, misogyny, and religion in literary works have been repressed in staff members’ discussion due to multilayered surveillance from the students, parents and online learning centralized management offices who, based on the testimonies of the literature teachers, are often attentive to online class meetings. Surveillance shatters the illusion of liberation many literacy educators thought they have gained in online education; indeed, the instructors’ testimonies highlight their internalization of panoptic surveillance that derails the liberating purpose of education.

파놉티콘 감시와 정치적 주체되기의 영화적 재현

This paper examines Pinter’s cinematic techniques in his modifications of Kafka’s original novel for the purpose of cinematic transliterations of the elements in his comedies of menace and political plays by analyzing his screenplay, The Trial. Pinter modifies and intensifies Kafka’s political elements by integrating his theatrical politics into cinematic politics. Pinter finds out the common concerns and themes in Kafka’s novel and modifies and reterritorializes the irrationality of law system, pervasiveness of authority, and panoptical surveillance into film media. Pinter presents the lines of flight for becoming a political subject inducing audiences to face up to the menacing reality and real panoptical surveillance.

Making sense of space: mapping and materializing panoptic features in research with youth and teachers

ABSTRACT This article describes a study wherein teachers talked about school architecture by using their bodies as well as their voices while analysing maps youth drew of their schools. The youths’ maps and the teachers’ discussions revealed evidence of their tacit understanding of panoptic surveillance. This may be evocative of the ways panoptic architecture and surveillance work on bodies in ways that are both seen and unseen. The author theorizes the implications of these connections for teacher education, including the ways teachers may be primed to perpetuate the same sorts of surveillances they experienced.

Synoptic Prudentialism

This paper examines police officer perceptions of risk when using (often official police) social media sites. We argue that for police it is not the ‘few observing the many’ model of panoptic surveillance that matters most; rather, it is the synoptic gaze of the ‘many observing the few’ that matters most. We propose a new concept, that of synoptic prudentialism, which we argue involves an individual’s or organization’s reflexive actions and adjustments in response to an acute awareness of ubiquitous social surveillance. Interviews with officers serving in rural areas of an Atlantic Canadian province reveal expressions of vulnerability in relation to potentially antagonist audiences online. Also, from the perspective of front-line officers who express a desire to use social media more informally to connect with online audiences, bureaucratic procedures and other formal regulations governing official police social media use constrains the potential to harness the synoptic gaze in productive ways.

A re-evaluation of the modern psychiatric hospital from the standpoint of the Kyoto school's critique of modernity.

Michel Foucault defines the modern psychiatric hospital as an institution of power that excludes and disciplines those who are deemed immoral, perverse, or abnormal in society. Rather than a facility for healing, as Foucault has taught us, the psychiatric hospital operates more as a punitive method of the body. But what is not considered in Foucault's historical account of the psychiatric institution are the epistemological preconditions that allowed for its original formation. Drawing on the Kyoto School philosophers' critique of modernity, this article will discuss how the biomedical model underlying modern psychiatric care is rooted in a prior epistemological duality that was developed even earlier within Western intellectual history-a duality we will call the "epistemology of nihilism." Foucault's political technology of the body is therefore a symptom of the epistemology of nihilism, that which leads to consequences beyond mere panoptical surveillance. This article will discuss such consequences, in particular the mechanization of human life derived from the excesses of scientific technology, in the service of introducing a new way of thinking about the limits of psychiatric treatment in today's world.

Disciplinary Power in The School: Panoptic Surveillance

The curiosity on how disciplinary power operates in a secondary school in the context of Panoptic surveillance became our motive. We designed the study as a single case study in qualitative approach to grasp the holistic understanding of disciplinary power, surveillance, and resistance to it in a secondary school. The data were obtained by a set of data collection techniques including a focus group interview, semi-structured interviews, observation and document analysis. The content analysis method was employed to analyze the collected data. In the analysis, we identified the themes of forced docility, norm provider, and reflection on discipline. To the findings, the main disciplinary power practice in this school is surveillance on appearances, behaviors, and exams, and the students prefer reacting to surveillance practices in two ways: either normalizing their behaviors or displaying resistance and insisting on the undesired behaviors. For further research, the relation between power, surveillance, and resistance can be analyzed as multiple case study to compare the findings at different types of school.

Standing upright, unsleeping: sleeplessness, wakefulness and watchfulness in Prometheus Bound

ABSTRACT This article reinterprets Prometheus as an archetype of wakefulness and watchfulness. In the Aeschylean version, this mythical hero, is a victim of what might be characterised as sleep deprivation. The article begins by situating Prometheus in mythographic terms, arguing that scholars have overlooked the importance of sleeplessness to Zeus's punishment of him. It proceeds to trace the changes between Hesiod's and the Aeschylean account, paying attention to matters of crime and punishment. The article then offers a detailed rereading of Prometheus Bound, focusing first on Hermes's threats at the end of the play, an important context for thinking about penal torture; and, second, on the torture to which he is subjected at the start of the play. After outlining the role of sleep deprivation in medieval and early modern torture practices, the article returns to the classical period and the part that remaining awake plays in an episode in the Odyssey. Finally, it argues that Prometheus's sleeplessness, though the result of torture, acquires a positive, even heroic value in the Aeschylean play because it is associated with a state of political vigilance that resists the panoptic surveillance of tyrants. Here, wakefulness is redeemed as watchfulness.

Unto the breach: What the COVID-19 pandemic exposes about digitalization

Much recent scholarly investigation has been focused on the promise of digitalization and the new ways of working and organizing it makes possible. In this paper, we analyze how the COVID-19 pandemic has acted as a natural breaching experiment that has challenged taken-for-granted expectations about digitalization and revealed four important issues: uneven access to digital infrastructures, the persistence of the analog in digitalization, the brittleness of unchecked digitalization, and panoptical surveillance. The sudden shift to digital work has exposed taken-for-granted assumptions about the universality of digital access. The crisis has also revealed that many highly digitalized processes still rely on analog elements. The pandemic has also exposed that many algorithms used in digitalized inter-organizational processes are brittle due to overreliance on historic patterns. Finally, the pandemic has breached fundamental expectations of privacy when organizational surveillance was extended into private and public spaces. Thus, the pandemic has laid bare fundamental challenges in digitalization and has exposed the limits of rose‑tinted thinking about the relation between technology and organizing.

Specifics and Actors of the Drone Warfare

The article reveals the features of modern military conflicts waged with the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (drones). Author traces the transformation of identity of fighters participating in high-tech wars. While the identity of combatants in conventional wars can be described with “killing- being killed” structure, post-heroic drone warfare leads to the formation of a split identity: on the one hand, a combatant reliably protected from mortal risks and threats, on the other hand, his defenseless victim. Author also studies the features of panoptic surveillance carried out with the drones. It is shown that modern war is entering the phase of unprecedented asymmetric confrontation, which cannot be overcome solely by technical means.