Reclaiming the Streets: Closed Circuit Television, Neoliberalism and the Mystification of Social Divisions in Liverpool, UK
Year: 2002
Type: article
Abstract: The normalisation of camera surveillance on the streets of the UK raises profound questions about the strategies of contemporary urban political rule and the material and ideological re-mapping of urban space. Firstly, this paper will argue that an understanding of street camera surveillance requires a consideration of the operation of neoliberalism at the local level [in this case Liverpool on the north west coast of England] through a myriad of 'partnership' arrangements that have shifted the terrain of local democracy and the meanings of both the public interest and social justice. Secondly, in using case material from a paradigmatic neoliberalising city, the paper argues that surveillance cameras are part of a social control strategy that seeks to hide the consequences of neoliberalisation in creating a particular ambience and exclusivity regarding 'public' spaces. Thirdly, the paper critically considers whether we can understand visual surveillance as a technique for the 'exclusion of difference' in urban space or as a tool that suppresses the reality of social divisions.
Source: Surveillance & Society
Author: Roy Coleman
Language: English
Subfield: Urban Studies
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W2106669766