Citizenship, hyper-surveillance, and double-consciousness: Racial profiling as panoptic governance

Abstract

Incorporating DuBois's concept of a racial “double-consciousness” and extending Foucault's work on the Panopticon, I examine current day racial profiling processes and the effects of hyper-surveillance on communities of color. DuBois suggests that the citizen of color has a sense of duality based upon minority status and being an American. This duality offers insight into the way race “works” that few Whites comprehend. Foucault argues that the permanent visibility of those subjected to the Panopticon generates awareness of the power differential between individuals and the state. The current examination is a contextualization of narratives from people of color who experience governance and surveillance via racial profiling.

Citation

Glover, K.S. (2008), "Citizenship, hyper-surveillance, and double-consciousness: Racial profiling as panoptic governance", Deflem, M. and Ulmer, J.T. (Ed.) Surveillance and Governance: Crime Control and Beyond (Sociology of Crime, Law and Deviance, Vol. 10), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 241-256. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1521-6136(07)00211-4