the articulation of identity in discourses of surveillance in the united kingdom

383 Pages·2016·1.86 MB·English

by  Christine Middleton

THE ARTICULATION OF IDENTITY IN DISCOURSES OF
SURVEILLANCE IN THE UNITED KINGDOM

David Wills, BA, MA

Thesis submitted to the University of Nottingham
for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
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Abstract
This thesis enacts a discursive approach to surveillance in the UK, revealing
implications for surveillance theory, governmentality theory, and for political and
social identity theories. It demonstrates the importance of a discursive approach to
surveillance, as an expansion of assemblage models of surveillance. It finds
convergence between government, governance, finance and media discourses,
sufficient to conceive of these as forming a shared governmental discourse of
surveillance. Governmental, financial and media discourses tend to privilege the
assumption that surveillance systems are effective and accurate. This ideological
function elides the contingent nature of surveillant practices, presenting them as non-
political technological functions. Governmentality accounts of surveillance are
supplemented by an expanded understanding of identity as a contested concept, or
floating signifier, articulated in particular ways in governmental discourses. The
discourse theory informed analysis in this thesis points to a distinct articulation of
identity – the governmental surveillant identity – a political attempt to fix the meaning
of identity, and construct a surveillance-permeable form that draws upon the
privileging of technological truth over human truth. Identity is articulated across many
of the five discourses studied as socially vulnerable. The core articulation of the
problem of governance is that identity is problematised; unreliable for the proper
functioning of governance in society. Because identity is vulnerable and because
identity‘s ontological nature makes it possible, identity must be checked and secured.

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Acknowledgements

My supervisors, Mathew Humphrey, Richard Aldrich and Sujatha Raman, for their
advice and guidance, as well as the thesis review panel in the School of Politics and
International Relations.

The surveillance studies community, especially those I met and spoke with at
Theorising Surveillance (2005), Crime, Justice and Surveillance (2006) and the
Surveillance Studies Summer Seminar (2007), and the organisers and participants in
the ESRC/Surveillance Studies Network ‗Everyday life of surveillance‘ seminar
series.

The Economic and Social Research Council, for the ‗1+3‘ funding award that made
this research possible.

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Contents
Abstract 2
Acknowledgements 3
Contents 4

1) Introduction……………………………………………………………………8

Research Findings 13
Research Design 15

2) Surveillance Studies and Surveillance Theory: Governmentality, Identity and
Discourse…………………………………………………………………………20

Surveillance research 21
Surveillance in the United Kingdom 32
Controversies and debates in surveillance research 34
The surveillance society 34
Dystopias and perfect surveillance vs complexity and resistance
39
Centrality of the state 44
Technological determinism 51
The Panopticon 54
Controversies and debates 61
Governmentality 62
Identity – contested and constructed 73
Identity in surveillance practice 73
UK ID Cards 77
Identity in surveillance theory 79
Identity in governance 82
‘Identity politics’ 85
Discourse and surveillance 87
Discourse in governmentality 91
Conclusion 92
Implications and considerations 93
Research problem – identity in discourses of surveillance 96
Research questions 109

3) Research Design and Methodology – Discourse Theory and Analysis….113

Introduction 113
Discourse analysis 114
Discourse theory – Laclau and Mouffe 115
Key concepts 118
Discourse 118
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Articulation 121
Hegemony 124
Logics of equivalence and difference 127
Identity in discourse theory 130
Dislocation and ideology 133
Criticisms of discourse theory 136
Marxism? 136
Catachresis and the concept of discourse 137
Contingency and structure 141
Empirical concerns 145
Applicability of discourse theory as a methodology 146
Foucauldian discourse theory 146
Strengths of discourse theory 149
Operationalising the theory – textual analysis 152
Text selection 156
Sampling 156
Case study approach 157
Positive text selection 163
Limitations on text selection 165
Locating texts 166
Evaluation of research 167
„Rearticulated‟ research questions 170

4) Representations of Surveillance………………………………………………177

ICO discourses 177
Necessity 180
Appropriateness 181
Legitimacy 182
Consent 183

Government discourses of surveillance 185
Identity cards 185
Non-identity card surveillant social practices 194
Identity theft 196

Oppositional discourses of surveillance 198
Representation of surveillant social practices 198
Representation of the ID card scheme 200

Banking and financial discourses 204
Identification 205
Credit ratings 213
Identity theft 215
Personal information economy 222

News media discourses 224
Dominant media frames 224
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Economic themes 225
Division of protagonists into ‘them’ and ‘us’ 226
Perceptions of control by powerful others 229
Human impact of issues 232
Application of moral values 234

5) Subject Positions in Discourses of Surveillance………………………………240

Introduction 240
The individual 241
Chains of equivalence and negatively evaluated actors 250
Victims and vulnerable people 263
Conclusions 270

6) Articulations of Identity……………………………………………………..273

Identity is ontologically objective 273
Identity is unitary 279
Identity is associated with external physical characteristics 283
Identity is shallow 286
Identity is behavioural, based upon probabilistic and actuarial logics
293
Identity is not controlled by the individual but attributed by trusted
sources 293
Identity is historically persistent 299
Identity is valuable and socially vulnerable 301
Identity can be stolen 307
Mechanisms of identity are inadequate 308
Response: a more secure form of identity necessary 311
Response: individual responsibility and stewardship of identity
312
Counter-articulation: identity is not a social problem 319
Conclusions 321

7) Conclusions and Implications…………………………………………………324

Conclusions to research questions 324
Discourses of surveillance in the UK 324
Rationalities at play in discourses of surveillance 325
The problems of governmentality in discourses of surveillance
325
Subject positions in discourses 326
Articulation of individual identity in discourses of surveillance
327
Theoretical implications 328
Surveillance theory 328
Governmentality theory 331
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Political and social theories of identity 333
Political implications 335
The representation of surveillance 335
Normalisation 336
Limiting surveillance 336
Data protection requirements as empty signifiers 337
Accuracy and effectiveness 338
Human truth vs. technological truth 338
Subject positions 340
Identity articulation 342
Elements of identity 348
Ontological realism 348
Identity can be true OR false 349
No legitimate multiple identities 350
Identity as recordable facts 350
Behavioural and inferential 351
Attribution 352
Consistent over time/space 354
Identity is under threat 355
Policy implications 355
Conclusions 361

8) Bibliography………………………………………………………………….361

9) Bibliography of Analysed Texts in thesis…………………………………...375

ICO 375
Government 376
Opposition 378
Banking and finance 378
News Media 380

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Chapter One: Introduction

There currently exists no thorough analysis of the discursive politics of surveillance
and identity in the United Kingdom. This thesis therefore hopes to go beyond
theoretical insights to provide greater understanding of the particular case study. The
United Kingdom was recently ranked fourth in the world for surveillance of its
population, coming in behind China, Malaysia and Russia.1 There has been significant
concern over the extent to which the UK is, or is becoming, a surveillance society.
Surveillance is politically controversial, encountering opposition, both organised and
diffuse, attracting media attention and comment, and causing feelings of concern and
discomfort. This thesis enacts a discursive approach to surveillance in the UK,
revealing implications for surveillance theory, governmentality theory, and for
political and social identity theories.

There are shared regularities of articulation of surveillance practices across a number
of fields of discourse. There is convergence between government, governance,
finance and media discourses, sufficient to conceive of these as forming a shared
governmental discourse of surveillance. Across the governmental discourses is
identified a particular governmental articulation of identity and the technological-
utopian intentions constructed alongside this.

Whilst discourse and governmentality theories suggest an understanding of identities
as subject positions or subjectivities, the discourse analysis in this thesis points to a
distinct articulation of identity – the governmental surveillant identity.
Governmentality accounts of surveillance are supplemented by an expanded

1 http://www.privacyinternational.org/article.shtml?cmd[347]=x-347-559597
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understanding of identity as a contested concept, or floating signifier, articulated in
particular ways in governmental discourses, rather than solely a theoretical marker for
subjectivities. Within governmental discourses there are political attempts to fix the
meaning of identity, and construct a surveillance-permeable form that draws upon the
privileging of technological truth over human truth.

This thesis arises from within the field of surveillance studies, drawing upon a
distinctly political post-structural perspective, bolstered by theories of information
and technology. This thesis provides three novel interventions. Firstly the theoretical
advance provided through the examination of the double role of identity as both
subjectivity and contested concept, secondly the application of discourse theory
methodology to the phenomena of surveillance, and thirdly, the detailed textual
analysis of empirically occurring discursive politics of surveillance and identity in the
UK. In so doing, the thesis introduces a discursive dimension to the theory of the
surveillant assemblage, one of the most significant post-panoptic surveillance
theories, fitting well with its Deleuzian origins.

Discourses construct the reality of social problems, and what are deemed to be
appropriate social and political responses to those problems. A dominant type of
discourse in the UK at the start of the 21st century is one which privileges
technologically mediated surveillant responses to a wide range of social problems,
privileges the outputs of those systems and normalises both their use and
implementation. At the heart of these discourses of surveillance is a particular way of
understanding the concept of identity: the surveillant articulation of identity. Identity
fraud and identity cards are both phenomena of surveillance and identification; one is
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a criminal activity and the other a state function. What is shared between these two
phenomena is a shared articulation of the concept of identity that operates across a
number of social discourses. The very concept of individual identity is articulated by
many of the practices and the discourses of surveillance, including identity cards,
identity theft and the securitisation of identity. Identity is an act of power, and the
ways political actors think and talk about identity have political effects. This can be
understood as a struggle for discursive hegemony with political implications.

Understanding this trend requires an exploration of the discursive environment of
surveillance in the early 21st century. The governmental surveillance identity is
ontologically objective, unitary, biologically determinist, shallow but compelling,
behavioural and based on actuarial and probabilistic logics, attributed by structured
society, historically persistent and resistant to change. Importantly, identity is
articulated across many of the discourses of surveillance as vulnerable. It is this
vulnerability that necessitates and legitimates the surveillant response. The core
articulation of the problem of governance within the governmental discourse is that
identity is problematised: it cannot be relied upon for the proper functioning of
governance in society. Whilst identity is ontologically objective, its existing social
manifestations are vulnerable. Because identity is vulnerable to theft and forgery,
because multiple identities are associated with negatively evaluated practice and
social actors such as terrorists and illegal immigrants, and because identity‘s essential
ontological nature makes it possible, identity must be checked and secured. It cannot
be left undetermined or ambiguous. Governmental discourses of surveillance
construct a range of social problems, such as fraud, terrorism and immigration and in
so doing, delimit the range of acceptable solutions to those social problems. These
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