The European Union (EU) seeks to play a leading role in steering the private work of online conte... more The European Union (EU) seeks to play a leading role in steering the private work of online content moderation, as demonstrated by numerous policy and legislative initiatives in the domain. Two initiatives, in particular, are shaping terrorist content moderation: the creation of a EU Internet Referral Unit and the adoption of a Regulation on preventing the online dissemination of terrorist content (TERREG). This article analyses these initiatives and their practical effects. In particular, it unpacks the legal and technological mechanisms at the core of EU regulation in the realm of online terrorist content moderation, and how they co-produce security decisions across public and private spheres. Based on interviews, fieldwork observations and document analysis, we show how processes of referral and removal, and processes of flagging and filtering are key to EU-directed content moderation. In conclusion, we reflect on content moderation as a novel form of European security integration.
Moving away from the traditional framing of surveillance in terms of in/visibility, this article ... more Moving away from the traditional framing of surveillance in terms of in/visibility, this article proposes a conceptual journey that investigates the potential of the notions of dis-appearance and ob-scene as alternative theoretical tools. In particular, it explores how these different perspectives can help bringing politics back into the study and the critique of surveillance.Visibility is structurally linked to invisibility, and together they configure the different modes of in/visibility allowing for the very functioning of surveillance. However, the in/visibility dyad rather than merely describe surveillance contributes to its operations and stabilisation. In order to better understand and unpack surveillance it is thus necessary to tackle its practices not only in search of who watches whom, or what, but also by studying what is concealed through in/visibility, through both hiding and exposing, and what is left out of the scene (or being pushed away) in these processes.In a dial...
Questions about how algorithms contribute to (in)security are under discussion across internation... more Questions about how algorithms contribute to (in)security are under discussion across international political sociology. Building upon and adding to these debates, our collective discussion foregrounds questions about algorithmic violence. We argue that it is important to examine how algorithmic systems feed (into) specific forms of violence, and how they justify violent actions or redefine what forms of violence are deemed legitimate. Bringing together different disciplinary and conceptual vantage points, this collective discussion opens a conversation about algorithmic violence focusing both on its specific instances and on the challenges that arise in conceptualizing and studying it. Overall, the discussion converges on three areas of concern-the violence undergirding the creation and feeding of data infrastructures; the translation processes at play in the use of computer/machine vision across diverse security practices; and the institutional governing of algorithmic violence, especially its organization, limitation , and legitimation. Our twofold aim is to show the potential of a cross-disciplinary conversation and to move toward an interactional research agenda. While our approaches diverge, they also enrich each other. Ultimately , we highlight the critical purchase of studying the role of algorithmic violence in the fabric of the international through a situated analysis of algorithmic systems as part of complex, and often messy, practices
A multitude of new research themes and objects, especially technological innovations and knowledg... more A multitude of new research themes and objects, especially technological innovations and knowledge practices, have come to populate interna- tional relations and security politics. Many critical security scholars are engaging theoretical resources from the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS) to make sense of things as diverse as fake news, climate change, financial surveillance, digital images and autonomous targeting systems. This Special Issue unpacks the core challenges and benefits we see when engaging with STS to approach the entanglements of science, technology and (in)security. Embracing the notion of trouble, this intro- duction draws upon Haraway and Butler, arguing for the need to stay close to the troubles that new research objects pose to the study of security. Taking the trouble can thus be understood as an ethos that makes us open to new research avenues and to the importance of being attentive to how relations of power and emancipation can be established in our research processes. The focus of both the introduction and the Special Issue is on how STS resources might be mobilised. Overall, this Special Issue offers further conceptual, empirical and methodological inputs to the ongoing discussion about the value of STS for the study of security politics.
This article focuses on the Schengen Information System (SIS II)-the largest data infrastructure ... more This article focuses on the Schengen Information System (SIS II)-the largest data infrastructure supporting police cooperation and border controls in the European Union. Through the SIS II, national authorities exchange information about individuals and objects, and this across national and institutional boundaries. Yet, the SIS II does not always perform as anticipated in its design scripts. Following common threads about infrastructural politics across Science and Technology Studies, political geography and critical security studies, we explore fragility and maintenance as being intrinsic to the functioning of data infrastructures and crucial sites of governance. We show how the SIS II is kept under continuous control to operate as a controlling data infrastructure. This article contributes to a critical inquiry into the datafication of border controls by interrogating how data acquire the status of allegedly credible and accurate information. Ultimately, this approach pinpoints the inherent fragility of seemingly mighty data infrastructures and casts a light on those actors and processes that sustain, through maintenance, contemporary digital borders.
This article contributes to debates on algorithmic regulation by focusing on the domain of securi... more This article contributes to debates on algorithmic regulation by focusing on the domain of security. It develops an infrastructural perspective, by analyzing how algorithmic regulation is enacted through the custom-built transatlantic data infrastructures of the EU-U.S. PNR and TFTP programs. Concerning regulation through algorithms, this approach analyzes how specific, commercial data are rendered transferable and meaningful in a security context. Concerning the regulation of algorithms, an infrastructural perspective examines how public values like privacy and accountability are built into international data infrastructures. The creation of data infrastructures affects existing modes of governance and fosters novel power relations among public and private actors. We highlight emergent modes of standard setting, thus enriching Yeung’s (2018) taxonomy, and question the practical effects of operationalizing public values through infrastructural choices. Ultimately, the article offers a critical reading of algorithmic security, and how it materially, legally, and politically supports specific ways of doing security.
Making sense of digital security practice requires grasping how data are put to use to compose th... more Making sense of digital security practice requires grasping how data are put to use to compose the governing of individuals. Data need to be understood in their becoming, and in their becoming something across diverse practices. To do this, we suggest embracing two conceptual tropes that jointly articulate the being together of, and in, data compositions: composting and computing. With composting, we approach data as lively entities, and we explore the decaying and recycling processes inside Big Data security. With computing, we approach data as embodied and embodying elements, and we unpack the surveillance of 'asylum speakers'. Together, composting and computing challenge recurrent images of data. Our conceptual composition takes sound as a necessary sensory counterpoint to popular data visions, notably in light of Ryoji Ikeda's artworks.
This commentary is part of Salter MB (ed) et al. (2019) Horizon Scan: Critical security studies f... more This commentary is part of Salter MB (ed) et al. (2019) Horizon Scan: Critical security studies for the next 50 years. Security Dialogue 50(4_suppl): 9-37.
Digital data matter for (in)security practice. And yet they remain ‘neglected things’ (Puig de la Bellacasa, 2011) in critical studies on security. Certainly, critical security studies regularly enquires into the deployment of data-driven systems and the power rationalities that they foster (Amoore, 2013; Bigo, 2014; De Goede, 2018). However, critical security studies remains primarily concerned with the diverse techniques for governing through data. Critical security studies scholars fail to explore the politics underpinning the becoming of data as (in)security things. We should further explore how data are objectified as (in)security data, and how this affects our own subjectification.
What does it mean to study security from a critical perspective? This question continues to haunt... more What does it mean to study security from a critical perspective? This question continues to haunt critical security studies. Conversations about normative stances, political engagement, and the role of critique are mainstays of the discipline. This article argues that these conversations tend to revolve around a too disembodied image of research, where the everyday practice of researchers is sidelined. But researchers do do research: they work materially, socially, and cognitively. They mediate between various feedback loops or fields of critique. In doing so, they actively build and exercise critique. Recognizing that fact, this article resists growing suggestions to abandon critique by, first, returning to the practice of critique through the notion of companionship. This permits us to reinvigorate our attention to the objects, persons, and phenomena through which critique gains inspiration and purpose, and that literally accompany our relationship to critique. Second, we explore what happens when our companions disagree, when critique faces controversies and (a) symmetries. Here, we support research designs of tracing credibility and establishing symmetries in order to move away from critique as denouncing positions we disagree with. Third, we discuss the relation between companionship, critique, reflexivity, and style. Here, the rhetorical practices of critical inquiry are laid out, and possibilities for its articulation in different and less silencing voices are proposed.
First chapter of the book: "Surveillance and Democracy in Europe", edited by Kirstie Ball and Wil... more First chapter of the book: "Surveillance and Democracy in Europe", edited by Kirstie Ball and William Webster (Routledge).
Surveillance Studies often look at cultural products as pedagogical or heuristic devices, as if t... more Surveillance Studies often look at cultural products as pedagogical or heuristic devices, as if they were windows into the popular representation of surveillance practices. However, artworks may also be the (by-)products of consumers' surveillance. Online platforms like Netflix harvest vast amounts of data about clients' behaviour, so to predict their interests and produce more successful, profitable creations. In this chapter, we discuss how to think about surveillance with and against Netflix, focusing on the tensions between databases and narratives, and between politics and data-driven fiction. We explore how surveillance practices are both presented and performed when Big Data gleaned from viewers is used to tailor-script a series questioning mass surveillance, such as House of Cards. We argue that surveillance then displays itself as an embodied and transformative experience. While viewers can figure its inner workings in a more concrete manner, they are, at the same time, turned into data-breeding publics.
Nygaard, L. P., & Bellanova, R. (2017). Lost in Quantification: Scholars and the Politics of Bibliometrics. In M. J. Curry & T. Lillis (Eds.), Global Academic Publishing: Policies, Perspectives, and Pedagogies (pp. 23-36). Bristol: Multilingual Matters., 2017
As scholarship becomes increasingly globalized, bibliometric systems for quantifying research pro... more As scholarship becomes increasingly globalized, bibliometric systems for quantifying research productivity have become increasingly relevant to academia (Curry & Lillis, 2014; Lillis & Curry, 2010; Gingras, 2014; Hicks et al., 2015; Pansu et al., 2013). Bibliometric indicators are used to convert information about research activity (primarily publications and citations) into numbers that, in their apparent neutrality, seem to transcend linguistic and cultural (including disciplinary) boundaries. Developed as a way to study academic publication and citation patterns statistically, bibliometrics were originally used mostly for research purposes – to substantiate claims about who produces what and under which circumstances (De Bellis, 2014). Today, however, bibliometrics are most familiar to scholars as evaluative devices (see, e.g., Pansu et al., 2013). The aim of this chapter is to look at bibliometrics as a specific instance of quantification, and thus – as with any other form of quantification – as a form of governing things and people. The politics of bibliometrics deserve to be unpacked because even with the best intentions, developers of bibliometric indicators must make non-trivial decisions about how to measure things that are notoriously difficult to quantify (De Bellis, 2014). The chapter is organized as follows: First we present our theoretical perspective, which draws from the traditions of science and technology studies (STS) and academic literacies theory to conceptualize academic publishing as a social practice where technologies (such as bibliometric databases and algorithms) play a key role in articulating the values that underlie scholarly production. This perspective sheds light on how power is communicated through the creation of metrics – how measuring a phenomenon turns into defining it and thus how some groups can become marginalized. We illustrate this perspective by describing some of the dilemmas developers can face when constructing a bibliometric indicator that is intended to work fairly across different academic contexts. We then take a closer look at examples of two kinds of metrics to illustrate how the politics of bibliometrics work in practice: Google Scholar as an example focused on citations where technological innovations set it apart from its competitors, and the Norwegian Publication Indicator, an output-based indicator for performance-based funding of research-producing institutions in Norway. We demonstrate how each of these examples represents innovations that are meant to improve fairness yet do not fundamentally challenge the underlying notions of impact, quality, and productivity which give primacy to the natural sciences and English-language publications and thus marginalize scholars in both the geolinguistic periphery (Lillis & Curry, 2010) and the social sciences and humanities. We conclude with some thoughts about the importance of maintaining a critical stance about what goes into the construction of bibliometric indicators, how they are used, and what academia stands to lose from their widespread (and uncritical) use. The chapter will be published in: Curry MJ and Lillis T (eds) Global Academic Publishing: Policies, Perspectives, and Pedagogies. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. A flyer of the book is attached to the document.
In modern societies, surveillance is progressively emerging as a key governing tech- nique of sta... more In modern societies, surveillance is progressively emerging as a key governing tech- nique of state authorities, corporations and individuals:‘the focused, systematic and routine attention to personal details for purposes of influence, management, protection or direction’ (Lyon, 2007, p. 14). The ‘Snowden revelations’ of mass-surveillance programmes brought into the light of day the ever-increasing and far-reaching capabilities of digital surveillance technologies (Greenwald, 2014). The lack of serious reactions to these activities shows that the political will to implement digital surveillance technologies appears to be an unbroken trend. This drive towards a security governance based on digital mass-surveillance raises, however, several issues: Are the resulting infringements of privacy and other human rights compatible with the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union or the EU data protection framework and the values of demo- cratic societies? Does security necessarily depend upon mass-surveillance? Are there alternative ways to frame security? Do surveillance technologies address the most pressing security needs, and if so, are they the most efficient means to do so? In other words, the promotion and adoption by state authorities of mass-surveil- lance technologies invites us to ask again if the argument of increasing security at the cost of civil liberties is acceptable, and thus to call into question the very idea that this would be necessary to preserve democratic societies. Focusing on the citizens’ perspective on surveillance, privacy and security, this volume contributes new insights from empirical research and theoretical analysis to a debate, characterized by evident tendencies to provide simplified answers to apparently multidimensional and correspondingly complex societal issues like security. This book tries to further nurture a debate that challenges the assumption that more security requires less privacy, and that more surveillance necessarily implies more security (Bigo et al., 2008). A key motivation is the wish to incorporate into new analyses the perspectives, attitudes and preferences of citizens, understood as being the main beneficiaries of security measures, while at the same time potential and actual targets of mass-surveillance programmes conducted in the name of responding to imminent security threats.
This chapter outlines the experiences of attempting to exercise one's right of access in Norway. ... more This chapter outlines the experiences of attempting to exercise one's right of access in Norway. Using rich, ethnographic examples, this chapter tests how easy or difficult it is for a data subject based in Norway to obtain their personal data, firstly by locating the required information about organisations and their data controllers and secondly by submitting subject access requests to these organisations. The chapter reflects on the differences (if any) between public and private sector organisations in the process of responding to access requests. It also considers the potential for having submitted complaints to the national Data Protection Authority in Norway about the conduct of organisations when researchers submitted access requests to them.
Many actors mobilize the cognitive, legal and technical toolbox of data protection when they disc... more Many actors mobilize the cognitive, legal and technical toolbox of data protection when they discuss and address controversial issues such as digital mass surveillance. Yet, critical approaches to the digital only barely explore the politics of data protection in relation to data-driven governance. Building on governmentality studies and Actor-Network-Theory, this article analyses the potential and limits of using data protection to critique the 'digital age'. Using the conceptual tool of dispositifs, it sketches an analytics of data protection and the emergence of its configuration as 'data protection by design and by default'. This exploration reminds us that governing through data implies, first and foremost, governing digital data.
The EUROSUR system is supposed to further the surveillance of external borders of European Union ... more The EUROSUR system is supposed to further the surveillance of external borders of European Union Member States. From this point of view, it can be considered an important step in the construction of a controlled space. Drawing inspiration from the Foucauldian attention to programs and technologies, and mobilizing the Actor-Network-Theory concepts of setting and actant, the paper investigates EUROSUR main methodological operations. It highlights how the making of a controlled space is, first and foremost, a mise-en-discours going well beyond surveillance and prohibition: a continuous effort to make sense of a disparate multiplicity, encompassing both human and nonhuman elements, both controlled and controlling ones. From a theoretical perspective, the chapter contributes to ongoing endeavors to reinvigor-ate the post-structuralist studies of International Relations with approaches inspired by Actor-Network-Theory.
Several governments see in the mass-surveillance of passenger data the key tool of counter-terror... more Several governments see in the mass-surveillance of passenger data the key tool of counter-terrorism. These data are generally known as PNR - Passenger Name Records, and their potential for law enforcement has been discussed at least since the 1990s. Now European Union (EU) debates about the creation of a European PNR scheme seem settled once and for all. Others have already provided legal analyses of the measure to come. Here the goal is different: I aim to show how urgent it is to start researching the political dimensions of this security program right when all politics fade away.
Moving away from the traditional framing of surveillance in terms of in/visibility, this article ... more Moving away from the traditional framing of surveillance in terms of in/visibility, this article proposes a conceptual journey that investigates the potential of the notions of dis-appearance and ob-scene as alternative theoretical tools. In particular, it explores how these different perspectives can help bringing politics back into the study and the critique of surveillance. Visibility is structurally linked to invisibility, and together they configure the different modes of in/visibility allowing for the very functioning of surveillance. However, the in/visibility dyad, rather than merely describe surveillance, contributes to its operations and stabilisation. In order to better understand and unpack surveillance it is thus necessary to tackle its practices, not only in search of who watches whom, or what, but also by studying what is concealed through in/visibility, through both hiding and exposing, and what is left out of the scene (or being pushed away) in these processes. In a dialogue with Surveillance Studies and critical security studies, this contribution examines the disappearance of bodies in the deployment of security scanners and post-Snowden developments to illustrate the productivity of dis-appearance and the emergence of surveillance’s ob-scene. Against this background, the paper argues that through the lens of the ob-scene it is possible to grasp surveillance’s ripples, and open up their political discussion.
The aim of this article is to make suggestions that could empower different socio-political group... more The aim of this article is to make suggestions that could empower different socio-political groups to question surveillance. It does so by formulating sets of questions that different stakeholders can ask of themselves, of the private sector and of government, including intelligence agencies. It is divided into three main parts. The first part provides some background on resilience in surveillance societies. It defines the terms and identifies features of resilience and today's surveillance society. The second part lays out a set of questions addressed to each of the stakeholder groups. The questions are intended to promote consideration of a proposed or existing surveillance system, technology, practice or other initiative in terms of the necessity and proportionality of the system, and of whether stakeholders are being consulted. The third part offers a list of measures that can be taken to increase resilience in a surveillance society, to restrict the scope of surveillance systems to what can be legitimately justified, and to minimise the impacts of surveillance systems on the individual, groups and society.
The European Union (EU) seeks to play a leading role in steering the private work of online conte... more The European Union (EU) seeks to play a leading role in steering the private work of online content moderation, as demonstrated by numerous policy and legislative initiatives in the domain. Two initiatives, in particular, are shaping terrorist content moderation: the creation of a EU Internet Referral Unit and the adoption of a Regulation on preventing the online dissemination of terrorist content (TERREG). This article analyses these initiatives and their practical effects. In particular, it unpacks the legal and technological mechanisms at the core of EU regulation in the realm of online terrorist content moderation, and how they co-produce security decisions across public and private spheres. Based on interviews, fieldwork observations and document analysis, we show how processes of referral and removal, and processes of flagging and filtering are key to EU-directed content moderation. In conclusion, we reflect on content moderation as a novel form of European security integration.
Moving away from the traditional framing of surveillance in terms of in/visibility, this article ... more Moving away from the traditional framing of surveillance in terms of in/visibility, this article proposes a conceptual journey that investigates the potential of the notions of dis-appearance and ob-scene as alternative theoretical tools. In particular, it explores how these different perspectives can help bringing politics back into the study and the critique of surveillance.Visibility is structurally linked to invisibility, and together they configure the different modes of in/visibility allowing for the very functioning of surveillance. However, the in/visibility dyad rather than merely describe surveillance contributes to its operations and stabilisation. In order to better understand and unpack surveillance it is thus necessary to tackle its practices not only in search of who watches whom, or what, but also by studying what is concealed through in/visibility, through both hiding and exposing, and what is left out of the scene (or being pushed away) in these processes.In a dial...
Questions about how algorithms contribute to (in)security are under discussion across internation... more Questions about how algorithms contribute to (in)security are under discussion across international political sociology. Building upon and adding to these debates, our collective discussion foregrounds questions about algorithmic violence. We argue that it is important to examine how algorithmic systems feed (into) specific forms of violence, and how they justify violent actions or redefine what forms of violence are deemed legitimate. Bringing together different disciplinary and conceptual vantage points, this collective discussion opens a conversation about algorithmic violence focusing both on its specific instances and on the challenges that arise in conceptualizing and studying it. Overall, the discussion converges on three areas of concern-the violence undergirding the creation and feeding of data infrastructures; the translation processes at play in the use of computer/machine vision across diverse security practices; and the institutional governing of algorithmic violence, especially its organization, limitation , and legitimation. Our twofold aim is to show the potential of a cross-disciplinary conversation and to move toward an interactional research agenda. While our approaches diverge, they also enrich each other. Ultimately , we highlight the critical purchase of studying the role of algorithmic violence in the fabric of the international through a situated analysis of algorithmic systems as part of complex, and often messy, practices
A multitude of new research themes and objects, especially technological innovations and knowledg... more A multitude of new research themes and objects, especially technological innovations and knowledge practices, have come to populate interna- tional relations and security politics. Many critical security scholars are engaging theoretical resources from the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS) to make sense of things as diverse as fake news, climate change, financial surveillance, digital images and autonomous targeting systems. This Special Issue unpacks the core challenges and benefits we see when engaging with STS to approach the entanglements of science, technology and (in)security. Embracing the notion of trouble, this intro- duction draws upon Haraway and Butler, arguing for the need to stay close to the troubles that new research objects pose to the study of security. Taking the trouble can thus be understood as an ethos that makes us open to new research avenues and to the importance of being attentive to how relations of power and emancipation can be established in our research processes. The focus of both the introduction and the Special Issue is on how STS resources might be mobilised. Overall, this Special Issue offers further conceptual, empirical and methodological inputs to the ongoing discussion about the value of STS for the study of security politics.
This article focuses on the Schengen Information System (SIS II)-the largest data infrastructure ... more This article focuses on the Schengen Information System (SIS II)-the largest data infrastructure supporting police cooperation and border controls in the European Union. Through the SIS II, national authorities exchange information about individuals and objects, and this across national and institutional boundaries. Yet, the SIS II does not always perform as anticipated in its design scripts. Following common threads about infrastructural politics across Science and Technology Studies, political geography and critical security studies, we explore fragility and maintenance as being intrinsic to the functioning of data infrastructures and crucial sites of governance. We show how the SIS II is kept under continuous control to operate as a controlling data infrastructure. This article contributes to a critical inquiry into the datafication of border controls by interrogating how data acquire the status of allegedly credible and accurate information. Ultimately, this approach pinpoints the inherent fragility of seemingly mighty data infrastructures and casts a light on those actors and processes that sustain, through maintenance, contemporary digital borders.
This article contributes to debates on algorithmic regulation by focusing on the domain of securi... more This article contributes to debates on algorithmic regulation by focusing on the domain of security. It develops an infrastructural perspective, by analyzing how algorithmic regulation is enacted through the custom-built transatlantic data infrastructures of the EU-U.S. PNR and TFTP programs. Concerning regulation through algorithms, this approach analyzes how specific, commercial data are rendered transferable and meaningful in a security context. Concerning the regulation of algorithms, an infrastructural perspective examines how public values like privacy and accountability are built into international data infrastructures. The creation of data infrastructures affects existing modes of governance and fosters novel power relations among public and private actors. We highlight emergent modes of standard setting, thus enriching Yeung’s (2018) taxonomy, and question the practical effects of operationalizing public values through infrastructural choices. Ultimately, the article offers a critical reading of algorithmic security, and how it materially, legally, and politically supports specific ways of doing security.
Making sense of digital security practice requires grasping how data are put to use to compose th... more Making sense of digital security practice requires grasping how data are put to use to compose the governing of individuals. Data need to be understood in their becoming, and in their becoming something across diverse practices. To do this, we suggest embracing two conceptual tropes that jointly articulate the being together of, and in, data compositions: composting and computing. With composting, we approach data as lively entities, and we explore the decaying and recycling processes inside Big Data security. With computing, we approach data as embodied and embodying elements, and we unpack the surveillance of 'asylum speakers'. Together, composting and computing challenge recurrent images of data. Our conceptual composition takes sound as a necessary sensory counterpoint to popular data visions, notably in light of Ryoji Ikeda's artworks.
This commentary is part of Salter MB (ed) et al. (2019) Horizon Scan: Critical security studies f... more This commentary is part of Salter MB (ed) et al. (2019) Horizon Scan: Critical security studies for the next 50 years. Security Dialogue 50(4_suppl): 9-37.
Digital data matter for (in)security practice. And yet they remain ‘neglected things’ (Puig de la Bellacasa, 2011) in critical studies on security. Certainly, critical security studies regularly enquires into the deployment of data-driven systems and the power rationalities that they foster (Amoore, 2013; Bigo, 2014; De Goede, 2018). However, critical security studies remains primarily concerned with the diverse techniques for governing through data. Critical security studies scholars fail to explore the politics underpinning the becoming of data as (in)security things. We should further explore how data are objectified as (in)security data, and how this affects our own subjectification.
What does it mean to study security from a critical perspective? This question continues to haunt... more What does it mean to study security from a critical perspective? This question continues to haunt critical security studies. Conversations about normative stances, political engagement, and the role of critique are mainstays of the discipline. This article argues that these conversations tend to revolve around a too disembodied image of research, where the everyday practice of researchers is sidelined. But researchers do do research: they work materially, socially, and cognitively. They mediate between various feedback loops or fields of critique. In doing so, they actively build and exercise critique. Recognizing that fact, this article resists growing suggestions to abandon critique by, first, returning to the practice of critique through the notion of companionship. This permits us to reinvigorate our attention to the objects, persons, and phenomena through which critique gains inspiration and purpose, and that literally accompany our relationship to critique. Second, we explore what happens when our companions disagree, when critique faces controversies and (a) symmetries. Here, we support research designs of tracing credibility and establishing symmetries in order to move away from critique as denouncing positions we disagree with. Third, we discuss the relation between companionship, critique, reflexivity, and style. Here, the rhetorical practices of critical inquiry are laid out, and possibilities for its articulation in different and less silencing voices are proposed.
First chapter of the book: "Surveillance and Democracy in Europe", edited by Kirstie Ball and Wil... more First chapter of the book: "Surveillance and Democracy in Europe", edited by Kirstie Ball and William Webster (Routledge).
Surveillance Studies often look at cultural products as pedagogical or heuristic devices, as if t... more Surveillance Studies often look at cultural products as pedagogical or heuristic devices, as if they were windows into the popular representation of surveillance practices. However, artworks may also be the (by-)products of consumers' surveillance. Online platforms like Netflix harvest vast amounts of data about clients' behaviour, so to predict their interests and produce more successful, profitable creations. In this chapter, we discuss how to think about surveillance with and against Netflix, focusing on the tensions between databases and narratives, and between politics and data-driven fiction. We explore how surveillance practices are both presented and performed when Big Data gleaned from viewers is used to tailor-script a series questioning mass surveillance, such as House of Cards. We argue that surveillance then displays itself as an embodied and transformative experience. While viewers can figure its inner workings in a more concrete manner, they are, at the same time, turned into data-breeding publics.
Nygaard, L. P., & Bellanova, R. (2017). Lost in Quantification: Scholars and the Politics of Bibliometrics. In M. J. Curry & T. Lillis (Eds.), Global Academic Publishing: Policies, Perspectives, and Pedagogies (pp. 23-36). Bristol: Multilingual Matters., 2017
As scholarship becomes increasingly globalized, bibliometric systems for quantifying research pro... more As scholarship becomes increasingly globalized, bibliometric systems for quantifying research productivity have become increasingly relevant to academia (Curry & Lillis, 2014; Lillis & Curry, 2010; Gingras, 2014; Hicks et al., 2015; Pansu et al., 2013). Bibliometric indicators are used to convert information about research activity (primarily publications and citations) into numbers that, in their apparent neutrality, seem to transcend linguistic and cultural (including disciplinary) boundaries. Developed as a way to study academic publication and citation patterns statistically, bibliometrics were originally used mostly for research purposes – to substantiate claims about who produces what and under which circumstances (De Bellis, 2014). Today, however, bibliometrics are most familiar to scholars as evaluative devices (see, e.g., Pansu et al., 2013). The aim of this chapter is to look at bibliometrics as a specific instance of quantification, and thus – as with any other form of quantification – as a form of governing things and people. The politics of bibliometrics deserve to be unpacked because even with the best intentions, developers of bibliometric indicators must make non-trivial decisions about how to measure things that are notoriously difficult to quantify (De Bellis, 2014). The chapter is organized as follows: First we present our theoretical perspective, which draws from the traditions of science and technology studies (STS) and academic literacies theory to conceptualize academic publishing as a social practice where technologies (such as bibliometric databases and algorithms) play a key role in articulating the values that underlie scholarly production. This perspective sheds light on how power is communicated through the creation of metrics – how measuring a phenomenon turns into defining it and thus how some groups can become marginalized. We illustrate this perspective by describing some of the dilemmas developers can face when constructing a bibliometric indicator that is intended to work fairly across different academic contexts. We then take a closer look at examples of two kinds of metrics to illustrate how the politics of bibliometrics work in practice: Google Scholar as an example focused on citations where technological innovations set it apart from its competitors, and the Norwegian Publication Indicator, an output-based indicator for performance-based funding of research-producing institutions in Norway. We demonstrate how each of these examples represents innovations that are meant to improve fairness yet do not fundamentally challenge the underlying notions of impact, quality, and productivity which give primacy to the natural sciences and English-language publications and thus marginalize scholars in both the geolinguistic periphery (Lillis & Curry, 2010) and the social sciences and humanities. We conclude with some thoughts about the importance of maintaining a critical stance about what goes into the construction of bibliometric indicators, how they are used, and what academia stands to lose from their widespread (and uncritical) use. The chapter will be published in: Curry MJ and Lillis T (eds) Global Academic Publishing: Policies, Perspectives, and Pedagogies. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. A flyer of the book is attached to the document.
In modern societies, surveillance is progressively emerging as a key governing tech- nique of sta... more In modern societies, surveillance is progressively emerging as a key governing tech- nique of state authorities, corporations and individuals:‘the focused, systematic and routine attention to personal details for purposes of influence, management, protection or direction’ (Lyon, 2007, p. 14). The ‘Snowden revelations’ of mass-surveillance programmes brought into the light of day the ever-increasing and far-reaching capabilities of digital surveillance technologies (Greenwald, 2014). The lack of serious reactions to these activities shows that the political will to implement digital surveillance technologies appears to be an unbroken trend. This drive towards a security governance based on digital mass-surveillance raises, however, several issues: Are the resulting infringements of privacy and other human rights compatible with the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union or the EU data protection framework and the values of demo- cratic societies? Does security necessarily depend upon mass-surveillance? Are there alternative ways to frame security? Do surveillance technologies address the most pressing security needs, and if so, are they the most efficient means to do so? In other words, the promotion and adoption by state authorities of mass-surveil- lance technologies invites us to ask again if the argument of increasing security at the cost of civil liberties is acceptable, and thus to call into question the very idea that this would be necessary to preserve democratic societies. Focusing on the citizens’ perspective on surveillance, privacy and security, this volume contributes new insights from empirical research and theoretical analysis to a debate, characterized by evident tendencies to provide simplified answers to apparently multidimensional and correspondingly complex societal issues like security. This book tries to further nurture a debate that challenges the assumption that more security requires less privacy, and that more surveillance necessarily implies more security (Bigo et al., 2008). A key motivation is the wish to incorporate into new analyses the perspectives, attitudes and preferences of citizens, understood as being the main beneficiaries of security measures, while at the same time potential and actual targets of mass-surveillance programmes conducted in the name of responding to imminent security threats.
This chapter outlines the experiences of attempting to exercise one's right of access in Norway. ... more This chapter outlines the experiences of attempting to exercise one's right of access in Norway. Using rich, ethnographic examples, this chapter tests how easy or difficult it is for a data subject based in Norway to obtain their personal data, firstly by locating the required information about organisations and their data controllers and secondly by submitting subject access requests to these organisations. The chapter reflects on the differences (if any) between public and private sector organisations in the process of responding to access requests. It also considers the potential for having submitted complaints to the national Data Protection Authority in Norway about the conduct of organisations when researchers submitted access requests to them.
Many actors mobilize the cognitive, legal and technical toolbox of data protection when they disc... more Many actors mobilize the cognitive, legal and technical toolbox of data protection when they discuss and address controversial issues such as digital mass surveillance. Yet, critical approaches to the digital only barely explore the politics of data protection in relation to data-driven governance. Building on governmentality studies and Actor-Network-Theory, this article analyses the potential and limits of using data protection to critique the 'digital age'. Using the conceptual tool of dispositifs, it sketches an analytics of data protection and the emergence of its configuration as 'data protection by design and by default'. This exploration reminds us that governing through data implies, first and foremost, governing digital data.
The EUROSUR system is supposed to further the surveillance of external borders of European Union ... more The EUROSUR system is supposed to further the surveillance of external borders of European Union Member States. From this point of view, it can be considered an important step in the construction of a controlled space. Drawing inspiration from the Foucauldian attention to programs and technologies, and mobilizing the Actor-Network-Theory concepts of setting and actant, the paper investigates EUROSUR main methodological operations. It highlights how the making of a controlled space is, first and foremost, a mise-en-discours going well beyond surveillance and prohibition: a continuous effort to make sense of a disparate multiplicity, encompassing both human and nonhuman elements, both controlled and controlling ones. From a theoretical perspective, the chapter contributes to ongoing endeavors to reinvigor-ate the post-structuralist studies of International Relations with approaches inspired by Actor-Network-Theory.
Several governments see in the mass-surveillance of passenger data the key tool of counter-terror... more Several governments see in the mass-surveillance of passenger data the key tool of counter-terrorism. These data are generally known as PNR - Passenger Name Records, and their potential for law enforcement has been discussed at least since the 1990s. Now European Union (EU) debates about the creation of a European PNR scheme seem settled once and for all. Others have already provided legal analyses of the measure to come. Here the goal is different: I aim to show how urgent it is to start researching the political dimensions of this security program right when all politics fade away.
Moving away from the traditional framing of surveillance in terms of in/visibility, this article ... more Moving away from the traditional framing of surveillance in terms of in/visibility, this article proposes a conceptual journey that investigates the potential of the notions of dis-appearance and ob-scene as alternative theoretical tools. In particular, it explores how these different perspectives can help bringing politics back into the study and the critique of surveillance. Visibility is structurally linked to invisibility, and together they configure the different modes of in/visibility allowing for the very functioning of surveillance. However, the in/visibility dyad, rather than merely describe surveillance, contributes to its operations and stabilisation. In order to better understand and unpack surveillance it is thus necessary to tackle its practices, not only in search of who watches whom, or what, but also by studying what is concealed through in/visibility, through both hiding and exposing, and what is left out of the scene (or being pushed away) in these processes. In a dialogue with Surveillance Studies and critical security studies, this contribution examines the disappearance of bodies in the deployment of security scanners and post-Snowden developments to illustrate the productivity of dis-appearance and the emergence of surveillance’s ob-scene. Against this background, the paper argues that through the lens of the ob-scene it is possible to grasp surveillance’s ripples, and open up their political discussion.
The aim of this article is to make suggestions that could empower different socio-political group... more The aim of this article is to make suggestions that could empower different socio-political groups to question surveillance. It does so by formulating sets of questions that different stakeholders can ask of themselves, of the private sector and of government, including intelligence agencies. It is divided into three main parts. The first part provides some background on resilience in surveillance societies. It defines the terms and identifies features of resilience and today's surveillance society. The second part lays out a set of questions addressed to each of the stakeholder groups. The questions are intended to promote consideration of a proposed or existing surveillance system, technology, practice or other initiative in terms of the necessity and proportionality of the system, and of whether stakeholders are being consulted. The third part offers a list of measures that can be taken to increase resilience in a surveillance society, to restrict the scope of surveillance systems to what can be legitimately justified, and to minimise the impacts of surveillance systems on the individual, groups and society.
This co-edited volume examines the relationship between privacy, surveillance and security, and t... more This co-edited volume examines the relationship between privacy, surveillance and security, and the alleged privacy– security trade-off, focusing on the citizen's perspective. Recent revelations of mass surveillance programmes clearly demonstrate the ever-increasing capabilities of surveillance technologies. The lack of serious reactions to these activities shows that the political will to implement them appears to be an unbroken trend. The resulting move into a surveillance society is, however, contested for many reasons. Are the resulting infringements of privacy and other human rights compatible with democratic societies? Is security necessarily depending on surveillance? Are there alternative ways to frame security? Is it possible to gain in security by giving up civil liberties, or is it even necessary to do so, and do citizens adopt this trade-off? This volume contributes to a better and deeper understanding of the relation between privacy, surveillance and security, comprising in-depth investigations and studies of the common narrative that more security can only come at the expense of sacrifice of privacy. The book combines theoretical research with a wide range of empirical studies focusing on the citizen's perspective. It presents empirical research exploring factors and criteria relevant for the assessment of surveillance technologies. The book also deals with the governance of surveillance technologies. New approaches and instruments for the regulation of security technologies and measures are presented, and recommendations for security policies in line with ethics and fundamental rights are discussed. This book will be of much interest to students of surveillance studies, critical security studies, intelligence studies, EU politics and IR in general.
What does it mean to study security from a critical perspective? This question has preoccupied Cr... more What does it mean to study security from a critical perspective? This question has preoccupied Critical Security Studies (CSS) since its beginnings, and continues to do so. Conversations about normative stances, political engagement, and the role of critique are a mainstay of the discipline. Such scholarly debate is a sign of vibrant commitment to the exercise of reflexivity. Nonetheless, this conversation has tended to revolve around a rather too disembodied image of doing research, where the everyday practice of researchers is often side-lined. Yet, researchers do do research: they work materially, socially, and cognitively. They select sources, they engage with their research objects, they publish analyses, they teach classes, they speak publicly, etc. As such, researchers are mediating nodes between various circulations, feedback loops, translations, or fields of critique. This special issue focuses on the practices of doing and mediating critique within CSS. Doing and mediating refers to the ways in which researchers are both consumers of 'sources', such as interviews, reports, and other scholarly publications, but also producers of 'sources' when their work becomes a textual, visual, and/or material artifact.
The fourth season of the Netflix series House of Cards has been released worldwide on the 4th Mar... more The fourth season of the Netflix series House of Cards has been released worldwide on the 4th March. In this post, I want to highlight an interesting (dis-)continuity brought about by this latest season. This is apparently only a slight modification of the usual underlying rationale in House of Cards, but I nonetheless believe it deserves more attention. Let me be even bolder – for the sake of argument – this (dis-)continuity shows the potential of this kind of popular culture products to make researchers think more thoroughly about world-views on politics and power. Quite unsurprisingly, one of the running themes of the 4th season of House of Cards is domestic mass-surveillance of telecommunications: the use of the FISA scheme and the political dimension of counter-terrorism policy. What is really interesting is that the show gives a subtle but important twist to the topic of data surveillance. On the one side we have the US president pushing for extending further domestic surveillance, and on the other side we have his main political opponent deliberately using data generated by online searches. In pure House of Cards’ style, the President’s team tries to win the data-race against the other candidate by using the data syphoned by counter-terrorist agencies. From this (somewhat tortuous) perspective, the question of domestic mass-surveillance is introduced in a slightly different way of what we are now used. It is not only a problem of civil liberties and of ambiguous public/private partnerships and tensions. Boosting counter-terrorism surveillance is not presented only as a perverse solution to hijack the attention of the electorate in crucial moments. It is (re)presented, first and foremost, in relation to the emergence of a new mode of knowledge generation.
A world without the need for critique is unthinkable. And yet, Critical Security Studies (CSS) ha... more A world without the need for critique is unthinkable. And yet, Critical Security Studies (CSS) have learned that critique is a difficult and far from self-evident exercise. The Security Dialogue 50th anniversary issue builds on this legacy and addresses, once again, the specter of critique. It is an attempt to give words to the messy states of affairs that we explore with our research.
(Smart)phones are a much-used tool by migrants and refugees to find and share relevant informatio... more (Smart)phones are a much-used tool by migrants and refugees to find and share relevant information along the way. Several European governments allow – or seek new legislation to allow – the search of these devices and related digital traces in order to verify asylum seekers’ identity and run security checks. This raises a series of questions. Among them are the proportionality of such measures; the rights of the persons whose personal information is being searched; and, overall, the digital vulnerability of migrants and refugees.
Images of refugees using smartphones have now become common in the Western media landscape, and e... more Images of refugees using smartphones have now become common in the Western media landscape, and everybody seems to have learned that refugees and migrants, too, use smartphones. Indicative of this awareness, European governments are now looking into how to make use of these assets in their identity checks and in the processing of asylum seekers’ demands. As such, smartphones are not just a key tool for surviving long and dangerous journeys, but also an asset that makes anyone using it more vulnerable to digital surveillance. In this blog post, we discuss how smartphones are becoming the new best and worst friend of refugees and migrants.
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Papers by Rocco Bellanova
Digital data matter for (in)security practice. And yet they remain ‘neglected things’ (Puig de la Bellacasa, 2011) in critical studies on security. Certainly, critical security studies regularly enquires into the deployment of data-driven systems and the power rationalities that they foster (Amoore, 2013; Bigo, 2014; De Goede, 2018). However, critical security studies remains primarily concerned with the diverse techniques for governing through data. Critical security studies scholars fail to explore the politics underpinning the becoming of data as (in)security things. We should further explore how data are objectified as (in)security data, and how this affects our own subjectification.
security studies. Conversations about normative stances, political engagement, and the role of critique
are mainstays of the discipline. This article argues that these conversations tend to revolve around a too
disembodied image of research, where the everyday practice of researchers is sidelined. But researchers do
do research: they work materially, socially, and cognitively. They mediate between various feedback loops or
fields of critique. In doing so, they actively build and exercise critique. Recognizing that fact, this article resists
growing suggestions to abandon critique by, first, returning to the practice of critique through the notion
of companionship. This permits us to reinvigorate our attention to the objects, persons, and phenomena
through which critique gains inspiration and purpose, and that literally accompany our relationship to critique.
Second, we explore what happens when our companions disagree, when critique faces controversies and (a)
symmetries. Here, we support research designs of tracing credibility and establishing symmetries in order to
move away from critique as denouncing positions we disagree with. Third, we discuss the relation between
companionship, critique, reflexivity, and style. Here, the rhetorical practices of critical inquiry are laid out,
and possibilities for its articulation in different and less silencing voices are proposed.
The chapter is organized as follows: First we present our theoretical perspective, which draws from the traditions of science and technology studies (STS) and academic literacies theory to conceptualize academic publishing as a social practice where technologies (such as bibliometric databases and algorithms) play a key role in articulating the values that underlie scholarly production. This perspective sheds light on how power is communicated through the creation of metrics – how measuring a phenomenon turns into defining it and thus how some groups can become marginalized. We illustrate this perspective by describing some of the dilemmas developers can face when constructing a bibliometric indicator that is intended to work fairly across different academic contexts. We then take a closer look at examples of two kinds of metrics to illustrate how the politics of bibliometrics work in practice: Google Scholar as an example focused on citations where technological innovations set it apart from its competitors, and the Norwegian Publication Indicator, an output-based indicator for performance-based funding of research-producing institutions in Norway. We demonstrate how each of these examples represents innovations that are meant to improve fairness yet do not fundamentally challenge the underlying notions of impact, quality, and productivity which give primacy to the natural sciences and English-language publications and thus marginalize scholars in both the geolinguistic periphery (Lillis & Curry, 2010) and the social sciences and humanities. We conclude with some thoughts about the importance of maintaining a critical stance about what goes into the construction of bibliometric indicators, how they are used, and what academia stands to lose from their widespread (and uncritical) use.
The chapter will be published in: Curry MJ and Lillis T (eds) Global Academic Publishing: Policies, Perspectives, and Pedagogies. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. A flyer of the book is attached to the document.
This drive towards a security governance based on digital mass-surveillance raises, however, several issues: Are the resulting infringements of privacy and other human rights compatible with the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union or the EU data protection framework and the values of demo- cratic societies? Does security necessarily depend upon mass-surveillance? Are there alternative ways to frame security? Do surveillance technologies address the most pressing security needs, and if so, are they the most efficient means to do so? In other words, the promotion and adoption by state authorities of mass-surveil- lance technologies invites us to ask again if the argument of increasing security at the cost of civil liberties is acceptable, and thus to call into question the very idea that this would be necessary to preserve democratic societies.
Focusing on the citizens’ perspective on surveillance, privacy and security, this volume contributes new insights from empirical research and theoretical analysis to a debate, characterized by evident tendencies to provide simplified answers to apparently multidimensional and correspondingly complex societal issues like security. This book tries to further nurture a debate that challenges the assumption that more security requires less privacy, and that more surveillance necessarily implies more security (Bigo et al., 2008). A key motivation is the wish to incorporate into new analyses the perspectives, attitudes and preferences of citizens, understood as being the main beneficiaries of security measures, while at the same time potential and actual targets of mass-surveillance programmes conducted in the name of responding to imminent security threats.
Visibility is structurally linked to invisibility, and together they configure the different modes of in/visibility allowing for the very functioning of surveillance. However, the in/visibility dyad, rather than merely describe surveillance, contributes to its operations and stabilisation. In order to better understand and unpack surveillance it is thus necessary to tackle its practices, not only in search of who watches whom, or what, but also by studying what is concealed through in/visibility, through both hiding and exposing, and what is left out of the scene (or being pushed away) in these processes.
In a dialogue with Surveillance Studies and critical security studies, this contribution examines the disappearance of bodies in the deployment of security scanners and post-Snowden developments to illustrate the productivity of dis-appearance and the emergence of surveillance’s ob-scene. Against this background, the paper argues that through the lens of the ob-scene it is possible to grasp surveillance’s ripples, and open up their political discussion.
Digital data matter for (in)security practice. And yet they remain ‘neglected things’ (Puig de la Bellacasa, 2011) in critical studies on security. Certainly, critical security studies regularly enquires into the deployment of data-driven systems and the power rationalities that they foster (Amoore, 2013; Bigo, 2014; De Goede, 2018). However, critical security studies remains primarily concerned with the diverse techniques for governing through data. Critical security studies scholars fail to explore the politics underpinning the becoming of data as (in)security things. We should further explore how data are objectified as (in)security data, and how this affects our own subjectification.
security studies. Conversations about normative stances, political engagement, and the role of critique
are mainstays of the discipline. This article argues that these conversations tend to revolve around a too
disembodied image of research, where the everyday practice of researchers is sidelined. But researchers do
do research: they work materially, socially, and cognitively. They mediate between various feedback loops or
fields of critique. In doing so, they actively build and exercise critique. Recognizing that fact, this article resists
growing suggestions to abandon critique by, first, returning to the practice of critique through the notion
of companionship. This permits us to reinvigorate our attention to the objects, persons, and phenomena
through which critique gains inspiration and purpose, and that literally accompany our relationship to critique.
Second, we explore what happens when our companions disagree, when critique faces controversies and (a)
symmetries. Here, we support research designs of tracing credibility and establishing symmetries in order to
move away from critique as denouncing positions we disagree with. Third, we discuss the relation between
companionship, critique, reflexivity, and style. Here, the rhetorical practices of critical inquiry are laid out,
and possibilities for its articulation in different and less silencing voices are proposed.
The chapter is organized as follows: First we present our theoretical perspective, which draws from the traditions of science and technology studies (STS) and academic literacies theory to conceptualize academic publishing as a social practice where technologies (such as bibliometric databases and algorithms) play a key role in articulating the values that underlie scholarly production. This perspective sheds light on how power is communicated through the creation of metrics – how measuring a phenomenon turns into defining it and thus how some groups can become marginalized. We illustrate this perspective by describing some of the dilemmas developers can face when constructing a bibliometric indicator that is intended to work fairly across different academic contexts. We then take a closer look at examples of two kinds of metrics to illustrate how the politics of bibliometrics work in practice: Google Scholar as an example focused on citations where technological innovations set it apart from its competitors, and the Norwegian Publication Indicator, an output-based indicator for performance-based funding of research-producing institutions in Norway. We demonstrate how each of these examples represents innovations that are meant to improve fairness yet do not fundamentally challenge the underlying notions of impact, quality, and productivity which give primacy to the natural sciences and English-language publications and thus marginalize scholars in both the geolinguistic periphery (Lillis & Curry, 2010) and the social sciences and humanities. We conclude with some thoughts about the importance of maintaining a critical stance about what goes into the construction of bibliometric indicators, how they are used, and what academia stands to lose from their widespread (and uncritical) use.
The chapter will be published in: Curry MJ and Lillis T (eds) Global Academic Publishing: Policies, Perspectives, and Pedagogies. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. A flyer of the book is attached to the document.
This drive towards a security governance based on digital mass-surveillance raises, however, several issues: Are the resulting infringements of privacy and other human rights compatible with the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union or the EU data protection framework and the values of demo- cratic societies? Does security necessarily depend upon mass-surveillance? Are there alternative ways to frame security? Do surveillance technologies address the most pressing security needs, and if so, are they the most efficient means to do so? In other words, the promotion and adoption by state authorities of mass-surveil- lance technologies invites us to ask again if the argument of increasing security at the cost of civil liberties is acceptable, and thus to call into question the very idea that this would be necessary to preserve democratic societies.
Focusing on the citizens’ perspective on surveillance, privacy and security, this volume contributes new insights from empirical research and theoretical analysis to a debate, characterized by evident tendencies to provide simplified answers to apparently multidimensional and correspondingly complex societal issues like security. This book tries to further nurture a debate that challenges the assumption that more security requires less privacy, and that more surveillance necessarily implies more security (Bigo et al., 2008). A key motivation is the wish to incorporate into new analyses the perspectives, attitudes and preferences of citizens, understood as being the main beneficiaries of security measures, while at the same time potential and actual targets of mass-surveillance programmes conducted in the name of responding to imminent security threats.
Visibility is structurally linked to invisibility, and together they configure the different modes of in/visibility allowing for the very functioning of surveillance. However, the in/visibility dyad, rather than merely describe surveillance, contributes to its operations and stabilisation. In order to better understand and unpack surveillance it is thus necessary to tackle its practices, not only in search of who watches whom, or what, but also by studying what is concealed through in/visibility, through both hiding and exposing, and what is left out of the scene (or being pushed away) in these processes.
In a dialogue with Surveillance Studies and critical security studies, this contribution examines the disappearance of bodies in the deployment of security scanners and post-Snowden developments to illustrate the productivity of dis-appearance and the emergence of surveillance’s ob-scene. Against this background, the paper argues that through the lens of the ob-scene it is possible to grasp surveillance’s ripples, and open up their political discussion.
Nonetheless, this conversation has tended to revolve around a rather too disembodied image of doing research, where the everyday practice of researchers is often side-lined. Yet, researchers do do research: they work materially, socially, and cognitively. They select sources, they engage with their research objects, they publish analyses, they teach classes, they speak publicly, etc. As such, researchers are mediating nodes between various circulations, feedback loops, translations, or fields of critique.
This special issue focuses on the practices of doing and mediating critique within CSS. Doing and mediating refers to the ways in which researchers are both consumers of 'sources', such as interviews, reports, and other scholarly publications, but also producers of 'sources' when their work becomes a textual, visual, and/or material artifact.