Windows Into the Soul: Surveillance and Society in an Age of High Technology

Windows Into the Soul: Surveillance and Society in an Age of High Technology

Workshop

Date/Location: 22-23 April, 2013, Seminar Room 3 (Badia Fiesolana)

Credits: 10

Organiser: Gary Marx (MIT)

Abstract: This workshop would be based on my forthcoming book of the same title. The study is an inquiry into the social, political, cultural and ethical aspects of the new surveillance (articles at www.garymarx.net) are illustrative of my approach  –several are listed below). The emphasis is on a conceptual framework dealing with structures, processes, cultural meanings and experiences that can accommodate and help explain the variation in surveillance tools –whether they involve video, biometry, sensors, RFID chips, GPS, social media and big data sets to mention only a few.  My goals are normative, as well as social scientific,  as I seek frameworks for judging and evaluating public policy.

I would of course draw examples from the policing of protest and law enforcement more broadly, but also from other areas such as work, consumption, school, government. I am also concerned with comparative international questions and the correlates and consequences of technological  form of surveillance which break traditional borders, as well as creating new ones

http://web.mit.edu/gtmarx/www/survhandbook.html  (“your papers please”)

http://web.mit.edu/gtmarx/www/forewordnotlikeweather.html  (“privacy is not quite like the weather”)

http://web.mit.edu/gtmarx/www/childrenandsurveillance.html  (“children as subjects and agents of surveillance”)

Programme: tba

Please register with [email protected]