A conversation between sociologist Zygmunt Bauman and surveillance theorist David Lyon, discussing a world in which watching has become mobile, diffuse and increasingly participatory.

The discussion inevitably becomes focussed on social media, consumer profiling, border technologies, drones, databases; essentially anything built to expedite convenience. However it remains fresh, the central move being a steer from the old image of the Panopticon, where power watches from a fixed centre, and towards surveillance that travels with us and often works precisely because we cooperate with it. 

Bauman’s famous idea of “liquid modernity” frames his tone. If you're unfamiliar, here it's in regards to how when institutions loosen, identities become mobile and power becomes less dependent on fixed places, then surveillance follows the same trajectory. This allows for an amorphous, or liquid, mobility. Through it, people increasingly build their own enclosures, disclose themselves voluntarily and are sorted through consumer preference, risk, desirability and usefulness. Whilst Bauman frames this way, Lyon pulls the discussion back toward the systems doing that sorting.

It is also pleasingly dated. These kinds of works were published at the threshold where mass data capture was becoming normal but before contemporary AI made inference vastly more consequential. So some technology has aged; the underlying problem very much has not.

Polity Press, Cambridge, 2013. First edition. Paperback. Light general shelf wear and minor surface creasing/scuffing to covers; internally clean and well kept. Very good condition.