Surveillance and Structural Violence: From Panopticon to Algorithms

The article examines the phenomenon of surveillance through the prism of J. Galtung’s theory of structural violence and Garver’s theory of silent violence. The author traces the evolution of control models from the works of Bentham, Foucault, Deleuze and Rouvroy — from panoptic to algorithmic — and identifies surveillance techniques typical for these models. It is argued that each of these techniques generates specific structural asymmetries or, as Foucault calls them, states of domination, within which structural violence according to Galtung is possible. The vector of development of control models, reflected in the change in dominant surveillance techniques, is described as a transition from the architecture of behavior (management of the multitude through subjectivizing effects at the individual level) to the ecology of action (management of specific choices for the sake of statistical effects at the population level). The role of surveillance in the reproduction of structural violence is considered using the example of theories such as Lyon’s social sorting, Gandy’s panoptic sort, and Zuboff’s surveillance capitalism. Particular attention is paid to interfaces in algorithmic control, which are integrated with profiling observation into a single system manipulating a set of useraccessible affordances (Gibson, Norton). The asymmetry of affordances created by the techniques of algorithmic governmentality described by Rouvroy and leading to the loss of autonomy is conceptualized as silent violence according to Garver. In the context of the development of the Internet of Things (IoT) and self-monitoring of health (mHealth), the prospects for further expansion of the interface between humans and algorithmic systems are considered. Unjustly neglected by theorists of violence, surveillance appears to be the main mechanism of structural violence in modern datafied society.

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