'You'll never walk alone': CCTV surveillance, order and neo-liberal rule in Liverpool city centre

This paper is concerned to chart the establishment and uses of CCTV within the location of Liverpool city centre. In doing this the paper seeks to contextualize CCTV within contemporary 'partnership' approaches to regeneration which are reshaping the material and discursive form of the city. Thus CCTV schemes along with other security initiatives are understood as social ordering strategies emanating from within locally powerful networks which are seeking to define and enact orderly regeneration projects. In focusing on the normative aspects of CCTV, the paper raises questions concerning the efficacy of understanding contemporary forms of 'social ordering practices' primarily in terms of technical rationalities while neglecting other, more material and ideological processes involved in the construction of social order.     

Interacting forms of expertise in security governance: the example of CCTV surveillance at Geneva International Airport1

The paper investigates the multiple public‐private exchanges and cooperation involved in the installation and development of CCTV surveillance at Geneva International Airport. Emphasis is placed on the interacting forms of authority and expertise of five parties: the user(s), owner and supplier of the camera system, as well as the technical managers of the airport and the Swiss regulatory bodies in airport security. While placing the issues of airport surveillance in the particular context of a specific range of projects and transformations relating to the developments of CCTV at Geneva Airport, the paper not only provides important insights into the micro‐politics of surveillance at Geneva Airport, but aims to re‐institute these as part of a broader ‘problematic’: the mediating role of expertise and the growing functional fragmentation of authority in contemporary security governance. On this basis, the paper also exemplifies the growing mutual interdependences between security and business interests in the ever growing ‘surveillant assemblage’ in contemporary security governance.     

Transnational migration: taking stock and future directions

Increasing numbers of sending states are systematically offering social and political membership to migrants residing outside their territories. The proliferation of these dual memberships contradicts conventional notions about immigrant incorporation, their impact on sending countries, and the relationship between migration and development in both contexts. But how do ordinary individuals actually live their lives across borders? Is assimilation incompatible with transnational membership? How does economic and social development change when it takes place across borders? This article takes stock of what is known about everyday transnational practices and the institutional actors that facilitate or impede them and outlines questions for future research. In it, I define what I mean by transnational practices and describe the institutions that create and are created by these activities. I discuss the ways in which they distribute migrants’ resources and energies across borders, based primarily on studies of migration to the United States.     

Relationship education research: current status and future directions

The overarching aim of this article is to review the research on relationship education programs and approaches that has been published or accepted for publication since the last review article in 2003. This article provides a critical overview of the relationship education field and sets an agenda for research and practice for the next decade. A theme weaved throughout the article is the ways in which relationship education is similar and different from couples therapy, and we conclude that there can be a synergistic, healthy marriage between the two. We then provide recommendations for future directions for research in the relationship education field. Finally, the coauthors comment on our experiences in both the relationship education field and the couples therapy field as both researchers and interventionists.     

Farming without a recipe: Wisconsin graziers and new directions for agricultural science

From 2005 through 2008, we undertook a participatory research project involving graziers from 8 farms in Southern Wisconsin, all of whom practice management intensive grazing. We used semi-structured interviews and participant observation during research and field days to investigate graziers’ engagement with university research. Grazing farms demonstrate rich variability and individuality as a result of their position within a number of biophysical and social contexts. Graziers emphasized the importance of finding ways to work with the variables of their specific context, rather than trying to control that variability. This effort entails the development and use of local knowledge, as graziers respond to the idiosyncrasies of their farms. It also leads graziers to reject mainstream agricultural research that has produced formulas for agricultural uniformity. The picture of grazing that emerged from our interviews leads us to propose the search for agroecological principles and agroecological tools, embedded in context, as an alternative to conventional research. We argue that this proposal speaks to the greater conundrum of how to relate the general knowledge of science to the place-specific, experience-based knowledge of grass-based farmers.     

Adult sexual offenders:current issues and future directions

Sex offender research is still in its infancy, but our knowledge about adult sex offenders has increased in the last several decades. However, public interest in the issues of assessment, treatment, and recidivism with respect to risk and safety has increased substantially during this time. This article provides an introduction to the significant issues involved in the assessment, treatment, and current state-of-the-science for adult sex offenders. Prevalence rates are discussed, but these are more difficult to narrow down due to definitional problems. In addition, controversial issues involving diagnoses, classification, public notification, and risk assessment are introduced, and the goals of this volume are described. The purpose of this volume is to provide current information regarding what is known about sex offenders so that appropriate assessment, treatment, and prevention techniques can be developed and utilized.     

Computerized surveillance in the workplace: Forms and distributions

The use of computers to monitor job performance has attracted much comment, from social scientists and others. In this analysis of a representative sample of greater New York firms, we show that this use of computing is both widespread and applied to a wide variety of jobs. Contrary to some suggestions, it is does not occur exclusively in large firms with particularly high-tech computing applications. Instead, it appears in all kinds of firms, as an outgrowth of management efforts to control and rationalize work. Most cases of computerized job surveillance identified in this sample are part of one of three basic organizational processes: sales analysis, job tracking, or inventory control.     

Libertarian collective decision-making: A new framework

A model of collective decision-making is presented which enables us to analyze the allocation of individual rights and liberties. The model broadens the traditional social choice framework. In social choice theory it is usually assumed that individuals have preferences over a set of feasible alternatives and that society reaches a decision on the basis of those preferences only. In the model presented in this paper, decision procedures do not only take information about individual preferences as input, but also information about individual freedom. The specific decision procedures we present and analyze can be characterized as libertarian.This paper was written while I was a visitor at the University of California, Riverside. The visit was made possible by financial support of the Netherlands Organization of Scientific Research (NWO). I am extremely grateful to Prasanta Pattanaik for many stimulating discussions on the subject. For helpful comments I also thank Ad van Deemen, Grahame Lock, Huib Pellikaan and Marcel Wissenburg. Finally, I express my thanks to Wulf Gaertner and two anonymous referees.     

An immense and unexpected field of action: Webcams,surveillance and everyday life

The essay uses a quotation from Walter Benjamin to ask what ‘immense and unexpected field of action’ is revealed through the numerous web-cameras connected to the internet. The essay considers the subject of the webcam gaze to be that of everyday life in a society of surveillance and control. Drawing on Mark Andrejevic’s concept of digital enclosures and Michael H. Goldhaber’s argument that the Internet is an attention economy, the essay considers webcams and other means of online expression in the context of Gilles Deleuze’s notion of a society of control. In the end, the essay considers the webcam to reveal aspects of everyday life through senses of thisness, durée, awareness, embodiment and care, as everyday life is caught up in and constituted by intertwined networks of care and control.     

Black feminist theory in maternal health research: A review of concepts and future directions

Black maternal health and well-being has become a necessary focal point for health researchers due to higher rates of maternal mortality and morbidity for Black women. However, what is often absent from this scholarship within medical sociology is Black Feminist Theory as a framework for understanding Black women's health and well-being. Drawing on Black feminist and maternal health scholarship, I argue that integrating Black feminist approaches in maternal health research expands our understandings of what processes and mechanisms are impacting the health and well-being of Black mothers, while also highlighting the importance of maternal health research that solely centers Black women. Specifically, I focus on three concepts of Black Feminist Theory as it relates to Black maternal health research: (1) examining Black women's standpoint as credible, (2) acknowledging the historical context of multiple systems of oppression against Black women, and (3) incorporating a perspective that acknowledges both disadvantages, as well as empowerment, in the lives of Black women. I end this review with a discussion of future directions for sociological research in maternal health, including the importance of acknowledging how Black mothers are both impacted by, and resisting, social structures that may add nuance to our current understandings of Black maternal health and well-being.     

Mass-mediated surveillance: borders,mobility, and reality television

This article analyzes the social construction of border surveillance and policing in reality-based television. Utilizing content analytic methods to document and decode popular images of borders, mobility, and insecurity, it assesses three programs from Australia, the UK, and the United States. Despite claims of offering accurate and unfiltered depictions, the programs are ideological and provide visions of enforcement that reinforce stereotypes regarding the risks of permeable borders and exonerate intensive regimes of surveillance and securitization. Our findings suggest this occurs in three ways. First, the programs inflate the extent and seriousness of lawlessness associated with cross-border movement. Second, they offer individualistic explanations of crime that cite personal choices and pathologies as determinants. Finally, alongside neglecting their perspectives and interpretations of events, when compared to the reality of official statistics, the programs disproportionately feature suspected offenders as members of marginalized groups. The social and political implications of these findings are discussed.     

Stigma and problem gambling: current knowledge and future research directions

Stigma has been identified as a major barrier to help-seeking, treatment and recovery from gambling problems. However, little research has attempted to examine in any depth the causes, characteristics and consequences of stigma in relation to people experiencing gambling problems. The effects of stigma on people experiencing gambling problems, although not directly examined, are apparent through low rates of problem disclosure and treatment-seeking. In this paper, we aim to inform research into stigma associated with problem gambling by highlighting gaps in existing research and by providing direction for future research. The contribution of this paper is that for the first time stigma and problem gambling are drawn together and reviewed using broad constructs and literature from a range of seminal and new sources to present a synthesis of new and important information on stigma. In regard to problem gambling, the dimensions of stigma, except for origin, have yet to be investigated, as well as the processes of stigma creation, the characteristics of public and felt stigma, and coping strategies used to manage stigma. The practical implications of this review are summarized in a framework provided to inform future research into stigma related to problem gambling.     

The family as gender and sexuality factory: A review of the literature and future directions

Early theorists understood the family as a key institution in the production of gender and sexuality. In this paper, I trace the development of this line of thought and review parents' role in shaping children's gender and sexuality over the life course. I first describe the three most prominent theoretical frameworks used to locate parents in these studies: psychoanalysis, socialization, and interactional approaches. In doing so, I illuminate the contributions of each theory to sociological thought on children's gender and sexuality while pointing to weaknesses with psychoanalysis and socialization. I then discuss how parents influence children's development and performance of gender and heterosexuality, paying attention to variations based on race, class, gender, and sexuality. Based on the current state of the literature, I suggest that we sociologists should diversify our methodological approaches in this area, attend to how changes in families correspond to changes in parents' role in shaping children's gender and sexuality, and grapple with how children's performances of gender and sexuality influence parents' performances of gender and sexuality.     

Normalizing covert surveillance: the subterranean world of policing

In this article, I draw on data derived from an ethnographic field study of covert policing in the United Kingdom to demonstrate that the deployment of covert surveillance has become normalized, both in policing thought and operational practice. In a break with earlier patterns, the methods of covert surveillance are used extensively and are no longer regarded as a tactic of last resort. Covert policing is well anchored within organizational arrangements, empowered by a series of internal rationales mobilized to justify the expansion of covert tactics over and above more traditional, overt forms. The building of intrusive and exceptional policing practices within mundane contexts, I argue, is one of the ways the police have adapted to a broader policing environment characterized by public scepticism and distrust. Policing relies on the invisibility and low profile that comes with covert work, in order to govern contemporary concerns of crime and insecurity without the conflicts which can accompany – and trouble – overt policing practices. As mainstream policing becomes an increasingly extroverted enterprise, introverted forms of policing have come to the fore.     

Cruising,space and surveillance: decolonizing sexuality in Singapore

ABSTRACT

The policing of homosexuality in Singapore through legislation and public policy are imbued with colonial legacies that have enshrined heteronormative values within its public sphere. However, communities within new online spaces in Singapore disrupt the heteronormative surveillance efforts deployed by the state within public, family and political landscapes. Through an analysis of a local online forum dedicated to cruising this article unpacks how local gay men resist, negotiate and deploy surveillance techniques to navigate these heteronormative structures and cruise safely in Singapore. This article demonstrates how online spaces have become part of an everyday resistance that characterize modern-day efforts to decolonize sexuality in Singapore.     

Theorizing surveillance and social spacing through football: The fan-opticon and beyond

This article critically examines the temporal mobilizations of a 25-year football supporter social movement against the all-seating (stadia) legislation in England and Wales, to unpack, and advance, (neo-)Foucauldian panoptic theorizations of surveillance power and counter-power. Drawing upon prior empirically informed analysis of this movement; ‘Safe Standing’, the article interrogates new policy-based outcomes, including the early adoption of ‘licensed (Safe) Standing’ technology in 2022, to argue, that whilst publicly framed as a movement victory, it simultaneously serves to prefigure a new regulatory regime in football; one which extends the regulation and surveillance of fans within the wider social and corporate lifeworld. Introducing our new concept; the ‘fan-opticon’, the article discusses how Safe Standing continues to normalize a momentum of surveillance in sport and highlights the contradictory nature of security-related projects in the twenty-first century. We conclude that the governmentality of the state through football, to be characteristic of temporally sensitive hermeneutic struggles of power and resistance, through the discipline, and self-discipline of social actors. New forms of subjectivity are remoulded in ways which extend the power of surveillance and regulation, despite multiple counter-conduct, and discursive, resistance practices.