Surveillance and Identity: Discourse, Subjectivity and the State

222 Pages·2012·1.041 MB·English

by  David Barnard-Wills

Surveillance and identity
To K.
Surveillance and identity
discourse, Subjectivity and the State
david Barnard-WillS
Cranfield University, UK
© david Barnard-Wills 2012
all rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording
or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
david Barnard-Wills has asserted his right under the copyright, designs and Patents act,
1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
Published by
ashgate Publishing limited ashgate Publishing company
Wey court east Suite 420
union road 101 cherry Street
Farnham Burlington
Surrey, Gu9 7Pt vt 05401-4405
england uSa
www.ashgate.com
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Barnard-Wills, david.
Surveillance and identity : discourse, subjectivity and the
state.
1. electronic surveillance--Social aspects--Great
Britain. 2. electronic surveillance--Government policy--
Great Britain. 3. identity (Psychology) 4. communication in
public administration. 5. Psycholinguistics.
6. Subjectivity (linguistics)
i. title
323.4'482'014-dc22
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Barnard-Wills, david.
Surveillance and identity : discourse, subjectivity and the state / by david Barnard-Wills.
p. cm.
includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4094-3072-8 (hbk) -- ISBN 978-1-4094-3073-5 (ebook)
1. Privacy, right of. 2. electronic surveillance--Social aspects.
3. Internal security--Social aspects. 4. Identification cards. 5.
identity theft. 6. discourse analysis--Social aspects. i. title.
Jc596.B37 2011
323.44'82--dc23
2011030404
ISBN 9781409430728 (hbk)
ISBN 9781409430735 (ebk)
IV
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
tJ international ltd, Padstow, cornwall.
Contents
Preface and Acknowledgements vii
1 Introduction 1
2 Surveillance, Governmentality, Identity and Discourse 11
3 Discourse Theory and Analysis 61
4 Representation of Surveillance Practices 95
5 Subjectivity and Subject Positions in Discourses of Surveillance 127
6 Identity in Discourses of Surveillance 145
7 Conclusions and Implications 165
Bibliography 191
Index 209
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Preface and Acknowledgements
This book has some history, and various people have interacted with it along the
way. Errors are mine, but thanks are due to the following people.
The members of the Surveillance Studies community have been welcoming
and invaluable. A number of young surveillance scholars have been fantastic
sources of inspiration, conversation, good company, reminders of conference
deadlines, challenges, and readers. Anders Albrechtslund, Jason Pridmore, Gavin
Smith, Martin French, Krista Boa, Rosamunde Van Brakel, Aaron Martin, Daniel
Trottier, Andy Balmer, Seda Gurses, Heather Morgan, Chiara Fonio, Arianne
Ellebrok, and last but by no mean least, Scott Thompson. Thanks all.
Particular thanks go to Torin Monahan for organising the conference panel
that led to me putting the proposal for this book to Ashgate, as well as his support,
encouragement, and perspective on identity theft. Mike Nellis was equally
supportive, including a young scholar in the Institute for Advanced Studies
symposium. David Murakami Wood posed some tough questions whilst acting as
external examiner for the PhD, and I probably owe Kevin Haggerty a drink or two
for various things.
Collaborators on other projects have also allowed me to discuss ideas that
have contributed to this book. Thanks to all the members of the RE-DESIGN and
VOME Research teams, as well as to Stuart Reeves and Helen Wells.
Thanks must go to two different, but equally supportive employers. As a post-
doc Research Fellow you’re somewhat at the mercy of the lead investigators
of the project you’re working on, but I’ve been lucky enough to fall into good
company. Ces Moore in POLSIS at the University of Birmingham kept reminding
me to get my PhD thesis finished, and has been a fountain of information and
insight in politics and international relations as well as a great collaborator on a
number of projects. Debi Ashenden in the Department of Informatics and Systems
Engineering at Cranfield University has trusted my judgement to take projects
in slightly different directions, and has also encouraged my working across
disciplines.
The work building up to this book started off as a PhD project in the School of
Politics and International Relations. Mathew Humphrey, my supervisor, allowed
me to pursue the topic of surveillance in the direction that most made sense to me.
Richard Aldrich started all this off by introducing me to the panopticon for the first
time on his The Vigilant State course. Members of the department were more than
encouraging over the years I spent at Nottingham, and particular thanks should go
to Simon Tormey, David Stevens, Andreas Bieler, Lucy Sargisson, Tony Burns,
and Wyn Rees. David also served as internal examiner for my PhD. Sorry about
viii Surveillance and Identity
that Dave, but doing one was your idea in the first place. That project would have
been impossible without the ESRC studentship.
Lastly, thanks to my family and friends, for having confidence in me, and
for tolerating the occasional surveillance themed diatribe. Maureen and Ray
Wills, you have always encouraged me to pursue the things that interest me.
Finally, Katherine Barnard-Wills, thank you for grounding me, challenging easy
assumptions, proofreading and for putting up with my hiding under a bridge whilst
I wrote this.
David Barnard-Wills
www.surveillantidentity.blogspot.com
www.twitter.com/dbarnardwills
Chapter 1
Introduction
In many ways this book is the story of three iconic technological artefacts. Or
more accurately, the story of a story told about these artefacts.
The first artefact is no longer in existence. On 10 February 2011 the hard drives
containing the UK’s National Identity Register were physically destroyed, putting
an end to a scheme which had its roots at the start of the previous decade. It
was brought to an end by a change in government, with the May 2010 elections
bringing to power a coalition of Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties with
shared opposition to the scheme. The National Identity Card might have been the
artefact of concern for many but the database and the political infrastructure that
supported it are in many ways more important. This scheme was an attempt to
provide an authoritative statement of individual identity in response to a range of
social problems that were seen as undermining identity.
The second artefact is the personal document shredder. This device, formerly
limited to the office and associated with the disposal of incriminating documents
in many a political thriller, is now a common sight in UK homes. It is used to make
the paperwork that surrounds modern life unreadable and as such is a tool for
physically destroying information. The shredder is put to work to help dispose of
the flood of junk mail that has been turning up at the house ever since you signed
up to that website. It is also a protection against the identity thieves imagined to
be raiding your paper recycling every alternate week. It is relatively inexpensive,
you can get one for a little over £20, and they are not difficult to use, but they do
represent a change in our information handling behaviour.
The third artefact is the credit file. Unlike the other two, this one isn’t really
physical. You can have a copy of it printed out and sent to you (and this is your
right). But this is just a representation, a snapshot of a moving thing at a moment in
time. It is a digital record of selected elements of an individual’s financial history,
used to make judgements about their suitability for financial services and to enter
into relationship with financial organisations. It is also something monitored by
the individual, and an increasingly important part of our identity that we are told
we need to protect. The credit file, acting as our representative or an image of us,
can have great impacts upon our life experiences and chances.
These three items are in many ways paradigmatic; they represent a particular
paradigm, a way of thinking about information, identity and forms of political,
economic and social life in the UK in the first decade of the 21st century. They
are different types of information technology, each with different patterns of
ownership, different uses and different ways that they can be controlled and
manipulated. To a particular way of thinking they were all necessary (even the