SOC30780

Have you noticed how people seem to be increasingly concerned with security? There is a marked perception that insecurity is on the rise, and that the world has become an extremely unsafe place. Security policies like predictive policing, urban surveillance, border control, and antiterrorism have grown in technological sophistication and legitimacy, and are increasingly debated in electoral campaigns, among policy makers, and in the press. And yet, crime statistics show unequivocally that we have never been safer. How do we explain this discrepancy, and how do we analyse critically society’s concern with security and surveillance, as well as the solutions proposed by different actors to solve such concerns? This module will explore what security and surveillance teach us about our society, its fears, and the way different categories of people think about and act on (in)security both online and offline. We will discuss case studies such as urban insecurity, digital surveillance, border control, and citizen initiatives to increase security, and explore the causes and consequences of such practices in our society. We will reflect on whose (in)security matters and why, and assess whether practices such as predictive policing, CCTV cameras, face recognition technologies really work, for whom, and how. We will think about what it means to live in a Big Brother society – where a lot of what we do is subjected to surveillance – and explore sociological insights on surveillance and security.