Watching the watchmen: resisting drones and the "protester panopticon"

Abstract

Abstract. The skies as sites of protest are opening up. Protester-operated drones are beginning to appear in the skies above protests: watching the watchmen, installing an additional layer of surveillance, increasing accountability and self-discipline amongst the police. In this way protester drones could be seen as establishing a "protester panopticon", with the police as subjects. This article explores the potential panoptic effect of the gaze upon the police, drawing on sousveillance theory, before using counter-surveillance as a way to explore potential options for police resistance to the gaze of the protester drone. These resistive efforts are broken down into four categories, legislation and regulation, obscuring the gaze, electronic countermeasures and kinetic and physical force.

Playing in the yard: The representation of control in train-graffiti videos

“…All of the above definitions of sousveillance are of interest for this study as they point to the power of a mobilized media that is always on, able to broadcast, and able to access a network of followers which affects broader notions of surveillance and oppression (Mann and Ferenbok, 2013). Echoing Foucault’s (1978: 95) claim that “where there is power, there is resistance,” sousveillance has been described as an empowering form of resistance against control (see Fernback, 2013; Monahan, 2006; Waghorn, 2016). This resistance has also been analyzed as a “move and counter-move dance” (Wilson and Serisier, 2010: 168) where surveilled individuals invent counter-actions to beat the state control system (Waghorn, 2016).…”

“…Echoing Foucault’s (1978: 95) claim that “where there is power, there is resistance,” sousveillance has been described as an empowering form of resistance against control (see Fernback, 2013; Monahan, 2006; Waghorn, 2016). This resistance has also been analyzed as a “move and counter-move dance” (Wilson and Serisier, 2010: 168) where surveilled individuals invent counter-actions to beat the state control system (Waghorn, 2016). The phenomenon is sometimes described as a state of “equiveillance,” where a balance is achieved between surveillant and sousveillant forces (Mann and Ferenbok, 2013)—and where the coexistence of surveillance and sousveillance leads to a “fragile equilibrium” (Ganascia, 2010: 491).…”

“…Second, in so doing, the discussion will move away from an often-assumed dichotomous relation between the sur- and sousveillers and toward a focus on the reciprocal, rather than conflictual, relationship between antagonist and protagonist. This negotiation of balance has earlier been studied in terms of an equilibrium (Ganascia, 2010) or a dance (Monahan, 2006; Waghorn, 2016). In this article, the coexistence between surveillance and sousveillance will be analyzed through connecting it to the concept of play (Huizinga, 1949).…”

“…The analysis will thus move away from a more traditional understanding of sousveillance as a countering of asymmetric structures of power and instead show how graffiti writers make use of this as part of the delicate construction and contextualization of subcultural play. This transformation of sousveillance as play is possible because surveillance and counteracts are here addressed through the perspective of those supposedly surveilled (Waghorn, 2016: 105).…”

Drone methodologies: Taking flight in human and physical geography

“…The double edge of drones is that, like security cameras, they have the capacity to marshal people's behaviours and compel even those in power to act with integrity. Yet surveilled authorities often actively work to subvert the “protester panopticon” by hiding badge numbers and electronically or physically attacking drones or their operators in a spiral of responses (Waghorn, ).…”