Zygmunt Bauman & David Lyon 
Liquid Surveillance [PDF ebook] 
A Conversation

‚Today the smallest details of our daily lives are tracked
and traced more closely than ever before, and those who are
monitored often cooperate willingly with the monitors. From London
and New York to New Delhi, Shanghai and Rio de Janeiro, video
cameras are a familiar and accepted sight in public places. Air
travel now commonly involves devices such as body-scanners and
biometric checks that have proliferated in the wake of 9/11. And
every day Google and credit-card issuers note the details of our
habits, concerns and preferences, quietly prompting customized
marketing strategies with our active, all too often zealous
cooperation.

In today’s liquid modern world, the paths of daily life
are mobile and flexible. Crossing national borders is a commonplace
activity and immersion in social media increasingly ubiquitous.
Today’s citizens, workers, consumers and travellers are
always on the move but often lacking certainty and lasting bonds.
But in this world where spaces may not be fixed and time is
boundless, our perpetual motion does not go unnoticed. Surveillance
spreads in hitherto unimaginable ways, responding to and
reproducing the slippery nature of modern life, seeping into areas
where it once had only marginal sway.

In this book the surveillance analysis of David Lyon meets the
liquid modern world so insightfully dissected by Zygmunt
Bauman. Is a dismal future of moment-by-moment monitoring
closing in, or are there still spaces of freedom and hope? How do
we realize our responsibility for the human beings before us, often
lost in discussions of data and categorization? Dealing with
questions of power, technology and morality, this book is a
brilliant analysis of what it means to be watched – and
watching – today.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Preface and acknowledgements vi

Introduction 1

David Lyon

1 Drones and social media 18

2 Liquid surveillance as post- panoptic 52

3 Remoteness, distancing and automation 76

4 In/security and surveillance 100

5 Consumerism, new media and social sorting 121

6 Probing surveillance ethically 132

7 Agency and hope 142

Notes 159

Index 172

Über den Autor

Zygmunt Bauman (1925-2017) was Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Leeds, UK. His books have become international bestsellers and have been translated into more than 30 languages.

David Lyon is Professor of Sociology at Queen’s University, Canada. His previous publications include Identifying Citizens: ID Cards as Surveillance (2009) and Surveillance Studies: An Overview (2007).