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Surveillance and Moral Community: Anthropologies of Monitoring in Germany and Britain

Description du projet

Examiner la moralité de la surveillance

Les technologies de surveillance font désormais partie intégrante de notre quotidien. Leur présence a transformé de nombreux aspects de notre vie, mais des questions subsistent sur les implications morales de ces technologies. Le projet SAMCOM, financé par l’UE, entend développer notre compréhension de la surveillance en examinant la manière dont elle s’inscrit dans les communautés morales et dont elle est utilisée par les personnes pour les biens et les services. Il expliquera également comment la surveillance impacte le bien-être humain au niveau individuel et national, et déterminera comment elle peut être considérée comme morale ou immorale. L’objectif consiste à améliorer la compréhension du public des types de surveillance qui peuvent aider ou nuire à notre quotidien.

Objectif

Surveillance—the mediated monitoring of human behaviour for some intended purpose—has become part of the structure of European life. As ubiquitous monitoring technologies transform every new relationship that they mediate, there is grave concern that the social gains of past centuries will be lost, as states and large corporations use these technologies to expand and entrench their own power. Scholars of surveillance have been following these developments since the 1970s, but recently have faced the paradox that most surveillance now takes place with the active collaboration of the surveilled. Moreover, the enthusiasm for self-monitoring popularized through smart technologies has been met by many surveillance scholars with bewilderment. Why would people choose to enter relationships objectively deemed to be coercive?

This project takes a new approach to how we understand surveillance. I embark on the first sustained inquiry into the association between surveillance and moral community, between practices of ‘watching over’ and the presence of a group of people who share a commitment to certain goods. By ethnographically investigating the role that surveillance technologies play in realizing four different types of good—care, health, safety and citizenship—within four different communities—the family, the interest group, the circle of intimates, and the nation—this research explores how surveillance proliferates not as a lever in power relations, but by being harnessed to forms of human welfare.

The gains of this project are substantial. To surveillance studies I import insights from anthropology, offering a comparative and embedded approach that situates surveillance as a social relationship. I also initiate a major conversation about surveillance in anthropology. Finally I develop the concepts of ‘moral’ and ‘immoral’ monitoring, achieving greater public clarity on those forms of surveillance that support collective welfare, and those that threaten to harm it.

Champ scientifique (EuroSciVoc)

Mots‑clés

Programme(s)

Thème(s)

Régime de financement

ERC-STG - Starting Grant

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Appel à propositions

(s’ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre) ERC-2020-STG

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Institution d’accueil

KING'S COLLEGE LONDON
Contribution nette de l'UE
€ 1 476 127,50
Adresse
STRAND
WC2R 2LS London
Royaume-Uni
Région
London Inner London — West Westminster
Type d’activité
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Liens
Coût total
€ 1 476 127,50

Bénéficiaires (1)