Product details
- ISBN 9781782380238
- Weight: 408g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 01 Oct 2013
- Publisher: Berghahn Books
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
In Portugal between 2005 and 2010, “modernization through technology” was the major political motto used to develop and improve the country’s peripheral and backward condition. This study reflects on one of the resulting, specific aspects of this trend—the implementation of public video surveillance. The in-depth ethnography provides evidence of how the political construction of security and surveillance as a strategic program actually conceals intricate institutional relationships between political decision-makers and common citizens. Essentially, the detailed account of the major actors, as well as their roles and motivations, serves to explain phenomena such as the confusion between objective data and subjective perceptions or the lack of communication between parties, which as this study argues, underlies the idiosyncrasies and fragilities of Portugal’s still relatively young democratic system.
Catarina Frois is Invited Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Lisbon University Institute and Senior Researcher at the Centre for Research in Anthropology, Portugal. Her publications include The Anonymous Society: Identity, Transformation and Anonymity in 12-Step Associations (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009) and Vigilância e Poder (Mundos Sociais, 2011).
