Surveillance, Identification Technologies, and Population Control: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives
Overview
This coursework portfolio examines the historical and contemporary use of surveillance and identification technologies to monitor and control populations, tracing practices from colonial times through modern contexts. The paper analyzes how Western societies have employed documentation, fingerprinting, and surveillance systems to regulate marginalized groups including refugees, migrants, criminals, and religious minorities, with case studies ranging from British fingerprinting practices to contemporary Chinese detention camps.
What this coursework covers
- Unit 2 Week 7: Colonial legacies of surveillance and security in managing dangerous populations
- Unit 2 Week 8: Historical development of fingerprinting and identification technologies in Britain (1880-1936)
- Unit 2 Week 9: Contemporary analysis of mass incarceration and surveillance in Chinese detention camps
Preview
Portfolios Units 2 And 3 Assessment Specification Document
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UNIT 2: WEEK 7
Selected Material: Berda, Y., 2013, September. Managing dangerous populations: colonial legacies of security and surveillance. In Sociological Forum (Vol. 28, No. 3, pp. 627-630).
Summary
This article aims to discuss some of the surveillance techniques that have been undertaken in the last decade based on Western modernity. Berda asserts that past practices have shown that movement surveillance in Europe and North America are mainly related to citizenship. Some of the major roles of the surveillance technologies are to control certain groups such as refugees, intruders, illegal aliens, and migrant workers. Notably, the practice of using surveillance technologies to monitor and control populations began during colonial times. During the time, most colonial masters often treated subject populations in their territories as inferiors. Since violence did not work, most colonial regimes resulted in the use of documentation and surveillance to control their subjects. The trend of using surveillance to control population was also witnessed during the two world wars. Notably, in the U.S., the 9/11 attack also increased the use of surveillance to control populations rather than secure territories.
UNIT 2: WEEK 8
Selected Material: Manton, K. (2019), ‘The Politics of Fingerprinting in Britain, c1880-1936’.
Summary
In the 1890s, there was the establishment of approaches such as bertillonism, photography, and fingerprinting to identify habitual criminals. However, by the beginning of the 20th century, bertillonism had been abandoned, and fingerprinting was the main identification approach.