There are times when turning ethnographic fieldnotes into fiction offers theoretical insights about a phenomenon while protecting participants and observers. There are other times when authoritarian forms of control limit the scope of ethnographic accounts, making fictional forms of representation vital tools for developing insights.
When writing about academic structures within authoritarian regimes, often equipped with tools of litigation and other forms of measured control, I have found the work of fiction to be a vital strategic resource. Through the emplotment of events that reflect materiality and yet are woven into narrative accounts that offer layers of interpretive disguise, fiction offers insights into the workings of power. This fictional account of surveillance then is organized on the basis of fieldnotes. In other words, the "I" in this piece is a creation of fiction, drawing upon observations across spaces and national contexts to create the account of the "Surveillance nation."
In writing about "Surveillance nation," I am often struck by how often I have been surveilled. Once for instance, a Dean called me into a meeting, presenting with a thick (almost dissertation-like) pile of print-outs of my social media posts, relaying the message of the surveillance managers of the university of things-to-happen if I didn't stop posting critical accounts on social media. The one post that this Dean read out loud to me was about the empirical evidence on the preponderance of local academics of the majority ethnicity in the tenured ranks and the absence of minority academics. In the post, I had also written about the inequalities in evaluations of merit, with accommodations being made to create positions for local academics of the majority ethnicity. Although making such arguments based on evidence is commonplace in academia, making such statements in "Surveillance nation" is unheard of. Unheard of because of the profound impact of the culture of surveillance. The saying "you must watch what you utter" is circulated with regimental discipline, couched under the cultural narrative of "saving face." Even as I write this, I am all too aware of clerks of the regime that have been hired just to keep a tab on my social media posts. This is of course enabled by the technologies of surveillance that pick up "alerts," "reputation risks," and "new posts."
I am also struck by how deeply embedded the culture of surveillance is.
Surveillance in the form of monitoring the everyday interactions occupies the soul of the surveillance nation.
The human soul is turned into an instrument of surveillance. As if like robots without humanity, the bureaucrats and experts that run the surveillance nation are trained effectively in the tools of surveillance while learning to be surveilled seamlessly.
Technologies of surveillance from cameras ubiquitously present to hidden recording devices form the infrastructures of disciplining, generating the sense that one is always being watched and listened to.
Every human subject under the purview of the nation is under surveillance, from early education in school to the controlled interactions in the classroom to the disciplined participation in the workplace.
The premise of the "surveillance nation" is its ability to deliver controlled labour to transnational capital. "Surveillance nation" therefore tops all the major rankings by neoliberal capital, celebrated for its ease-of-doing business and compliant workforce. We are fed the propaganda "labour relations are great" because all labour has been silenced and co-opted. Silenced through technologies of fear and co-opted through premises of dialogue.
The childhood education under instruments of surveillance ensure children don't question. Excelling in math and science, they are quick to learn techniques of managerial reproduction. Give them clear instructions, and they will reproduce the tasks with great efficiency.
University education is reduced to reproduction of the techniques of discipline. To teach students to question then invites the surveillance and instruments of disciplining. Educators that teach students to question are quickly brought under control, banished, sent to exile. Classsrooms are under surveillance. Courses are under surveillance. Syllabi are under surveillance. Guest speakers are under surveillance, having to be cleared first through surveillance apparati. All this surveillance is normalized into bureaucratic procedures. An entired body of "Surveillance nation Studies" is created to manufacture consent, bombarding students with the propaganda of the regime.
To research questions that challenge the propaganda of the "surveillance nation" is to invite surveillance and disciplining. One is quickly labeled a trouble maker for asking these questions and subject to the tools of disciplining. If the critical questions continue, the tools of repression increase in intensity, now bent on destroying the credibility of the researcher. Because the propaganda of the "Surveillance nation" must be maintained, an entire machinery of surveilled subjects posing as academics are deployed to attempt to destroy the legitimacy of the scholar. Another army of so-called academics are employed with large rewards to recirculate the propaganda as "cultural insiders." The "Surveillance nation" relies on academic experts for whitewashing its techniques of repression, writing as inside experts about "governance as difference" with the right languages of decolonization, de-westernization, cultural accounts etc.
Lies are planted, lies are circulated, more lies are carefully constructed. Lies without warrants and backing. Lies cooked up with fanciful imaginations.
Because the surveillance machinery works through its tools of disciplining, those watching the techniques of repression teach themselves to be silent.
Yet others teach themselves to buy into the lies. This or that politician that opposed the regime was corrupt. This or that politician that questioned the regime was a security threat. These lies are manufactured and bought into by scholars everyday to reproduce the fiction of the "Surveillance nation."
Yet others make themselves active collaborators of the regime in power so they can reap the rewards of the regime. And rewards are plenty for serving as the necessary instruments of surveillance. I have witnessed the most bizzarre of behaviors as strategies for being rewarded by the "Surveillance nation."
The celebrated postcolonial academic who has made a career out of radical postures turns into the mouthpiece for the lies of the regime, actively working to plant lies about critical voices. The critical scholar does the dirty work of the regime, surveilling faculty and reporting on them. The one critical scholar working as a manager sends out a directive that any guest speaker to be invited to the classroom has to first seek the permission of the said critical scholar. The cultural studies academic lectures on pragmatism as strategy while delegitimizing activists that challenge the regime. The other critical scholar writes about how the regimes excesses are justified. The celebrated sociologist, now a top boss, writes about how the critiques of the regime are superficial outsider accounts, and that the regime can only be written about by cultural insiders. Of course, this argument is the perfect lie for whitewashing the regime because critical pieces about the regime can only be written from the outside and any critique can be silenced as an outside account. The award-winning anthropologist paraded around as a critical voice writes about how the regime really is benevolent and it has held on to its powers by governing effectively. All of this is of course paraded as mere survival response.
The appeal of crass pragmatism is often regurgitated to keep the "Surveillance nation" going. For the elite classes, the fiction of the "Surveillance nation" holds great appeal for in the seduction of surveillance lies the appeal of uncontrolled profits. Elite power percolates into the everyday forms of surveillance normalized as knowledge, participation, and engagement. What is projected as great governance on the global platforms of neoliberal capital is the culture of surveillance, producing the armies of controlled workers that bring industry rankings and investment opportunities.
The "Surveillance nation" then is not anti-thetical to the agendas of neoliberal hegemony. It is integral to the reproduction of neoliberal hegemony. The "Surveillance nation model" is reproduced with great zeal by the global power elite, turning to autocratic leaders with more and more seductive promises of discipline. It is no wonder then that the Davos conversations on clean and good governance are greatly at peace with authoritarian regimes offering newer and better techniques of surveillance.