The panel was organised during the Surveillance Studies Conference 2022 at Erasmus University, Rotterdam, the Netherlands. The Panellists included:
Azadeh Akbari (Chair)
Fernanda Brunoanna and Rodrigo Firmino (LAVITS)
Linnet Taylor (Global Data Justice)
Silvia Masiero (IFIP 9.4)
Abstract:
The panel, “Surveillance Studies and the Global South,” aims to initiate a discussion on the importance of integrating the Global South in shaping the scholarship on surveillance studies. Representatives from Research Network Surveillance in the Global South, Latin American network of surveillance, technology and society studies (LAVITS), IFIP 9.4 (working group on the Implications of Information and Digital Technologies for Development) and Global Data Justice Group at Tilburg University will introduce their affiliated groups shortly and then enter a discussion on the reasons behind focusing their research and activities on the Global South and its significance for surveillance studies. The discussion will be facilitated by the panel’s chair.
Research Network Surveillance in the Global South debates the absence or underrepresentation of research, experiences, trends, concepts, theories and knowledges from the Global South in the universalising discourse of the Western-centric field of surveillance. The network, therefore, aims to build a space of exchange between researchers that situate their point of view in the Global South.
The International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) Working Group 9.4 was founded in 1988 to explore the potential of information and communication technologies for social good. The group grew into a network with an interdisciplinary, largely critical focus on ICT for development (ICT4D), in which multiple aspects of engagement of technology with “development” are explored. The group has recently started an active engagement with data justice and surveillance, which will be further pursued at the Conference.
Created in 2009, LAVITS intends to be a regional exchange hub between Latin American researchers, activists, and artists. It is a multidisciplinary network that aims to encourage the production of critical knowledge, artwork and political action in topics involving surveillance technologies and practices.
The Global Data Justice project focuses on the diverse debates and processes occurring around data governance in different regions to draw out overarching principles and needs that can push data technologies’ governance in the direction of social justice. The project is based at the Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology, and Society in the Netherlands.
