Surveillance, Policing, & Law (312-0-20)

Instructors

Abby Barefoot
847/467-0259
Abigail Barefoot is an Assistant Professor of Instruction at the Center for Legal Studies. Prof. Barefoot’s research explores questions of justice, safety, and accountability through the lens of prison abolition and critical carceral studies Abigail’s current book project Beyond Carceral Responses: Transformative Justice, Prison Abolition, and the Movement to End Sexual Violence examines transformative justice practices for sexual violence. Using an ethnographic approach, Abigail unpacks the tensions, contradictions, and possibilities of practicing transformative justice as experienced by survivors, facilitators, and people who cause harm. Her other teaching and research interests include LGBTQ Studies, American social movements, and mass incarceration.

Meeting Info

Fisk Hall 114: Mon, Wed 2:00PM - 3:20PM

Overview of class

How are surveillance technologies shaping daily life and society, especially in terms of shaping what we think, see, and do? Building on the interdisciplinary field of surveillance studies, this course explores the intersection of policing, surveillance, and the law and raises questions about (in)security, civil liberties, control, and privacy. Topics will include The Patriot Act, biometrics, algorithm and predictive policing, and citizen surveillance. Students will also engage with the political, ethical, and methodological concerns that increased surveillance raises.

Learning Objectives

• Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of social science theories related to the study of surveillance with particular attention to sociolegal theoretical approaches.
• Apply an intersectional approach to topics surrounding the larger ecosystem of surveillance with a particular emphasis on how surveillance impacts people differently based upon their racial, class, and gender identities.
• Engage with scholarship describing t contemporary structures, processes, and practices that shape power and resistance; justice and injustice; agency and subjection as it relates to informal and formal surveillance practices in the United States.
• Engage with an interdisciplinary variety of theoretical frameworks (surveillance studies, critical criminology, sociolegal studies), empirical observations (qualitative and quantitative data), and research methods (social science and humanistic).
• Develop the ability to critique theories, claims, and policies in the social and behavioral sciences through careful evaluation of an argument's major assertions, assumptions, evidential basis, and explanatory utility.
• Reflect upon the way in which theories and research from the social and behavioral sciences help elucidate the factors that led to the development and sustaining of increased surveillance as well as potential solutions.
• Craft text-based and verbal analyses of assigned course media—and extend this analysis to individually selected case studies and contexts.

Teaching Method

Lecture and discussion

Class Materials (Required)

All materials for this course will be made available on Canvas - no purchase necessary.

Class Attributes

Social and Behavioral Science Foundational Discipl
U.S. Perspectives on Power, Justice, and Equity
SoC Individual and Social Behavior Distro