About
The ANSUR network brings together anthropologists who research and study surveillance, as broadly conceived. The network holds meetings and events, and disseminates news, information, and commentary through its mailing list. It is convened by Vita Peacock, Deniz Yonucu, and Rune Steenberg.
Through its disciplinary basis, ANSUR approaches surveillance as a social relationship.
It is a relationship that connects those monitoring with those being monitored in each setting, and varies widely according to social, cultural and technical conditions. In particular, the ascent of what has been named ‘participatory’ surveillance enabled by the ubiquity of smartphones, fractures older analyses that view surveillance through the lens of clear power asymmetries, and opens up new questions around complicity and consent, as well as the potentials for subversion and resistance.
In addition to assembling this discussion, the network seeks to amplify anthropological perspectives on surveillance in the public sphere, during this epochal shift in the history of technology.
If you would like to join the network please subscribe to the mailing list.
You can also follow us on Twitter @ansurnetwork
News
Upcoming Events:
Watch this space!
Past Events:
Tuesday 13 December, 2022 – In Conversation with Matan Shapiro
Wednesday 5 October, 2022 – Book Talk with Deniz Yonucu
Friday 13 May, 2022 – In Conversation with Catarina Fróis
Wednesday 15 December, 2021 – Book Talk with Darren Byler
#UnderSurveillance Podcast
You can now listen to all Under Surveillance episodes on Spotify. Please give us a follow!
Ep.6 Kenni Bruun, Claire Dungey and Rose Powell
On 5 December 2023, social scientists Kenni Bruun, Claire Dungey and Rose Powell discussed the topic of surveillance and care.
Credits:
Guest-host: Floyd Alexander-Hunt
Convenors of ANSUR: Vita Peacock, Deniz Yonucu, Erol Saglam
Music: Verdächtig by System Absturz (CC)
Sound Editing and Artwork: Floyd Alexander-Hunt
Ep.5 Katherine Verdery
ANSUR in discussion with Professor Katherine Verdery about her book My Life as a Spy: Investigations in a Secret Police File (Duke 2018)
Credits:
Hosted by: Deniz Yonucu, Vita Peacock, and Rune Steenberg
Music: Verdächtig by System Absturz (CC)
Sound Editing and Artwork: Kate Davis
Ep.4 Matan Shapiro
On Tuesday 13 December 2022, we were joined by Matan Shapiro, a social anthropologist and Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Department of Digital Humanities at Kings College London, for a discussion of the practice and ethics of Open-Source Intelligence. His recent ethnographic fieldwork focuses on individuals, companies and communities concerned with physical safety, information security and practices of monitoring in a range of online ecosystems, including OSINT investigations, blockchain tracking, and the use of shared safety apps on mobile phones. The podcast is now available on Spotify.
Credits:
Hosted by: Deniz Yonucu, Vita Peacock, and Rune Steenberg
Music: Verdächtig by System Absturz (CC)
Sound Editing and Artwork: Kate Davis
Ep.3 Deniz Yonucu
On Wednesday 5 October 2022, we had the pleasure of hosting the third event of the ANSUR podcast series Under Surveillance with our very own Deniz Yonucu, Assistant Professor in the School of Geography, Politics, and Sociology at Newcastle University. Deniz presented her latest book Police, Provocation, Politics: Counterinsurgency in Istanbul (Cornell University Press, 2022), a counterintuitive analysis of policing, focusing particular attention on the incitement of counterviolence and perpetual conflict by state security apparatus. The book talk was followed by a fascinating discussion between Deniz and ANSUR’s convenors, as well as an audience Q & A.
Credits:
Hosted by: Deniz Yonucu, Vita Peacock, and Rune Steenberg
Music: Verdächtig by System Absturz (CC)
Sound Editing and Artwork: Kate Davis
Ep.2 Catarina Fróis
On Friday 13 May 2022, we hosted the second episode of the ANSUR podcast series Under Surveillance, with Catarina Frois, Assistant Professor of Anthropology in the ISCTE, at the University of Lisbon. Over the past twenty years Catarina’s research has centred around questions of anonymity, security, surveillance, stigma, marginality, and imprisonment. In this conversation, we discuss Frois’ ethnographic study of the development of CCTV in Portugal from 2005 onwards, which culminated in the monograph Peripheral vision: Politics, technology, and surveillance (2013), (nominated for the Surveillance Studies Book Prize Award) and subsequent articles. The conversation between ANSUR’s convenors and Catarina lasted approximately one hour, followed by a twenty-minute audience Q & A, and is now freely available to listen to here. We hope you enjoy it!
Credits:
Hosted by: Deniz Yonucu, Vita Peacock, and Rune Steenberg
Music: Verdächtig by System Absturz (CC)
Sound Editing and Artwork: Kate Davis
Ep.1 Darren Byler
On 15 December 2021, we hosted a book talk on Zoom with Darren Byler, anthropologist and Assistant Professor of International Studies at Simon Fraser University. Darren presented his two recently published books, In the Camps: China’s High-Tech Penal Colony, and Terror Capitalism: Uyghur Dispossession and Masculinity in a Chinese City, both of which draw on a decade of ethnographic research in and on Xinjiang, a north-western province of China. Within the last decade Xinjiang has become known as the most surveilled territory in the world, and while the subject matter can be affectively challenging at times, we were honoured to host Darren for the inaugural event in our new event series to learn more about these developments. The podcast is freely available for download here.
Credits:
Hosted by: Deniz Yonucu, Vita Peacock, and Rune Steenberg
Music: Verdächtig by System Absturz (CC)
Sound Editing and Artwork: Kate Davis