Returning the Gaze of Surveillance: Toward a Desecuritized Future

Supervisor/s: Roopika Risam, Rafaela Granja and Filipa Queirós

Doctoral Programme: Human Rights in Contemporary Societies

Funding: FCT

Embedded in colonial bias, limitations imposed through biotechnological security infrastructure seek to enforce a permanent state of insecurity by limiting the rights of those who impersonate threathood. This interdisciplinary research project seeks to produce a tangible approach to understanding the 'return' of the gaze of surveillance. The modern utilization of surveillance has produced parallel realities that require marginalized communities to develop innovative strategies of resistance and survival. This study examines the emergence of these strategies in Newark (New Jersey, USA) from the 1967 uprising through the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath (2022), and their impact on racialized, gendered, and classed marginalities. As global trends point to surveillance technology further implanting itself due to the COVID-19 crisis, this study highlights the urgency of a futurist desecuritization project.