The Ubiquitous View

Surveillance, Imagination, and the Power of Being Seen

  • Jörn Ahrens Justus-Liebig-University, Giessen
DOI: https://doi.org/10.22029/oc.2018.1153
Keywords: habituation, imagination, normalization, sociation, surveillance, the political

Abstract

The _Essay discusses the relation between surveillance and imagination. It unfolds the argument that surveillance as a form of (political) oppression is necessarily centering on a decisionistic act of the individual who has to opt for deviant or conformist behavior under conditions of obvious social and political surveillance. Today, however, especially due to processes of an ongoing digitalization, surveillance is becoming a mode of self-expression, experiencing a shift towards its habituation and normalization within social reality. This development marks a clear difference from the classic habituation of surveillance as estranged, governmental practice. What seems to remain intact with regard to contemporary concepts of surveillance is the importance of the view and the meaning of surveillance as a politics of the image and the imaginary.

Author Biography

Jörn Ahrens, Justus-Liebig-University, Giessen

Jörn Ahrens is Professor of Cultural Sociology at Justus Liebig University Giessen, Germany, and Extraordinary Professor of Social Anthropology at North-West University, South Africa. He holds a PhD in Sociology from Free University Berlin and a Habilitation from Humboldt University, Berlin. His main research fields are: Violence, culture, and society; popular media and culture; nature and culture; cultural theory. Recent publications are Praise of Biopolitics? The Covid-19 Pandemic and the Will for Self-Preservation, in: The European Sociologist, Issue 45: Pandemic (Im)Possibilities Vol 1, 06/2020, ; Der Mensch im Klima. Klimawandel und Anthropologie, in: Christoph Wulf / Jörg Zirfas (eds.): Den Menschen neu denken, Paragrana. Internationale Zeitschrift für Historische Anthropologie, Vol. 29 (1/2020); and Zur Erfindung des Comics in Deutschland. Frühe Perspektiven der Comicforschung, in: Closure – Kieler e-Journal für Comicforschung, Vol. 7 (11/2020). His current research focuses on the cultural perception of climate change in Southern Africa and on the discourse about comic books in Germany from the 1950s to the 1980s.

Issue
No 6 (2018): Surveillance Cultures
Section
_Essays