Routledge Handbook of Surveillance Studies

Surveillance is a central organizing practice. Gathering personal data and processing them in searchable databases drives administrative efficiency but also raises questions about security, governance, civil liberties and privacy. Surveillance is both globalized in cooperative schemes, such as sharing biometric data, and localized in the daily minutiae of social life. This innovative Handbook explores the empirical, theoretical and ethical issues around surveillance and its use in daily life.

With a collection of over forty essays from the leading names in surveillance studies, the Handbook takes a truly multi-disciplinary approach to critically question issues of:

• surveillance and population control
• policing, intelligence and war
• production and consumption
• new media
• security
• identification
• regulation and resistance.

The Routledge Handbook of Surveillance Studies is an international, accessible, definitive and comprehensive overview of the rapidly growing multi-disciplinary field of surveillance studies. The Handbook’s direct, authoritative style will appeal to a wide range of scholars and students in the social sciences, arts and humanities.

Kirstie Ball is Reader in Surveillance and Organization at The Open University Business School. Her research focuses on surveillance and global capital, and the experience of surveillance. She co-founded the journal the Surveillance & Society and is a director of the Surveillance Studies Network.

Kevin D. Haggerty is editor of the Canadian Journal of Sociology and book review editor of the international journal Surveillance & Society. He is Professor of Sociology and Criminology at the University of Alberta and a member of the executive team for the New Transparency Major Collaborative Research Initiative.

David Lyon holds a Research Chair in Surveillance Studies, is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Surveillance Studies Centre at Queen’s University, Canada.