anyone interested in surveillance should read this book!
simone browne traces modern american surveillance to its roots in antiblackness, and specifically the tools/technologies used to regulate and commodify slaves. and anything with roots in racism is ripe to replicate it, so there's also plenty of modern case studies to accompany her historical investigation.
she kicks off with an overview of the surveillance studies literature (who knew there was the panopticon, banopticon, and even the McOpticon?!), which is full of pointers to other interesting texts. in chapter 2 and 3, she dives into the thrust of the argument, going from book of negroes -> passports / census databases and anthropometry -> biometrics. other fascinating discussions include the role of light in black hypervisibility (lantern laws, computer vision), the grounds-up resistance of "dark sousveillance" (fake ids, cv dazzle). the analogies are endless, and as an analytical tool, may be useful for helping modern technologists avoid reinventing jim crow.
other notes: the first half is much stronger than the second, and browne writes in heavy academia-ese, aka unnecessarily circuitous and jargon-filled. it helps to be good at skimming these kinds of texts.
(jan 2, 2021)
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